Hey gang. A couple weeks back, we had a thread about vertical
links breaking on the front suspenstion. I was one of the few
who actually had the joy of this ever happening.
Well now it's happened twice. Today I was rounding a right hand bend,
rather spiritedly, when suddenly there was a loud bang, the
steering wheel started kicking back like crazy and the car headed
towards the trees on the far side of the road. It was all I could
do to fight it onto the shoulder with no further incidents than the
suspension damage and an extremely elevated heart beat.
A very nice guy in a jeep who was also a spitfire owner stopped
to assist and gave me a ride back to work. However to compound
my frustrations, by the time I returned with help half an hour
later, the police had already towed my car away. Being Friday
evening, the impound lot was closed by the time I made the
necessary phone calls, so I'll have to deal with the expense
of two tows and overnight storage charges tomorrow. Argghhh.
It is a sobering thought that if a Lincoln Navigator was in the
oncoming lane, I'd probably be a drawer right now with a toe tag.
I'm seriously wondering if after 20+ years of daily driving in
a spit, I've pushed my luck to critical levels.
If I do decide to keep the car (and at this point of my life, there
is NO WAY that I can afford two cars), I guess I'll replace the
vertical links on both sides. Maybe a couple of minor front end
shunts over the years weakened them. Maybe a DPO failed to grease
them regularly. Maybe I DO need to switch to gear oil in lieu of
grease. And maybe 200,000 miles and 24 years is just too much to ask.
This could have been a LOT worse, but it's going to take a while
to get my confidence back. Very scarey...
Greg Rowe
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