Brown trouser moments in your shiting career

[Zelandeth]

Had a couple of interesting moments.  The one that probably gave me the biggest scare in my own cars was when the rotoflex coupling on the rear propshaft on my Lada Niva detonated at "motorway speeds" one day without any prior warning - It sounded and felt like I'd just run over a land mine.  No harm done...Pulled over safely (after peeling myself back off the inside of the roof), figured out what had happened, removed the rear propshaft and continued on my way with the centre diff lock engaged.

Retrieving knackered trade ins at the garage however, that involved some interesting moments.  Ones which immediately stick in my mind:

[] E plate Nissan Sunny Diesel.  Discovered that the nearside rear suspension wishbone was completely rotten through on the trailing edge.  This didn't become apparent until I got to about 45mph at which point the car basically turned into a shopping trolley with wonky wheels.

[] J reg Subaru Justy.  Nearside front wheel bearing seized while travelling at somewhere between 60 and 70mph.  The skid mark just outside Kintore on the A96 was visible for the best part of a year!

[] E plate Range Rover Vogue.  Scruffy one, but had a cherry bomb exhaust on the back and given that the tailgate glass popped open so you could hear it if you popped the clutch away from a junction became my transport of choice for a few weeks until it sold.  First time I took it out the first time I attempted to turn a corner at any speed whatsoever I found myself in a slide normally the preserve of ice racers.  To this day I still don't know how I managed to keep the thing pointing the right direction.  Both the rear tyres had about 5psi in.

[] B plate Astramax with a dodgy, badly dragging clutch and crap brakes.  Unknown to me it *also* had a sticky accelerator.  I discovered this *inside* the workshop backing the thing off the two post lift.  I managed to stop it with the tow ball *literally* touching the bumper of £11K worth of Alfa Romeo 156.

 

Also not my own vehicles - in convoy with a friend who used to do work on old coaches and buses.  He's in Shonky Vehicle He's Just Bought No 1 (think it was an early Plaxton Paramount), I was following in Shonky Vehicle He's Just Bought No 2.  A Leopard based Plaxton Supreme IV.  Suddenly I see the entire rear windscreen drop out of his vehicle...hit the tarmac and...remain completely intact.  My completely instinctive reaction was to swerve to avoid running it over.  On a somewhat damp road, in a coach on ancient tyres.  Yep...Cue me spending the next 500 yards or so fishtailing all over the shop trying to get the damned thing back under some semblance of control.  This also highlighted to me that the rear brakes were doing a lot more work than the front.  Miraculously the windscreen did remain intact, I managed to avoid it, as did everything else that passed by before we managed to leg it back to retrieve it.  A few scratches but it was in one piece.  Looking back at the pre-sale photos it became obvious that someone had swiped the infill strip out of the window seal.

Same guy who I wound up having my first driving experience on a rigid tow bar with - in a coach, in the dark - which I still reckon took years off my life.  Especially when the door swung open and the bloody cab light turned on meaning I couldn't see anything.

[Talbot]

Another I've just recalled:  Driving a (different) talbot horizon up a motorway somewhere in the pitch black of night I hit a bit of timber in the road with the NSF wheel.  That flicked it up under the floor of the car, and it perfectly jammed between the road and the floorpan, in line with the car, meaning there was a loud bang and the entire nearside-rear of the car did a massive bunny-hop.

Somewhat shaken, I pulled into the hard shoulder, expecting to find the rear wheel exploded/gone/on fire/some other catastrophic damage, but could see nothing.  Once my pulse had dropped back to about 180bpm and I no longer had pure Adrenalin running through my veins, I completed the journey, no ill effects.

Checked the car over the next day in daylight and the rear floor, just where a NSR passenger's feet would be had been pushed up about 100mm and was now almost touching the front passenger seat.  There was a huge bash-mark in the underseal, still with a few splinters around it.  Had I had a rear passenger, they would likely have had some quite nasty foot injuries.

Eventually took the passenger seat out and twatted the floor back down with a lumphammer, but I am now *very* wary of debris in the road.

[Zelandeth]

Had a good one this evening actually, just after I wrote the last post!

Had taken the Jag out today for a gentle amble.  Taking it easy as she's got a few things needing sorted, but with a bit of mechanical sympathy and common sense no problem.

Driving along at 50 - which was the limit where I was, and a lorry decided that sitting on his 56mph limiter was a better speed limit so overtook me.

His outside rear nearside tyre blew out - right as said wheel was level with my open driver's window.

I honestly (and I'm not kidding) thought I'd been shot.   Fight or flight reflex defaulted to "flight" and I buried the right foot, ducked as far as I could and traversed the immediate following roundabout somewhat sideways before I found somewhere that felt safe to pull over and figure out what the hell had just happened.

Thankfully no visible damage to the car, though finding bits of tyre on the passenger seat clued me into what had actually happened.  The lorry pulled into the same layby about 30 seconds after I did, driver wanting to check I was okay.  I definitely got hit by something, two chunks of rubber were found in the hood of my sweater, which backs up what I felt.

This was about 1900, my right ear has just about stopped ringing.

[LightBulbFun]

15 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Had a good one this evening actually, just after I wrote the last post!

Had taken the Jag out today for a gentle amble.  Taking it easy as she's got a few things needing sorted, but with a bit of mechanical sympathy and common sense no problem.

Driving along at 50 - which was the limit where I was, and a lorry decided that sitting on his 56mph limiter was a better speed limit so overtook me.

His outside rear nearside tyre blew out - right as said wheel was level with my open driver's window.

I honestly (and I'm not kidding) thought I'd been shot.   Fight or flight reflex defaulted to "flight" and I buried the right foot, ducked as far as I could and traversed the immediate following roundabout somewhat sideways before I found somewhere that felt safe to pull over and figure out what the hell had just happened.

Thankfully no visible damage to the car, though finding bits of tyre on the passenger seat clued me into what had actually happened.  The lorry pulled into the same layby about 30 seconds after I did, driver wanting to check I was okay.  I definitely got hit by something, two chunks of rubber were found in the hood of my sweater, which backs up what I felt.

This was about 1900, my right ear has just about stopped ringing.

Bloody hell!

but I bet that must have looked/sounded impressive from the outside, to watch a V12 Jag Suddenly Shoot off at wide open throttle and then sideways round a roundabout

must have been like something from a Movie!

 

as a side note I just have to quote over your story of the Draw bar  

On 01/01/2021 at 18:31, Zelandeth said:

It is quite possibly the most terrified I have ever been while driving.

It had suffered some catastrophic mechanical failure requiring recovery.  None of the usual firms were available, so it was down to John, the ancient AEC which burned more oil and diesel, me and the tow bar.

Brakes were wound off (so I had no ability to brake), and we set off in the rapidly fading light.

My job is quite simple...follow the leader.   In a coach, with no power steering (but which is meant to have it, so is even heavier than a pre-PAS bus), when I can only see what's ahead of us as we turn left.

Then it started to rain.  The coach had air wipers.  There was about 50psi in the tanks when we set out.  While I used them as conservatively as I could I soon ran out of air.  With the wiper sitting smack in the middle of my sight line during the occasional blissful left turns where I got a glimpse of where we were going of course.

With it pissing with rain of course the windscreen immediately started to steam up...sod all I could do about that.  Though as it got dark that became even more terrifying as it meant all I could really see of the outside world was the lone working tail light on the tow vehicle.

Then we turned left over a particularly bumpy junction, and the passenger door swung open.  Lack of air pressure when we closed it meant it hadn't latched fully.  In itself this was unpleasant...as it now meant the full force of a windy, rainy February Scottish evening was now inside the bus as well as outside...so I was then getting drenched as well as frozen.  However right as the door swung fully open, the lights in the step well and directly above my head came on.  Suddenly all I could see in front of me was the reflection of my absolutely panic stricken looking face.  Think to myself "master switch...just kill all the electrics..." At which point I remembered that said master switch isn't on the dash on that particular vehicle... there's absolutely no chance in hell I could get to it.

We were about half an hour from base at that point, and had just turned into the main road.  Have you ever seen how much spray and crap a HGV kicks up on a wet road?  How much of that do you thing finds its way into your face it you're following 8' behind one with your door open?  As best I could tell the answer was "all of it."

Basically I spent the next half hour driving purely by using the force.  I guessed what way it felt like we were going and tried to remember the route.  Somehow we didn't die.

When we got there my mate walked round, saw me ashen faced, hands basically welded to the rim of the steering wheel and briefly looked concerned, right up to where he figured out what had happened.  At that point he just about pissed himself laughing.

I was still trying to wash the grit out of my hair about a week later I think.

It's a hilarious anecdote to look back on now, but was absolutely fscking terrifying at the time.

This was the main reason we mutually agreed it was essential for us to have two way Comms in situations like this going forward, so a decent pair of two way radios were added to the tool box.

 

 

[bobdisk]

5 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

Thankfully no visible damage to the car, though finding bits of tyre on the passenger seat clued me into what had actually happened.  The lorry pulled into the same layby about 30 seconds after I did, driver wanting to check I was okay.  I definitely got hit by something, two chunks of rubber were found in the hood of my sweater, which backs up what I felt.

Good job the window was open, (in some ways), those lorry tyre bits would have smashed the door glass !  Even better you were not injured!!

[bunglebus]

That's something I often think about when overtaking lorries, thankfully I've never witnessed it. Sounds like you had a lucky escape 😯

[Talbot]

6 hours ago, Zelandeth said:

driver wanting to check I was okay.

I think he would have got some rather short-shrift if that had been me... if he hadn't decided to be a massive twat and illegally overtake, it wouldn't have been an issue.  Granted, he didn't know that at the time, but any overtake is an increased risk.

I hope you kept his vehicle details, as you never know how you'll feel about it over the next couple of days, or indeed if you discover there is actually some damage.

(and I don't mean you "discover" some damage, I really mean that you may spot something days later that in the heat of the moment you didn't see.  I've had that happen a few times in the past)

[Leyland Worldmaster]

2 hours ago, Talbot said:

I think he would have got some rather short-shrift if that had been me... if he hadn't decided to be a massive twat and illegally overtake, it wouldn't have been an issue.  Granted, he didn't know that at the time, but any overtake is an increased risk.

I hope you kept his vehicle details, as you never know how you'll feel about it over the next couple of days, or indeed if you discover there is actually some damage.

(and I don't mean you "discover" some damage, I really mean that you may spot something days later that in the heat of the moment you didn't see.  I've had that happen a few times in the past)

This might be useful:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/driver-and-vehicle-standards-agency

[Dave_Q]

I've liked quite a few posts, feel I should clarify that if you nearly died, I am liking the story not the fact you nearly died.

[LightBulbFun]

Just now, Dave_Q said:

I've liked quite a few posts, feel I should clarify that if you nearly died, I am liking the story not the fact you nearly died.

see this is the same problem I run across with a lot of posts, not just in this thread but in general when someone tells a story or such of something going awry in their shitting career

I want to like the post because said post made me laugh/was a good story, not at the fact that everything went tits up or you almost die

and I never know what to do in those situations! LOL

yall lot are very good at telling stories and making me feel bad for laughing ill say that much! 

[Out Run]

Driving a mates '68 Bay Window with the steering box barely connected to the front axle was interesting.

Like driving on ice. Almost full lock to keep it heading straight.

[yellowperil]

I had a lorry blow one of it's trailer tyres out on a motorway as I was overtaking it in a car once, luckily I was level with the cab, it still made me jump out of my skin though.

My brother had a lorry tyre blow as he was going slowly past a parked car, the force of the air escaping dented the door of the car.

Very scary things.

[Noel Tidybeard]

On 22/03/2021 at 13:54, alcyonecorporation said:

Barrel rolling an MG Midget into a ditch on a bumpy NSL road somewhere in North Yorkshire. 

Nearly lost my left eye in the process as the seat let go and the windscreen used my face as a crumple zone. 

yes i remember the photo of your rather broken face 🥴

[alcyonecorporation]

40 minutes ago, Noel Tidybeard said:

yes i remember the photo of your rather broken face 🥴

Scuffing along the ground at 20 odd-mph with an a pillar in your face will do that (and also scrape the rest of your body and parts of your clothes off). 
I have no nerves in that corner of my forehead now; it's weird getting a hair cut as I can hear the scissors but not feel them doing anything. 

There's also one randomly different shade of skin on my cheek that came back without any hair, so even if I grow a beard that bit is clean shaven. The scar tissue also tans at different rates to the rest of me in the sun.  

I'm surprised it knew what to do given how wrecked it was, but I guess that's what 36 stitches in one's head  (and a talented surgeon are for).
The scabs later fell off in one massive lump when I was asleep; until that point, my left eye had been closed.  

The weirdest thing was that I 'met the team' in the lift going down to theatre. It was oddly formal and I shook hands with all of them. Reminded me of the firing squad scene in Blackadder Goes Forth. One of them laughed. 

Hull Royal Infirmary does a good chicken curry. I ended up there owing to the ambulance rider having a massive, animated row with the dispatcher as to where to send me - Scarborough was closer, but he wanted me sent to HRI because it had a maxilio-facial team. My eyes were bandaged the whole way, so if he walked down the street, I wouldn't recognise him. We got stuck on the A63, which I used to talk about on BBC Radio Humberside's travel news. They all went 'full shout' with the sirens when I asked if they were 'on blaze' (they already were). 

I go back to that stretch of road fairly often to keep my eye in; the garage that lent me the car (a 1973 MG Midget) still lets me take its stuff out from time to time. 
And no, while I've been a passenger in a Midget 1500 since then, apart from one very brief run in a '62 A-H Sprite, I've not driven one since. 

Weirdly, it was the shape, or the smell, or the texture of anything in the cabin, it was that weird 'Knees Up Mother Brown' action you have to perform to sit under the compound curve of the windscreen/A pillar in a Midget, that made me feel the weirdest, nothing else. 

[wuvvum]

17 minutes ago, alcyonecorporation said:

The weirdest thing was that I 'met the team' in the lift going down to theatre. It was oddly formal and I shook hands with all of them. Reminded me of the firing squad scene in Blackadder Goes Forth. One of them laughed. 

Were they admiring your pulsing jugular?

[alcyonecorporation]

2 minutes ago, wuvvum said:

Were they admiring your pulsing jugular?

I imagine they were, yes. Not my balls, though. 

[purplebargeken]

My first Toledo... so 1981/82... mates thought it would be  amusing to loosen the wiper arms on the car. Didn't notice until I was approaching a roundabout and the heavens decided to open as fully as anything..... hahaha, oh how I laughed.

[BorniteIdentity]

It's important to stress that, for legal reasons, none of the following ever happened.

When I was getting my Mini back on the road, it was parked up at my house where parking is plentiful but shelter is not.  My tandem garage was full of shit (and a Sierra) so, once running, we opted to take advantage of the double garage at a relative's house 3 miles away.

1/2 a mile into the first journey - I noticed the bonnet was on the catch, not shut.  "Never fear" says I, the answer is to get there faster before it blows open.  At 50mph, the fucking thing blew right open completely obscuring my view of anything, other than my urine stained denim.  

Rest of the journey was uneventful, other than the usual fear of driving a car with no brakes other than the handbrake(!).

A good day's work was complete, but the brakes were still incomplete for reasons I can't now remember.  I think they'd sent the wrong rear brake pipe or something.  So, back I go - sans brakes - which is fine until I come into my village, and turn into my road.  At this stage, I briefly forget and go for the brakes - no dice.  Then a cat runs across the road, leading to me pulling off one of the most spectacular handbrake stops you've ever seen.  In the quietest of nights, I can still hear that sound echoing across the village.  Two years later, the marks are still there.  

That was quite a memorable day!

 

[Fumbler]

29 minutes ago, BorniteIdentity said:

 none of the following ever happened.

 

 

[DavieW]

On 3/20/2021 at 8:05 AM, yohan said:

Had a similar incident when I borrowed my brothers old merc and the throttle pedal stuck whilst driving through Aberdeen shity centre. Redlining and coming sideways out of a junction wasnt planned...

Similar for me as well except it was a Dolly Sprint through a residential area. It's at moments like this you forget the ignition switch is on the left of the steering column.

[alcyonecorporation]

On 3/25/2021 at 10:55 AM, BorniteIdentity said:

It's important to stress that, for legal reasons, none of the following ever happened.

When I was getting my Mini back on the road, it was parked up at my house where parking is plentiful but shelter is not.  My tandem garage was full of shit (and a Sierra) so, once running, we opted to take advantage of the double garage at a relative's house 3 miles away.

1/2 a mile into the first journey - I noticed the bonnet was on the catch, not shut.  "Never fear" says I, the answer is to get there faster before it blows open.  At 50mph, the fucking thing blew right open completely obscuring my view of anything, other than my urine stained denim.  

Rest of the journey was uneventful, other than the usual fear of driving a car with no brakes other than the handbrake(!).

A good day's work was complete, but the brakes were still incomplete for reasons I can't now remember.  I think they'd sent the wrong rear brake pipe or something.  So, back I go - sans brakes - which is fine until I come into my village, and turn into my road.  At this stage, I briefly forget and go for the brakes - no dice.  Then a cat runs across the road, leading to me pulling off one of the most spectacular handbrake stops you've ever seen.  In the quietest of nights, I can still hear that sound echoing across the village.  Two years later, the marks are still there.  

That was quite a memorable day!

 

What are we talking about? Who are you?

[alcyonecorporation]

Why is a stranger laughing at me? He's done nothing, I'm very confused. 

[mk2_craig]

Sorting through some stuff this evening and I found evidence of my one and only A-FRAMIN' adventure:

This was from back in 2006 after I had bought a working, but test-expired Fiesta on Ebay.  I agreed to go and fetch it the following week, which gave me seven days to sort out a way of transporting it.  I was living in Leicester and running a mk2 Mondeo at the time:

No towbar though.  I found one in my favourite scrapyard just off the A6, still attached to what was left of an ex-taxi:

Ideal. What this picture fails to illustrate adequately is that the car was on top of two others, so around 10 feet above ground level.  Trying to remove bastard tight rusted nuts and bolts from a wobbling bodyshell, while wearing mud and oil-encrusted boots and balancing on the slippery bonnet of a Rover 800 itself perched on the roof of another car, was a brown trouser moment in itself.

However.  It eventually yielded to my efforts, so £20 and a couple more hours of spannering later, the Mondeo was equipped for tat-hauling:

With the A-frame collected from the local HSS branch I made my way up towards Shirebrook:

Met the Fiesta and quickly got it ready to tow:

All hooked up:

And a suitable message on display for the benefit of other road users.  Before departing I did flip over the numberplate as well.

A few hundred metres after setting off, I pulled out past some parked cars about here:

And to my absolute HORROR the Fiesta lurched about 3 feet to the right, as if it was pulling out to overtake the Mondeo. Quite how the Navara travelling in the opposite direction managed to miss it I will never know.

Pulled up, and once some colour had returned to my face I read the instructions again, swiftly figuring out that I had the "swivel hooks" positioned 180 degrees the wrong way on the Fiesta's lower arms.  Meaning that the car could dance around within the chains and ratchet straps mechanisms. What a dickhead!! Corrected the mistake and off again, after that the journey went flawlessly (apart from some trailer board-related lighting issues when the sidelamps went on later in the day, which of course turned out to be a consequence of me having frigged up the wiring on the socket). Mondeo towed really well on the M1, GR8 car for the task.

Verdict: Would A-frame again. But RTFM twice in advance next time!

[Milk]

Back when I was 17 learning to drive i got the little fist panda learner car about 1 foot in the air on 2 wheels .

 

no idea how it happened but it was my second or third lesson and nearly shat myself

 

the instructor was calm and just let me know if info that I might scratch the roof 

[Milk]

Also I had a Astra which had a alternator issue which I failed to fix. I bought a battery pack with me.

 

on the way home from work, which was Rotherham to Leeds the wipers lights , and power steering decided to not work at 10pm on the motorway in the snow 

[Llessur]

I was getting a lift back from Brighton in a bespectacled friend's C-reg Micra shortly after passing our tests back in '97. We reached our exit on the busy A23 and turned into the slip lane doing a 'proud' 70mph knowing that it was a long slip lane with an uphill gradient so speed reduction measures could be taken much later in the process. Unfortunately after committing to the turn it became sharply apparent that the "slip lane" was in fact a very short and poorly paved lay-by which was separated from the main carriageway by a sturdy looking curb.

At this point I think steering became more important than trying to brake - I'm not sure what the drivers of the couple of cars parked in the lay-by thought as a small gold Micra barrelled past them somewhat in excess of the national speed limit before swerving violently back into the peak-hour traffic but it must have been confusing.

Another slightly trouser browning moment for me was driving back to Brighton from Portsmouth along the A27 when an HGV pulled out to overtake my wheezy 1.0 Fiat Uno and somehow lost a wheel which promptly shot past my car, hit the central reservation, became airbourne and flew over the top of two busy lanes of oncoming traffic. I lost sight of it bouncing at a high speed across a farmer's field towards Goodwood - it had a scarily huge amount of momentum behind it.

It was a bit surreal at the time but in hindsight it was very lucky no-one was killed that day - if it had left the central reservation at a shallower angle someone could have literally got a face full. 

 

[gtd2000]

Back in the 90's, I was getting a 1969 VW camper back on the road. Had just finished an engine swap and feeling quite pleased with myself. decided to take it out for a spin.

I gave it the beans and then thought I'd stop at the old railway station before heading home. Pulled off the road into the yard and put the foot on the brake for the first time since getting in. Foot pedal straight to the floor, no brakes! Somehow managed to swerve the camper away from the fence and away from danger and slowed down with the gears and handbrake.

Got out and looked under the van, to see that some cunt had cut off the fucking master cylinder! 

Here's a photo from that era with the actual VW.

I'm actually sitting in front of the PC, pretty much in the same location as my old Yamaha XJ550 is back then.

Pity I didn't keep the AE86 too!

[djoptix]

Ooh excellent, looking forward to re reading this thread tonight whilst consuming cider.

[chaseracer]

On 19/03/2021 at 21:44, JMotor said:

Have many stories of my tomfoolery.

But one that sticks in my mind. Coming back from Crail Raceway one weekend. 

As a passenger in a pal's Cavalier. Going back home, we came to a sharp bend which happened to be a particularly greasy after a warm day and then showers... 

The car kindly started to kick the back end out. 

We both became passengers and slid over what was an already demolished stone wall. 

Somehow the car wasn't damaged bar some bent wheels and we got the car pulled out. 

Luckily we had two spare wheels. But needed three, Que pal beating the ever living fuck out of an alloy with a crowbar to straighten it. 

As we had to get the car home, because we were stuck in the middle of nowhere and absolutely no other way of getting home. 

But we got it done and drove home fine. 

Are you sure you're not @bub2006 in disguise...?

😉

[lesapandre]

In the big storm of 1987 I hit a fallen tree head-on in a Fiat Uno (was a brand new car then) - the car went under the tree stoving the windscreen, A posts and roof in.  The A posts were flattened to the body

Luckily...

I'd taken my seat belt off a few minutes before because it was rubbing - and was able to dive left as the roof caved in.

I came to on the other side - engine still running, lights on. Fate - if I'd worn the belt I'd have been decapitated when the inertia lock came on...

But then I've also survived being strangled by a very nasty intruder in the house and also having a heart attack in the street.

6 - lives left...