I was at a party the other day and guys were talking about their crazy car stories. I have too many to count, but 2 stand out the most. Telling those stories the other day jogged my memory quite a bit and more details started to surface. I thought I would share one while fresh in my head and maybe I'll tell the other one another day. If you have any to share please do.
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I took my parents old car out of the garage for a spin when I was 14 years old after school before anyone got home. Never drove a stick shift before, but dirt-bike clutch works the same, so no big deal, good opportunity to learn.
Drove it around the town for about 30 minutes, no problems. Went to put it back in the garage, reverse into the garage the way it was, tight alley way, narrow garage, stick shift, manual steering... so it was very difficult to say the least.
After several attempts, hit the drivers door on the garage and dented it. Finally got it in but was still crooked. Decided to jack it up in the rear and slide it over like they do in the service shops. It was an old leaky hydraulic jack, car came down too fast, and the right rear wheel went right through the garage floor!
(this was a very old garage, looked more like a chicken coupe, with cracked & crooked floor)
Now the car is stuck in the garage floor with a huge hole, I'd say about 3 feet in diameter. The ETA of parents is about 2 hours. Call my 3 buddies on the phone to come help bail me out.
Friends arrive and they start rocking and pushing from behind while I'm inside smoking the clutch. We finally get it out of the hole. Charlie starts taking the drivers door panel off to pop the dent out. Ray's dad is in construction, he remembers a bag of cement and sand in his basement with a black plastic tub to mix in, so he goes and grabs that.
In the mean time, Mark and I start filling the hole with anything we can find... paper, rocks, you name it. Ray arrives shortly after with a half bag of cement, some sand, and the plastic mixing tub. We break out the garden hose and mix up some cement, never made cement before so we just keep adding untill it looked good. Fill up the rest of the hole and smoothed it out with a block of wood.
Charlie is now finished putting the door panel back on after successfully popping the dent out. Now we need to get the car back in the garage OVER the wet cement hole. (located just in front of where the right rear tire would be) Decided to use a long 2x4 and drive the car over the patch in the floor. As I'm slowly backing the car over the board we hear.... *psssssssssssss*
Turns out the board had a nail in it, yet somehow not one of those 3 guys saw it. Mark jumps on his bicycle and runs down to the local mini-mart to grab a can of fix-a-flat. Once he returns we fill the tire up with gunk and pump it up the rest of the way with a foot pump.
Threw some final touches on the repaired floor, like dry leaves and dirt to blend it in, closed the garage doors, locked everything up, said my thanks and everyone went home. Parents arrived home 20 minutes later, they never knew.
I told them the story 20 years later at a family get together, everyone got a real kick out of it.
The most amazing thing to me looking back (25 years ago) is the resourcefulness of four 14 year olds.
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I took my parents old car out of the garage for a spin when I was 14 years old after school before anyone got home. Never drove a stick shift before, but dirt-bike clutch works the same, so no big deal, good opportunity to learn.
Drove it around the town for about 30 minutes, no problems. Went to put it back in the garage, reverse into the garage the way it was, tight alley way, narrow garage, stick shift, manual steering... so it was very difficult to say the least.
After several attempts, hit the drivers door on the garage and dented it. Finally got it in but was still crooked. Decided to jack it up in the rear and slide it over like they do in the service shops. It was an old leaky hydraulic jack, car came down too fast, and the right rear wheel went right through the garage floor!
(this was a very old garage, looked more like a chicken coupe, with cracked & crooked floor)
Now the car is stuck in the garage floor with a huge hole, I'd say about 3 feet in diameter. The ETA of parents is about 2 hours. Call my 3 buddies on the phone to come help bail me out.
Friends arrive and they start rocking and pushing from behind while I'm inside smoking the clutch. We finally get it out of the hole. Charlie starts taking the drivers door panel off to pop the dent out. Ray's dad is in construction, he remembers a bag of cement and sand in his basement with a black plastic tub to mix in, so he goes and grabs that.
In the mean time, Mark and I start filling the hole with anything we can find... paper, rocks, you name it. Ray arrives shortly after with a half bag of cement, some sand, and the plastic mixing tub. We break out the garden hose and mix up some cement, never made cement before so we just keep adding untill it looked good. Fill up the rest of the hole and smoothed it out with a block of wood.
Charlie is now finished putting the door panel back on after successfully popping the dent out. Now we need to get the car back in the garage OVER the wet cement hole. (located just in front of where the right rear tire would be) Decided to use a long 2x4 and drive the car over the patch in the floor. As I'm slowly backing the car over the board we hear.... *psssssssssssss*
Turns out the board had a nail in it, yet somehow not one of those 3 guys saw it. Mark jumps on his bicycle and runs down to the local mini-mart to grab a can of fix-a-flat. Once he returns we fill the tire up with gunk and pump it up the rest of the way with a foot pump.
Threw some final touches on the repaired floor, like dry leaves and dirt to blend it in, closed the garage doors, locked everything up, said my thanks and everyone went home. Parents arrived home 20 minutes later, they never knew.
I told them the story 20 years later at a family get together, everyone got a real kick out of it.
The most amazing thing to me looking back (25 years ago) is the resourcefulness of four 14 year olds.
