# Crazy cars or trucks of youth



## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Okay. Lookit.

Most of us here ain't no spring chicken. We ain't no recent autumn roosters. Most of us a are getting a bit long in the tooth, if we still have them. Dead-possum hair. (Depends? EEEK!)

We mostly have a few miles on us.

And, back in the day we had crazy cars that only a spring chicken would drive.

(Slapping knees, ouch, damn.)

So, I'll share a story of one of many Spring Chicken Mobiles. (Not inherited from Mom, Dad, etc, you bought, with your hard-earned money, wanted cheap, and got it)

A 1966 Buick Le Sabre, four door. Drove at 52 MPH and she shook, like a happy (spastic?) hula dancer, till she hit 56 MPH. I told my stunned passengers "Ladies and Gemmun', we have broken the sound barrier!" Laughter more nervous than earnest.

Tell us about yours, and I'll bet you-all'll have some hair-raisin' tales, yes yes yes.

Yes?


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

I put a 261 Pontiac engine in a 54 Chev pick up, that sucker was 3" longer than the 235. We spent days trying to figure out how to get the radiator in there, we found a ford falcon fan had the same bolt pattern and the pulley off something else and you just beat the flange back on the water pump and shorten the shaft, all was well.
Years later I was visiting a brother 300 miles from nowhere up country and his buddy came over looking for a Pontiac engine for his 54 Chev pick up. I said that can be pretty tricky. He said no you just need a falcon fan and that pulley beat the flange back and cut the shaft. Like he had done it a dozen times.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

When I was in high school one of my buddies was the first of us to get a vehicle - an old rusted out chevy pickup. We didn't know at the time you needed to hold the doors shut with baling wire. First ride we took, Johhny was driving [his truck] Bobby was in the middle and I was Mr Joe cool with my arm hanging out the passenger window. Well we took one corner a little fast and my door opened. My arm was securely clamped to that door and I had a death grip on Bobby's hand trying to pull him out of the truck. Meanwhile Johnny shifted into 2nd and started reeling us back in.


I once had a 1963 1/2 ford galaxie hardtop that if you had all the windows down at 70 mph the headliner would cave down around your head. I found out rolling any window partly up solved that ..... I was too young to just slow down.


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

Just what is the excitement of driving mom's Lexus with a stinger tail pipe on it? You just don't see what we saw back in the 60's. We "built" our cars from what we could afford. My first car in 1964 was a '55 Chevy an old lady wanted $95 for. I asked her if it ran. She said it did when I drove it to the back yard! Gas in the tank, gas in the carb and drove it home. It was nothing for us to push 300 HP from a rebuild. And we were only 16 years old.


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

Yeah, every kid who could, had some kind of old wreck of a vehicle in some state of repair or rebuild. I didn't know anyone whose parents bought them a vehicle.

Me? The first wreck was a Datson SPL310 sports car that had been in a neighbor's yard a little too long. Got the motor running, and the clutch working. Brakes would have to wait; we had some driving to do! Besides, going down a hill you could always downshift if you really needed to slow down. Like, if the road ended at the river bank.

Next I really struck pay dirt when another neighbor complained how their old Chrysler Newport Custom had just broken down again. The first person to offer him $100 would own it. That was a lot of money then, but I'd just gotten paid, so...

All it needed to limp home was a set of wheel bearings ($30) and the time it took to replace them in the previous owner's driveway. Next, of course, was a 4-barrel carb for the 383. At almost two tons, it was never much off the line, but on the straightaway it eventually walked away from just about anyone. And you could fit the whole crowd in it.

The car door story rang a bell. One of the funniest things I recall as a kid was helping fill out the accident report when a buddy's door latch let go on a curve and pulled him out of the driver's seat. We got as far as "Driver A was proceeding down Main Street when..." and we couldn't finish, we were all laughing so hard.


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

chandler48 said:


> Just what is the excitement of driving mom's Lexus with a stinger tail pipe on it? You just don't see what we saw back in the 60's. We "built" our cars from what we could afford. My first car in 1964 was a '55 Chevy an old lady wanted $95 for. I asked her if it ran. She said it did when I drove it to the back yard! Gas in the tank, gas in the carb and drove it home. It was nothing for us to push 300 HP from a rebuild. And we were only 16 years old.


Dead on, I would see an old car sitting out back of someone's house and ask how much they wanted for it. Most times I could get the car for $15 or $20. Drag that thing home, go to the junk yard for tires and what ever I needed. Tear the engine down, order a crank shaft and ring kit, ream out the ring grove at the top, hone the cylinders a little and there ya go. Most times we would buy a new bump stick and lifters. 

The old 292 1954 V8 Ford was the worlds worse for spinning a cam bearing, it was common to have to run an outside oiler line.

I had an old flathead 6, 52 Plymouth, I could bark the tires in second with that old car. One of the heaviest was the old 49 lead sled (Merc), you ran out of gas you saw why it was called that.

OK rambling here. One of my nephews and four more of his buddies bought and old Hudson, no brakes on the car. Living in Memphis was a challenge to start with. When they came up on a red light they would slow down as much as possible and all would jump out and hold the car back to stop it. LOL

There are so many tales it would take a book to write them all.


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## DoomsDave (Dec 6, 2018)

Egad, doors that don't stay closed!

Nice to know I wasn't the only one! @CaptTom and @mark sr, you rang a big bell.

I had a van back in the 1990s, a 1970-something Chevy I called Roseanne, after you-know-who, whose show was still popular. Like the namesake, the infamous* Roseanne Van was often highly annoying and inappropriate, but ultimately likable if not lovable.

Someone had backed Roseanne the Van up against a hard object sufficient to bend the pillar which supported the door closing mechanism on the passenger's side, which made both the sliding door behind and the passenger door up front not want to close and latch properly. I held them closed with a chain and padlock. One day, I tried to fix that by pounding the pillar back straight so the latches would catch.

But not quite. One day this kid's riding in the passenger seat, and that door unlatches and swings open, and he's dangling over the road, and I grab him and reel him back in.

Didn't carry many more passengers in the Roseanne Van after that. 

*Back in the day, all my cars and trucks were infamous.


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## iamrfixit (Jan 30, 2011)

mark sr said:


> I once had a 1963 1/2 ford galaxie hardtop that if you had all the windows down at 70 mph the headliner would cave down around your head. I found out rolling any window partly up solved that ..... I was too young to just slow down.



I had that exact problem with my 71 ford ranchero. At about 80 the headliner would pop down and reverse the bows so far that you'd have to bend your head sideways. It wasn't something gentle either, it came down with a considerable push. The first time it happened there was 3-4 of us in the seat and it scared everyone, all of a sudden the roof started pushing down on us. It would do it every time if the windows were rolled down very far at all. Pretty hilarious after that first time when I knew it was coming.

Had a 69 ford pickup right after that. You could hit a bump just right at about 30 and the steering wheel would start to shake. Just a little bit at first, but if you didn't hit the brakes and slow down to make it stop it would just get worse and worse. It would get to the point it would shake the whole truck violently, bounce the steer tires off the ground and make you lose steering control. On one road by the edge of the park, the direct route to my girlfriend's house, I could hit one particular manhole at the crest of a small rise, and it'd do it every single time. Nothing in the steering really seemed very loose and the truck drove great otherwise. I replaced the kingpins in the front axle and the problem was gone, never did it again.


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

CaptTom said:


> Yeah, every kid who could, had some kind of old wreck of a vehicle in some state of repair or rebuild. I didn't know anyone whose parents bought them a vehicle.
> 
> Me? The first wreck was a Datson SPL310 sports car that had been in a neighbor's yard a little too long. Got the motor running, and the clutch working. Brakes would have to wait; we had some driving to do! Besides, going down a hill you could always downshift if you really needed to slow down. Like, if the road ended at the river bank.
> 
> ...


That door deal reminded me about a happening in Memphis one time. I was riding behind a Scout garbage pickup. They used them when the main truck missed a can, the Scout would go out and get the garbage.
Anyway, driving behind him, the fellow on the passenger side had the door open a little with his arm out the window.

We came up on a pretty good curve, and going a little too fast, the fellow slid off the plastic seat and landed flat of his butt on the street, sitting straight up facing forward. In the curve there was sand on the street, that fellow must have slid 50 feet just sitting straight up. I cracked up after I got past him, but when he looked up at me I tried to make a face of how sorry I was that he slid out of that truck. I can still see him sliding with his boots not laced up with the tongue of the boots hanging out. lol I bet that warmed up his rear. lol


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

Just one more for now. Back in the day, all the kids would drag Main (street). A buddy of mine, JC, had an old 49 Studebaker with no hood on it. We were dragging Main one time. Back then, you could rev up the engine pretty good, turn the key off, and just before it died turn the key back on. It would really backfire loud. The law wasn't real happy about that but we kept them busy.

Anyway, I don't know if JC did that or not, but his old car backfired through the carb and blew his oil filter straight up in the air. LOL You just had to be there. LOL


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## Mystriss (Dec 26, 2018)

I'm a bit younger than ya'll, but does this count?









And yes, those 6' whips were functional, CB's were the **** up here. ...Kind a still are, at least there's a bunch of em left. When we got hit by that 7.0 the CB folks were whoopin and holleren to relay any aid infos to the military and bush pilots.

Addendum: I was just sitting here chuckling after seeing that Polaroid. I was about to turn 16 and my folks said I could get any car I want. Father was pushing hard for me to buy new, a Chevy car that got good consumer ratings... Malibu or some fluffy name like that. Then I come home with this beast; bed rusted out, bottoms of the doors rusting through, and it sounded like a monster when it started up... He was like, "You're gonna put that piece of **** rust bucket in front of my house??!?!?!" hahahaha


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

I dated a rich girl for a short while in high school. Her daddy didn't like me ..... well it wasn't me so much as my car that dripped oil on his driveway.


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

OK Mystriss, I give up. You win. There's no way I can out-******* that story!

But it does remind me of the time a buddy and I got into an impromptu race, side by side down one of the long, 2-lane roads in town, which just happened to go by the Police Chief's house.

Of course, he recognized the cars, and our parents got the inevitable knock on the door the next day, which put a pretty quick end to our racing for a while.

He was a good chief though. Came to the park where we were all hanging out instead of going to school on Senior Skip Day. Just to make sure we were only skipping school, and not getting ourselves into (more) trouble.


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## Rough Rooster (Feb 7, 2015)

My first car a 1949 Ford business coupe (back windows wouldn't roll down) flathead V8 3 on tree. Right hand door would fly open on a hard left. Took a girl on a date. She hugged the door. Suggested she move over left as the door would fly open, and besides the heater worked better on left side.:devil3:
Her thoughts, "what a pickup line",:vs_laugh: but she moved left to middle and lo and behold the right door flew open and also she was able to warm her feet.:vs-kiss: After that she paid attention to what I said and believed me. She still does after 54+ years of marriage.:vs_love: I finally fixed the latch and the door stayed shut after that.

Too many junkers and too little knowledge plus feeling 10 feet tall and bullet proof. How did I manage to survive to past 74.:vs_gift:

RR :smile::smile:


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

I dated a girl in high school whose father was a pilot. I guess he made enough money. He did not, however, buy the kids a new car. Instead he "built" them cars. Hers was a 1957 Chevy with a 427 and a Olds 4 speed turbo hydromatic transmission. NOBODY could win against her. Her brother drove a 1956 Chevy with a 348 and three deuces. Progressive linkage so it ran on one until he punched it. The challenge was a $5 bill on the dash board. When he hit it, if you could reach the money it was yours. It gathered dust.

Oh, both their cars were in primer, no paint, not pretty.....I guess for a reason.


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## lenaitch (Feb 10, 2014)

chandler48 said:


> I dated a girl in high school whose father was a pilot. I guess he made enough money. He did not, however, buy the kids a new car. Instead he "built" them cars. Hers was a 1957 Chevy with a 427 and a Olds 4 speed turbo hydromatic transmission. NOBODY could win against her. Her brother drove a 1956 Chevy with a 348 and three deuces. Progressive linkage so it ran on one until he punched it. The challenge was a $5 bill on the dash board. When he hit it, if you could reach the money it was yours. It gathered dust.
> 
> Oh, both their cars were in primer, no paint, not pretty.....I guess for a reason.



Nice Dad!


One of our gang had a late 60s Pontiac that had the front seat mounted on cement blocks and if you sat in the back seat you could watch the road go by through the floor (and got wet if it rained).

In that same era, there was a drag strip down near Niagara Falls and you could take just about anything that was street legal and race it. Three of us cobbled a 430 Lincoln engine with the 3x2bbl carb kit into a 1961 Dodge station wagon. I have not idea why we landed on that combination - probably money. It went like heck but was pretty nasty to actual drive.


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## de-nagorg (Feb 23, 2014)

As a young man (18-19), I bought an old (51) 2.5 ton truck with no engine, and rusted out body.

Took the rusted body off, completely, Got a 500 something Cadillac engine from the junk yard, Built a 2.5 inch pipe cage around the "passenger" area, mounted the steering column, and foot controls to a welded on plate.

Mounted the seat, at a usable height, added truck tires, and ran that 

" off road".

They won't license something with no lights, fenders, windshield, bumpers, on it, go figure.:vs_laugh:

We had a 59 International 3/4 ton as a ranch truck, no seat, used a milk delivery (porch) box to sit on .

It hauled fence posts, fencing, feed and the like just fine. 

ED


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

Talking about the rusted out floor. I had an ole 59 chevy with the rear floor rusted totally out, I had a piece of plywood over each hole. It came up a pretty good snow so a couple of the fellows and I decide to go over to a large parking lot and have some fun. 

The back streets in North Memphis were built up for so long they had a really heavy crown in the middle. Headed down one of them, the rear of the car got away from me and popped a phone pole, blame back fin sticking straight up in the air and the three piece rear bumper stuck out on the back. Messed it up pretty good. We got out of there pretty quick, afraid the law would show up.

We made it over to the large parking lot and we were doing all kind of crazy things, one of my nephews sitting in the back seat kept hollerin "hey, HEY" after a little while we looked in the back seat and snow had piled up all the way into the rear seat, he was on his feet in the seat covered with snow. lol

On the way back home, we decided to stop by the phone pole to see if we hurt it any. Knocked a pretty good chunk out of it. LOL I took off and so help me Hannah, if the other side of the car didn't swing around and pop the pole. Now there was both fins sticking up in the air and the other bumper was sticking out, just not as bad.

Man a 57 Chevy with a 427 was one more bad machine, not many cars around back then that could do much damage to it.

I hated the 348 and 409. When I was working at Memphis engine Rebuilders I really hated when either one came in to be bored. The 348 and 409 heads sat level, not on an angle like all other engines. We had to do a special set up to bore them, took for ever. 

Not to mention they had solid lifter cams and the springs on the valves were really too strong to start with. Man if you were winding one of them tight and missed a gear, you could kiss the engine good by, 99% of the time. A valve top would pop off and there she went. lol I will say the 409 was also another mean machine, when you didn't miss a gear. lol


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

> Talking about the rusted out floor. I had an ole 59 chevy with the rear floor rusted totally out



My father had a 40 something Buick when I was little that developed a rust hole in the passenger front floor board. My mother hated that car because she'd get wet if he drove thru a puddle. Yrs later she still didn't like Buicks. My first car had a rust hole in the rear fender well that would fill the floor boards up with water when you drove in the rain. Sheet metal and pop rivets took care of that.




> The challenge was a $5 bill on the dash board.



One of my cousins has a 1967 Mustang with a hopped up engine that he bought/built in high school. He'd offer the same challenge except with a $10 bill [inflation?] As far as I know he never lost that $10.


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## Brainbucket (Mar 30, 2015)

My first car was a 69 Ford Galaxy 500 with a 289 in the late 70's. When dad and I went to check it out, the reason the fella was selling it was because oil was blowing out the dipstick and smoking and no one could fix it without an overhaul. Dad told me, I know what's wrong with it and it won't cost nothing but a couple of gaskets. The seller was convinced in was a bad engine. I gave him $50.00 and filled it up with oil and drove it home. Smoked like crazy. Once we got to the house, dad told me to pull the valve covers and clean out the oil drain holes in the heads. It was nasty and all gunked up. I cleaned it and bingo, it worked. Quit blowing oil and quit smoking. The rear fenders and the trunk looked great until you opened the trunk. There was nothing there cept the gas tank and straps. You could smack the rear fenders and they would bounce back and forth. It wouldn't spin the tires in gravel. My neighbor down the road had a 70 or 71 Torino with a SCJ 428. We raced on a gravel road and I beat him cause my car wouldn't spin in gravel and he's shooting 20 foot rooster tails behind his car. But I wasn't cool until I installed a Pioneer Supper Tuner with the round dial and it was an 8 track, 100 watt fosgate amp, and 6x9 speakers. Then I was cool. The crap we did when we were young.:vs_cool:


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

Back in the 60s, I had an old 52 plymouth, flat head six stick. That old car was tough as nails. I won a race or two in that thing, believe it or not. lol This one time there were 5 of us guys riding around and and as usual I wanted to go up Bellevue (which is now Elvis Presley Blvd). 

There was this one place where two sets of railroad tracks crossed the road about 12 or so feet apart. One set of tracks was about two or three feet lower than the other. The street came up real quick there so it made a great jump with enough speed. I hit that hill at about 65, I could have jumped over the hood of another car. LOL 

The bad thing is the front bumper drug all the way up the hill it was so steep. When we went airborne, the rear wheels hit so hard it threw the fellows in the back set into the top of the car. I had to look to see if any dents were there. 

Also, when we hit the ground, the clutch rod fell off and gone forever. I had to drive home with no clutch. I would stop at a light, turn the key off, put it in low. When the light changed, crank the car in gear, and off we would go. It was no problem to upshift or down shift without a clutch, just the stopping and starting. LOL


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

Just one more and I am through. In North Memphis, some of the older back streets were cobble stone, rough as a cobb. A buddy of mine named Screw Driver, had a 56 ford with a 58 T bird engine in it. He asked me to teach him how to lay rubber. 

We were all headed to the swimming pool that day, all we had on was our swim suits. I got under the wheel, told him, now you rev up the engine really good, hold it to the floor and pop the clutch at the same time. 

Man we were burning some serious rubber, picking up speed when I hit second. About that time two little boys on a bike pulled out in front of us. I slammed on the brakes and we got into a sideways slide. If felt like we would never stop. Finally we did stop dead in between a telephone pole and a meat truck parked at the curb. There couldn't have been more than a foot of clearance between that pole the car and the truck. 

An ole fellow sitting in a swing on his porch was reading a news paper. The houses were really close to the street there. He literally jumped up and ripped that paper right in half.

I tried to go back and forth to get the car out of the jam we were in. I was afraid the law would show up and me without my license. I told Screw Driver, it is yours buddy and I cleared the car and went on swimming. LOL

I know that was pretty sorry, but he had his license on him, I didn't. lol


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