Aaron, I feel your pain, but things could have been much much worse.
Glad to hear you're o:k - the car can be fixed.
R. Ashford Little II
www.geocities.com/ralittle2
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-6pack@autox.team.net [mailto:owner-6pack@autox.team.net] On
Behalf Of Acekraut11@aol.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2003 9:20 PM
To: 6pack@autox.team.net; patton@suscom-maine.net; mocharand5@aol.com
Subject: A very bad day...
Well List,
I think I was just nominated for the presidency of the AMA, and to
think, before today I didnt know it existed. Today was a beautiful
driving day and the driving was beautiful until my left front wheel fell
off while crossing a bridge and rounding a sweeping left hand turn. The
results? Luckily, I am uninjured, and remarkably, the car is in pretty
decent shape. What saved me was having slowed down for the turn and the
fact that I ran into the concrete side of the bridge at a slight angle.
The little lip at the bottom of the concrete saved the paint and body
work along the right side of the car. The car did ride up the side of
the concrete, dragging the right front bumper, pushing it in slightly.
The most interesting point was watching the wheel catapult over the
guardrail and fly about 50 feet in the air before disappearing. The
damage? The bumper is bent slightly and the chrome worn off along a
three inch strip. The fender is pushed in slightly where the bumper at!
taches. Believe it or not, that is the extent of the body damage. The
car came to rest and slid on three points. The first was the rotor. I
had the brake applied(and even the clutch in, didnt stall the car) so
about a half inch was ground off of the rotor. The bottom of the link
assembly was ground down past the nut. And the u-bolt on the sway bar
was almost ground through. What caused it. Well, I wondered after a
lengthy rebuild of the front suspension if I had done something terribly
wrong. Guess in a way I did by putting anti-seize compound on the wheel
studs. Not sure yet, but the best guess is that the lugnuts came loose
until the wheel finally broke off at the hub, taking the wire wheel
adaptor with it. It was still attached to the wheel when I found it a
couple hundred feet from the road about 15 min. later. The front wheel
hub is fine except for the stud holes which are now eliptical,
effectively rendering the hub useless. One stud was even pulled comple!
tely out. Needless to say, I feel rather stupid, but if my embarassment
might help others.... The car has been dropped off to my local british
mechanic to get an estimate for insurance. Guess my only questions are
to confirm my mistake and to ask if there is anything in particular I
should make a point to check. Obviously, I will be going over
everything on the car but just wanted to know if there was anything in
particular to look for. On the bright side, maybe the jolt will have
fixed whatever is causing my short in the electrical system.
Aaron(happy to be healthy, sad for the car)
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