You picked a bad time to leave me

[MrEarl]

loose wheel:D

[keiser31]

That photo has been posted here before....it's CLASSIC!

[Guest papaw]

My son just had this happen with a front tire on my old Safari van. It wasn't to funny as came off at 70 mile an hour on the freeway and jumped the wall an got 2 cars comming the other way. He just got it out of a chain tire company (which I won't name) and had 2 new tires put on the front.

[buick5563]

That photo has been posted here before....it's CLASSIC!

Now, is that an actual capital "C"?

[Dandy Dave]

You pick a fine time to leave me loose wheel, your hub and axle must be made of cheep steel. You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel... I stood by the side lines and I slowly watched him as he came to a stall, when the wheel finally left him I said to myself I hope he don't hit a wall. Dragging in the dirt, that must have really hurt as the axle dug in the ground. I se'z to myself The mechanic's that did this are just a bunch of Hounds. You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel.... Think "Kenny Rodgers" ... Dandy Dave!

Edited November 12, 2010 by Dandy Dave
Cleaning up another fine county song.... (see edit history)

[1937hd45]

That is Raymond Mays in his Brescia Bugatti, he went on to later build the ERA.

[stock_steve]

Great picture—have seen it a few times before, but always worth seeing again.

When I was 16 or so years old, I decided to take a look at the rear brakes on my ’71 VW Super Beetle. Amazingly, I was able to get the “jesus nut” off that holds on the rear drum (torque requirement somewhere north of 250 ft-lbs, as I recall). And “naturally,” I had no appreciation for torque requirements when putting the thing back together—I guess I thought the *cotter pin* would take care of keeping everything together…

You-guessed-it: A short time later, while driving happily along on a secondary road, my rear wheel (still bolted to the brake drum) came off, and passed me on the left (accompanied by lots of noise as the bottom of the shock mount ground along the road—not to mention some significantly altered handling of the car). Lucky stars must’ve been with me that day, though since:

1) Nobody was coming in the other direction at the time.

2) I was able to successfully maneuver the car to the side of the road and stop.

3) I was able to borrow a large plumbing wrench from a house near where the incident happened, and torque the nut (that had been retained inside the hub cap) back on to a reasonable torque, and then continue carefully on to my destination (from where I was then able to get the car to a repair shop and get the reassembly done properly).

Ah, the carefree days of youth...

Edited November 11, 2010 by stock_steve (see edit history)

[R W Burgess]

Ah, the carefree days of youth...

I think the same thing Steve, everytime I see a motorcycle on the highway, thinking back to the days of 1967 riding my 250 Suzuki 90 mph, front wheel/folk assembly wobbling from the light weights of the speed!:eek:

It's amazing that I'm even here to speak of it.

Wayne

[Mark Huston]

I love that picture, the look on his face reminds me of how I must have looked when I lost a front wheel on my 1971 Datsun pickup several years ago.

The truck was high mileage and needed constant maintenance. I did some work on the front brakes and put the wheels back on neglecting to fully tighten the lug nuts. At the time I was working in an office that required me to wear a suit and tie to work. After getting the truck back together I took off for work, wearing my best suit, and drove about 20 miles when I was rounding a corner, approaching my office, I saw my left front wheel fly past my windshield, between the beating of the windshield wipers, landing in a field in the middle of a large mud puddle. At about the moment I realized what had just happened the truck went down on the left front brake drum and came to a stop in the road. There I was sitting in the rain in my suit with my missing wheel out in the middle of a field of mud. I walked the rest of the way to my office in the rain and called home for my brother to bring me a floor jack, and a pair of rubber farm boots to retrieve my missing wheel from the mud. Using lug nuts borrowed off of the other three wheels I got the truck drivable. After that I was always extra careful to make sure the lug nuts were tightened when reinstalling a wheel.

Edited November 11, 2010 by Mark Huston (see edit history)

[Durant Mike]

I think Dandy Dave said it right. You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel!

[MrEarl]

I stand corrected...? You picked a FINE time to leave me loose wheel" Thanks for the poetic interlude Dandy Dave

Never lost a wheel before but once long time ago one early morning I hooked the jon boat up and a friend and I headed to the lake. Got to the first intersection which was on a slight grade, went to get in the left turn lane, heard a little bump in the rear, looked to the right and there passing us was my boat. Sailed right through the intersection and came to rest in a service station driveway. After straighteng the hitch and chaining it down we headed on to the lake. Had it been a couple hours later during morning rush hour, who knows what would have happened.

Edited November 11, 2010 by MrEarl (see edit history)

[keiser31]

I was in my 1957 MGA roadster in San Diego after changing out the right front hub on my wire wheel. Just got off of the freeway and up the road when I heard a ripping and grinding noise. Next thing I knew, I saw my wire wheel rolling full speed toward a guy's front door of his house. It landed on his front porch and banged against the door. I made the mistake of installing a left hub on the right side (I was new at wire wheel stuff). The wheel had unscrewed itself, dropped off of the hub and exited out the rear of the fender between the door and fender. As luck would have it, the front end of the car dropped and stopped instead of end over end. Learned a BIG lesson about right and left wire wheel hub geometry that day!

Edited November 11, 2010 by keiser31 (see edit history)

[Marty Roth]

1958 Impala Convertible in 1963 - had a shop weld the broken bracket on the Power-Assist Steering. They put the left front wheel/tire back on, and I drove the 120 miles from Linden, NJ to South Fallsburg, just outside of Monticello, NY in the Catskill Mountains Borscht Belt, where my band had a post-summer season weekend gig at a famous resort hotel. I play trumpet, and the bass fiddle player was glad to ride with me, rather than pay an extra fare to put his bull fiddle on the bus back to "The City". We had complementary rooms, but rather than sleep over, the band finished playing at 3:30 AM, got paid, packed, dressed out of my tux, and I headed back toward the Rt. 17 "Quickway".

Still on a 2-lane backroad, I heard a light rattle, and stopped a couple of times to try to shake the car to find its source, but did not hear the noise (shoulda' had the other guy drive slowly while I walked alongside - hindsight is always 20/20). We got on the express road and got up to 60 mph. Suddenly the left front went BANG. In the bare glow of daylight I could see the tire passing the white convertible for which I had recently spent my entire $525 bankroll, (plus the $39.95 for the new Rayco convertible top - good thing I earned $50.00 that weekend).

The tire was apparently gone from sight. The spare was unceremoniously bolted to the CRACKED brake drum with one lug nut from each of the 3 other wheels. I drove slowly and carefully back to town and convinced the owner of a junk yard to open up and let me get a '58 chevy front brake drum, 5 lug nuts, and another spare tire/wheel (total $3.00).I then installed my good bearings and seal, and threw the "new" spare in the trunk. By 8:00 AM we were back on the road with the bass player bellyaching about how I cost him so much time. Ignoring him, I stopped where the car went "OUCH". About that time my dad came driving up from Linden to make sure we were safe (I told him not to, but was glad to see him). As we talked on the side of the Quickway, a sunbeam bilnded me momentarily, reflecting off of the 3-bar spinner of a 1958 Impala chrome hubcap, still attached to the left front wheel, lying face-up in a patch of tall grass. After retrieving the wheel and cap, even the 5 lugnuts were still there. I put the good tire back on the car, being more careful than the welder, to tighten the lug nuts.

The next mistake was selling that first-year Impala Convertible to buy a racked-out '56 Triumph TR-2, but that, as they say, is a story for another evening, when we talk about how Lucas Electrics invented the intermittant windshield wiper, intermittant headlights, etc.

Edited November 12, 2010 by Marty Roth
typos (see edit history)

[keiser31]

Ahhh...Lucas..."Prince of Darkness" electrics.

[Dandy Dave]

loose wheel:D

If you look closely at the photo, it had to be that either the nut on the end of the wheel was loose and came off, Was removed buy an unscupuless looser, Or, the axle failed and broke off in the hub as it happend to my 1915 Buick. The good part about my 1915 Buick is that I was in the yard at the time and the wheel stayed on the car. It only fell off after I jacked it up and pulled on it. If I was rolling, it could have met with a similar fate as the poor fellow pictured. Dandy Dave!

[Bill Stoneberg]

My ex, who was known for her "creative" interpetations of lyrics thought they were singing

"You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille, with 400 children and a crop in the field".

[Guest Skyking]

The truck was high mileage and needed constant maintenance. I did some work on the front brakes and put the wheels back on neglecting to fully tighten the lug nuts. At the time I was working in an office that required me to wear a suit and tie to work. After getting the truck back together I took off for work, wearing my best suit, and drove about 20 miles when I was rounding a corner, approaching my office, I saw my left front wheel fly past my windshield, between the beating of the windshield wipers, landing in a field in the middle of a large mud puddle. At about the moment I realized what had just happened the truck went down on the left front brake drum and came to a stop in the road. There I was sitting in the rain in my suit with my missing wheel out in the middle of a field of mud. I walked the rest of the way to my office in the rain and called home for my brother to bring me a floor jack, and a pair of rubber farm boots to retrieve my missing wheel from the mud. Using lug nuts borrowed off of the other three wheels I got the truck drivable. After that I was always extra careful to make sure the lug nuts were tightened when reinstalling a wheel.

Mark, your story is much funnier than the photo posted........

I'm sure you can sit back today and laugh at what happened back then.

[Paul Dobbin]

It does happen in real life.

One year on the Great American Race we stopped for lunch at the York, PA Fairgrounds. They had a nice flat dirt track (for horses or early stock cars) After lunch some of the racers took to the track: boys will be boys, pretty soon we were hot dogging around the track in 4 wheel drifts.

As we were trying to pass Dick Burdick's 1924 Bentley Racer on the outside with our 1935 Chrysler Airflow, another open wheel speedster lost the right front wheel, just like in the picture. A scary moment! NO accident, no injuries, the Speedster was reunited with his wheel and continued the cross county adventure.

However, that ended the impromptu dirt track race.

Years later on a Glidden Tour I met a guy who remembered me from York and brought up that story. Life is made of memories of dumb stuff and close calls.

[Dandy Dave]

It does happen in real life.

One year on the Great American Race we stopped for lunch at the York, PA Fairgrounds. They had a nice flat dirt track (for horses or early stock cars).

An old friend had race horses that wintered at a local county fair. Anytime there was anything to do with autos on the track the Horse guys would complain that it messed up the surface of the track for the horses in training. You can bet the horse folks who pay rent to the fair to keep the race horses were not happy with your spur of the moment race as the ends of the track gets ridges as you slide around the corners. The surface needs to be york raked and then it takes time for it to compact properly after it has been "torn up." in horsemens terms. If a car looses a wheel, it can be repaired. If a horse looses traction and breaks a leg, the horse most often looses all and will be "put out to pasture." Please be mindfull of this and ask permission before you race an auto on a horse track. Dandy Dave!

[Shop Rat]

An old friend had race horses that wintered at a local county fair. Anytime there was anything to do with autos on the track the Horse guys would complain that it messed up the surface of the track for the horses in training. You can bet the horse folks who pay rent to the fair to keep the race horses were not happy with your spur of the moment race as the ends of the track gets ridges as you slide around the corners. The surface needs to be york raked and then it takes time for it to compact properly after it has been "torn up." in horsemens terms. If a car looses a wheel, it can be repaired. If a horse looses traction and breaks a leg, the horse most often looses all and will be "put out to pasture." Please be mindfull of this and ask permission before you race an auto on a horse track. Dandy Dave!

There is also the fear of misc. drippage from vehicles that can fly up when the horses run and get in horses eyes. Riders were special goggles but not horses.