pump, mule, or flat??

 

Are you sure it has "NOTHING" to do with this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chHpV2Hlt-k

 

Ohhhhhh, yeahhhhh. Even those of us who are old, staid, and boring (except for our Minis) would be in a fix.

 

looks like somebody had a fun little test drive in your mini

 

I did buy my car off the lot so someone must have test driven it and maybe it fell out of beach bag like miniola suggested. I just can't believe I never saw it before, I'm always vacuuming the car although I've never pushed the seat all the way back before. I've had my car a whole year and that shoe was riding around with me all this time!

 

At least it didn't stink up your car!

 

That reminds me of the old joke:

Two guys are showering after working out at the gym. One of the guys puts on a pair of ladies undies as he's dressing. The other guys asks how long has he been wearing ladies panties. To which the first guy replies "ever since my wife found a pair in my glove box"!

Makes ya wonder, huh?????

 

If I'm going to have to wear ladies shoes from now on?

 

When I was about 24 a pair of women's shoes turned up under my passenger seat . Turns out a date of mine had brought a pair with higher heels (because she couldn't remember how tall I was when we met at the bar), stashed them under the seat out of her purse. She spent the night at my house and forgot them when I dropped her off. I left for Mexico a couple days later leaving the car at home. She calls and my dad answers the phone and she asks him to mail her the freaking shoes. Guess I wasn't planning on continuing that "relationship" down the line. I think she was 42.

 

I had a dead spider in the tailight assembly of my R53

 

 

Many years ago I opened up a bunch of new Mac SE 20's to add some RAM. Found a steak fry in one. Mind you there is no opening anywhere near that size in the case of a Mac SE...

 

i once found a bible in middle of the street and i returned to its greatful owner.

 

And of course we hear of surgeons leaving things in their patients too...

 

Not to mention British auto workers...

A friend of mine bought a shiny new Vauxhall Viva (72? or so) - - anyone remember those? Nice small car, good gas mileage, etc. Too bad it turned out to embody all that was evil about the English auto industry in the '70's...

Anyway, the engine always made a funny rattling noise at times. Not too loud, nobody was able to find the problem. He drove the car anyway (when it would run!) for two or three years. The engine finally started to run roughly, not idle well and get terrible gas mileage. We diagnosed a burned valve (we were self-proclaimed experts, after all!). So, we took the cylinder head off one weekend intending to have the valves repaired. What we found was quite shocking!

One combustion chamber was all shiny and appeared to have a "textured" surface to the head and the valves, one of which was indeed cracked wide open. The entire cylinder bore had the same dull textured shiny look and the top of the piston had large pits and bumps all over it. Like nothing we'd ever seen before. Just the one cylinder looked like this, the rest looked as you would expect.

The culprit? We found a large bolt in the cylinder. Actually, it was a large lump of metal in the shape of a bolt, all smooth and distorted looking, like a Dali painting of a bolt, about an inch and a half long and quite big in diameter. It must have been there since the engine was assembled at the Vauxhall factory in England and had been bouncing around in the cylinder every time the engine ran. It was amazing that the engine lasted as long as it did!

Incidents of this type were relatively common in the '70's and '80's English cars. English auto unions were very militant and were constantly on strike, and the management of the companies were often a bunch of upper class morons. Sabotage on the production line was often reported, things like "forgetting" to put the bolts in the steering rack, or wiring the dash incorrectly, or leaving suspension parts loose on purpose. This is the time that English cars' reputation for unreliability really took hold. My guess is that my friend's bolt was part of the whole labour problem in England at the time.

So, a shoe left in your MINI? Be happy it wasn't something more sinister!



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My very first car was a used Vauxhall for $400.00, in 1964. Very unreliable, left me stranded all over the place, but I loved that car.

Jim

 

Yeah I really love cars that break down and leave me stranded too. I makes almost any trip exciting

 

I hear ya!

I have a very "checkered" car history too. You'd put up with just about anything - just to have that feeling of freedom to go wherever, whenever. Some of the appalling hunks of junk that I had... and still I remember them fondly. (well most of them, anyway).

Different time, different place. I guess you had to be there!


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You'd be a good candidate for an Alfa Romeo.

Compared to cars now days, anything from the 1960's was unreliable, with the possible exception of the VW bug.

 

33EJB is right. I was 18 and happy to anywhere on my own, stranded or otherwise. It WAS a different time indeed and the world was smaller then it is today.

Robin, you are also correct that most cars then were not reliable, but we just didn't know any better as that was what we had. I had a friend with a new VW. It ran well, but there really was not much to them at all. Very basic.

Jim

 

I knew a guy with one that he modded to the max. He did about everything to the engine and suspension that could be done--and there were lots of engine mods available for them. He was trying to get to beat V8s. Typically, he would spend months working on it, then drive it like a mad man for thee days, blow the engine, and start the process over. I think he liked working on it better than driving it.

 

Bought a new '62 VW Bug in New Orleans, it was the first year with push-on (friction) electrical connections.

The humidity caused continuity problems and every few months, you had to pull the cover off the back of the dash panel and clean every connector.

At least it was a simple, easy job.

 

My brother had an Austin America. It had pneumatic suspension and handled great. However, the distributor was on the radiator side of the transverse engine and got soaking wet (inside) anytime it rained. It always amazed me that a car engineered and built in rainy England could not survive the rain. The dealership was never able to correct the problem.

Another aspect of its design led to its demise. The rear pneumatic suspension was connected to the front by a metal tube. This tube developed a leak and needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, the pipe was between the frame and the chassis. So, the chassis had to be removed from the frame to replace the tube. The cost would have been more than the car was worth.

Then there is the infamous story of the Austin Healy 3000 that came with a jack that wouldn't fit under the car when a tire was flat.

 

BMC (British Motor Corporation) called that "HydroLastic Suspension". Some Mini's and MG's had it too. It actually had a pneumatic cylinder at each wheel connected by fluid-filled tubes. The idea was that if the front wheel hit a bump, the fluid would travel through the tube to the rear wheel and make it rise, so that the whole car would rise up and not "pitch" like a bucking bronco over bumps. It actually worked really well - - - until something messed up, that is!! Many of these cars had the suspension converted from the hydrolastic units to the rubber donuts that later Mini's had, due to the ridiculous cost of repairs.

There was an Indy race car in the '60's called the "MG Liquid Suspension Special" that ran in the Indy 500 for a few years and did quite well, driven by some of the famous drivers of the day. It had the same suspension system.


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The Healey 3000 was one good looking car in my mind and would move out smartly. I could live with the jack problem.

Jim