Bill and all,
You didn't mention if the knock off 'spun off' - allowing the wheel to come
off, or if the knock off 'broke off' which allowed the wheel to come off.
Dave, et al,
They both spun off. Mine on the right front at 55mph on a straightaway and
the other guy's on the right rear as he was making a quick hard left hand
turn. You feel a jolt, hear a BANG, get thrown quite hard front and to the
right (you have your 3-point seat belt on, don't you? I did.) and look
stupidly as bouncy, bouncy, bouncy down the road rolls a tire in front of you.
While you think about where that tire might have come from you frantically try
to steer left as hard as you can, standing on the brakes, blowing sparks like
God's own fourth of July fireworks mortar and dig a furrow into the asphalt
into which you could plant full grown Iowa corn. Oddly enough, no permanent
damage was done to my car which has the very same disk on it even today, 20
years later. And no, I never had anything magnafluxed. I like to live
dangerously that way.
Trying to get a jack under the car without a wheel on it was another fun part
of the adventure but by then I had so much adrenaline coursing through me I
just lifted the front end one handed and put the wheel back on the hub with
the other hand. Well, I might have exaggerated that last part but none of the
rest of it. Finding the knockoff was quite a trick too.
It's just me, but I don't count on anything anyone says about "they tighten
themselves". Theory is nice, but you only get one of those "exceptions" and
maybe you don't survive that one.
Bill Moyer, BJ7, Chimera by appellation and temperament but could win any
three-legged race at the picnic
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