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Breakdowns – which you can now laugh at

jphanna

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Its never a good time to break down, but there are times when its an incident that you can look back at years or decades later and laugh.

1985 and its my first Bathurst trip. Catch a place from Adelaide to Sydney, meet up with cousins there, and then drive to Bathurst in a falcon 69 wagon, that will also be the accommodation. Sounds like all the essentials are in place for a great time.

At some point when we left, I glanced the fuel gauge and noticed it was pointing at half full (half empty for others!). Anyway I was enjoying the scenery of the Blue Mountains after a few hours of driving, when I glanced the fuel gauge again…..it hadn’t moved a millimetere. I mentioned to my cousin that the gauge hadn’t budged since we left. May god strike me down NOW, if I am lying, but with 20-30 seconds of that comment, I don’t have to tell you what happened…..

We pushed the car to the side away from road and walked an hour or so until we reached an historic old prison/police/holding cell (is it still there?). the person running it said we could get a lift to the nearest petrol station, after they finished closing down the place late in the afternoon. We missed the top 10 shootout that day but we still had a good time on Sunday watching GOSSIE win with the big JAG.

Any memorable breakdowns you had?
 

alien

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In my VY commodore i had for like a month or two i was driving to an exam, i had the speedo on the electric info pages so i could see coolant temperature (i had temperature issues at that time). That was all good, got to my exam. And didn't get the low petrol warning. Not even when it was started in normal mode. Anyways, i finished my exam, put the vehicle into stats page (fuel gauge was just going into the red area). Start moving, reach about 300 metres to a red light in the right hand lane to turn right (3 right turning lanes). Goes green, try to accelerate and it just stalled!

So sitting at the front of the lights, chucked on my hazards and walked to the petrol station to get petrol... this is the best part! I had my hazards on and no one was in my car at the front of the line to turn right. As i'm walking back with fuel i can hear people at the lights tooting there horn to get my car (with hazards and no one in it) to go! I was pissing myself laughing LOL, Reatards not knowing what hazarrd lights mean. I even checked when i got to the car that the rear hazards were working and they were.

Then as i'm filling up the car a 4WD gets pissed off, mounts the gutter to the right and goes around my vehicle almost running me over in the process! Impatient ***hole.

Thats probably the best breakdown situation i've ever had. Other than that the only other breakdown i've had is a hole in my sump.
 

Turd Ferguson

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thought i had a flat battery but the car was actually just left in gear, didnt notice til my friend had turned up to give me a jump
 

calais_cruzin

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Ive done that sooo many times, usuall when im reversing, every now n then it stalls, forget to put back in Park b4 starting..

Done it one day, was at the boom gates to my house, pissing down with rain, couldnt work out y it wouldnt start, jump out run to me mates drag him out into the rain to help me push it in, then saw the shifter was in D still ARRRR mate was pisssed he got all wet for nothing lmao
 

alien

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LOL, i had a mate call me for his car not starting. Got there, banged my head against the car when i saw it, he didn't know that it had to be in park or neutral to start. So i had to get in, and showed him how to start it.
 

MasterOfReality

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Was driving in the company Nissan Patrol between Cobar and Condobolin to the Mineral Hill mine. Got there ok but coming back was a nightmare.

Mostly really rough gravel road/track. A new BF Goodrich AT tyre got ripped to sheds a fair distance out of Nymagee. Took the spare off and it was bald as, literally no more tread.

In the middle of the ****ing bush, no mobile reception, in the late evening, in winter. Buggered as after spending the whole day trekking around underground.

I got back hours later, after crawling along the gravel road at 20km/hr to try and avoid shredding the bald spare tyre.
 

DANNY8

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About 5 years ago when I was at school, there was a school assembly, which are held in the gym, right next to the student car park. I didn't like going to them, waste of time I thought, so as everyone headed into the gym, me and me bro kept going, walking over to the ol' VH wagz, jumped in, and by this time a teacher was wandering over....tried starting it but it wouldn't even kick over. We knew it was the starter motor coz we'd recently had a few problems with it. The teacher arrived when we were banging the start motor, and he told us to get into the gym for the assembly. We pretty much ignored him and when the VH wouldn't start we rung one of our other brothers to come with a tow rope....the teacher ended up heading off coz he knew we weren't even listening (and who was gonna argue with 2 6'2" big lads). Then a few minutes later the other brother come. We hooked up the tow rope to the VH, and just as my bro was about to take off, I tried starting the wagz and it started.

It was a piece of bloody ****, but it was a beast. Ya could full lock it and plant it and it wouldn't even squeel the inside wheel haha. :thumbsup:
 

nemesis_adrasteia

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Me and a mate went for a drive on day on some gravel road just crusing its getting a bit dark no probs see a sign say yarram 40 ks sweet no problem about 20ks up the road the car starts pulling left wtf its 9pm in the middle of the bush on a gravel road pitch black and I've got a flat! **** changing a tyre by the light of two phones my spare bald as only 19 psi in it, I jump back in the car after the tyres on nearly doesn't start cos I've left my high beams on waht a nightmare
 

greenfoam

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I went for a trip to Melbourne (4.5 hours drive) with my mate last for for moral support. The plan was to go in a ED Flacon to Melbourne with a car trailer and pick up a roller Silvia from some ricer shop. So off we went, at first we thought the Falcon has a small miss but decided it was just the trailer bangind around and pulling on the car. Anyway we arrived in Melbourne all good. Got the Silvia tied on, tied a spare engine on the back with some seatbelts and off we went. We were worried about making it up the big climb out the Western freeway out near Baccus Marsh so we took a big run up BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRR got 3/4s the way up the biggest hill BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...................................Silence. Oh no:p.

RRrRrRRrRRrRRRR...... nothing RrRrRRRRRRR nothing...... great :p. So there we were perched at altitude on one of the most busy roads around with trucks going past nearly blowing us over. We go out and investigated and my mate being a Falcon man decided it was the coil (or the ignition module) but went with the coil, I said at this time, you know it's going to be the module right? :) it's the way these things go. So we sat there for a while (had no credit on his phone) finally he found his new card for the phone and called his only relitives in Melbourne who were happy enough to go and pick up a coil from repco for him. So his cousins husband arrives with the coil, ok so some stuffing around follows then the coil is installed RRrRrRRRRRr........ nothin. Disaster. We sat there for a while, at some stage a random dude got a blowout in his VT? just as he went passed us blopblopblblop he had no spare lol! so he stayed with us for a while then we gave him a ride back into town as we wet for a module. We got back into town and droped him off near a wreckers. We got a module, go back...... Dont have enough tools to get it in the Dizzy. Gah!. At this stage it was dark and freezing cold, we had no torch so we called it quits and went back into Melbourne. we got his cousins LS1 VX? and drove back out there unhooked the trailer and towed the Silvia back to Melbourne.

Untied the engine, spilt engine oil all over the trailer/yard, pushed the Silvia off the trailer which dinged the chassis rails :S. Then took the trailer back out there and tried to get the Falcon on the trailer. Now.......

Getting a rolling Silvia on a trailer with a old frayed winch is one thing. Getting a ED Falcon on prooved to be all the way more difficult :p. The wires on the which were unravling PIng PJIGN PONG PING all over the shop at one stage I started Screaming because they had rolled the falcons front wheel back over my sneaker powered foot. My screams resulted in brakes begin applied, more screams as I had a stationary Falcon slowly making my foot look flat like one from a bad cartoon. Finally they rolled it off my foot :p. So we were taking it turns trying to wind this Falcon onto the trailer. One on the winch and two in the boot to stop the rear wheels on the LS1 from lifting in the air (which they did at some stage(we were on a steep hill remember) Anyway by some miricle of all miricles the Falcon made it on and we took that back to Melbourne.

My mate had decided he was going to buy a whole dizzy in the morning but then realised he had lost his wallet in all the drama so after looking all around the Silvia and the Falcon we got in the LS1 (which had burned half a tank of fuel by now and went back out the highway to find his wallet whch we never did. So we came home, my mate was totally stressed out and had to smoke himself to sleep. My wife had been calling all afternoon and night worried sick about me but I assured her one way or another (Falcon or train I would be home that night). Then I fell asleep kinda, the ducted heating was about 20c too hot for us bushies so we almost died over night but the sun rose and we were still alive,,,, just.

In the morning light things started to improve we found the wallet stashed beside the seat in the Falcon. We called the local Ford where he works how then called the local repco who then called the nearest Repco in Melbourne who then gave us a complete dizzy/module on our local Fords account. So we went and got that. I held a screw drived down the number one spark plug hole while my mate with deft hands cranked the starter mm by mm untill we had TDC. Found a few budget tools in his cousins backyard shed, jammed the dizzy in and tried to start it RrRrRR bRBBRBrbrbBRB......... Almost! but not quite. Moved the dizzy one tooth, RrRRRRRrRRr BROOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM ROOOOOOOOOOOOOM ROOOOOOOOOOOM Falcon POWA. Horay!. Everything was good. We wound the Silvia on the trailer tied the engine back on, did some pollutant control (oil spill cleanup with a roll of toilet paper) Jumped in the Falcon and headed home. We had the timing wound right up stuck some 98 octane in it and took a big run up for the hill of disaster, BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR (heaters on flat out to stop is over heating)BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrOVER THE HILL!!!!RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

And we cruised all the way home
I found myself in alot of trouble just for my moral support but without me there to calm him down my mate would have been having a freak out so it all worked out for the best. The lesson of the day was, don't go for long trip in a Falcon and if you do have a Commodore on standby for backup :) and if you must put your faith in a Nissan, make sure it's one with a engine (inside the engine bay)

I should pretty much win this thread :p
 
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Shortstuff

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Christmas day just gone I was on my way out to my Girlfriend's Mum's place out in the bush. Car full of presents, kids, booze, etc and I started getting a huge vibration about halfway there.

Then it all went quiet. Turned out the water pump sheared off and sent the fan through the radiator.

Luckily my Girlfriend was not too far behind me, so took the kids and left me sitting on the grass by my dead car with a few beers waiting to be rescued!

Same thing happened to the cheap new water pump I put on about two weeks later, but no beers that time and no girlfriend driving behind me : (
 
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