The Cal-look Lounge

Only to see it going out of control moments thereafter!

This weekend I read the UltraVW column on Mark Herbert, an Automatic Type 3 Variant and him trying to shortcircuit the starter in order to get the thing up and running with a brick on the gaspedal to keep it iddling. I guess you all can see where this is heading  ;D Indeed, straight into the neighbours wall (almost)  ::)

Awesome read, made me smile, and most of all made me think it could have happened to me. How many times should you have known upfront things would go wrong while tinkering and still proceeded doing the undo-able. And please illustrate with the full story and consequences. The hairier the better.

My second car was a Fiat 600D, back in 1972 or '73. I decided one day to reset the points, like you do... This was the early model with 'suicide' doors. To set the points, I'd put the car in gear and taken off the handbrake so i could rock it back and forward to move the rotor arm to the desired position. When I was done, I walked round the open (suicide, remember) door and sat half in the driver's seat, turned the key and the engine fired instantly. In gear, no handbrake and with only half my butt on the seat, I was 'scooped up' by the suicide door and became a helpless passenger! My dad had just fitted two new wrought-iron front gates to the driveway, and these were open... The car hit one end on, folding the gate in half and putting a crease right down the front panel and hood of the Fiat! I was neither popular with my parents or with myself... ::)

I have two weaknesses Fuel and Tires. And I have run out of both, luckily never at the same time, yet  ;D

Somehow I have driven my cars, bikes and boats dry over and over again, almost every single one. There is something about fueling up that just doesn't do it for me, maybe it is the paying  ::) Never resulted in spectacular incidents though, only in a lot of walking.

The tires however ... I like the bald as an eagle. So when driving the vespa when younger, I would wear the Michelins out until I drove on the steel belts, of course the thing always blew when far away from home. Now a vespa does have the spare wheel in one of the rear humps, however, if you already used it and never replaced, guess what. So only solution left was to mount the rear tire up front, as there is no weight there and vice versa. I drove the thing for a few more weeks like that with the flat front.

When driving the race bike ('91 1100 GSXR) I left my friends in awe when we went on a Januari ride on the ice with a slick up front. The 59 beetle, I drove on bald 125 wheels, untill I really had to take them off and pricked my fingers on the steel belt wearing throught the rubber.

And finally, just recently,with the T25/T3, I drove my car untill you could feel it wobbling. Stupid enough I went out on the highway to work on the 66 in Ninove. The whole way there I thought it was going to blow, and once in Aalst went to the Tire fitting station. However, I didn't like the choice, nor the prices, so carried on. On the way back it got so bad, I had to stop to check if the wheels were not coming of, so wobbly it was. But the front wheels were fine, other than being bald. So I continued. Just when taking the exit, something popped and things got shaky. I moved to the hard shoulder and looked at the front tires, nothing. So out to the back and one was gone. The week before I had replaced the other rear wheel with the spare  :-[ So I drove off the exit with the flat all the way to the nearest parking spot, 2 km. Turns out alignment was so bad, the inner side of the tire was gone while thread on the outside was perfect. Never saw this coming.