Most Dangerous thing you ever saw a PO do.

[AtlantaSteve]

I was just reading Darreld's post about using a threaded rod for an alternator bolt, and how the strength just isn't good enough...

That got me to thinking about something that a PO did to a friend's mustang that was plainly the most dangerous thing I've ever seen.

My buddy and I went to a show in his 1965 white GT 4-speed Coupe, about an hour or so out of town  (This was before everyone had a cell phone, BTW)

On the ride back, he got out on the main road and punched it.  When he shifted into second the whole car shook violently and set down a bit.  He immediately pulled over to the side of the road and we waited around for rescue.

His dad (who was ahead of us, in his '36 dodge hotrod) finally noticed we weren't following him, and stopped to wait for us.  And when we never showed, he turned around.  He came back and started inspecting the car.  He crawled under the car and said "Well, nobody is riding in this car tonight...we'll have to have it towed back to town."

We asked what he found and he told us to crawl under the car and look at the Rear Axle.

So we did and saw what is so dangerous a thing, that the PO should have been charged with attempted manslaughter!!

instead of using the proper U-bolts to hold the rear axle to the leaf springs, he had got threaded rod, and manually bent it around the rear axle, and cut it off, making his own homemade U-Bolts.  When my buddy grabbed second, one of the bolts finally gave way, and the car shifted violently.   The next day they went to the store, bought the right bolts, and went home and corrected it...but that is seriously the worse thing I've seen a PO pull.

Anyone else got any stories?

[apollard]

My second mustang was a '67 with a small block C6 in it. The PO had drag raced it. I was going to install new u joints since I was pretty sure they were bad.

I found the vibration was due to misalignment - the trans crossmember had broken, and the Po had riveted a thin plate of steel across the break to 'repair' it. The trans was about 1" low on the tail end, and a few good hits on the loud pedal probably would have dropped it.

[monkeystash]

Just the thought of my PO makes my blood boil.  Well, for me 2 items come to mind.  First, my PO replaced the floor pans in my car but each side was only held in with roughly 20 tack welds.  Not only that, but the floor wasn't attached to the front subframe at all.  There was a 2 inch gap between the floor and subframes.  Second, to fix the dash where it had been cut for a radio, the PO cut the entire dash out and replaced it with one from another car.  Thing is, he only attached the new one with two tack welds per side at the door hinge area.  I couldn't image having this car on the road, much less getting in an accident.  I still have to address the dash issue.  

[SELLERSRODSHOP]

not my car, but when i was in h.s., my best friend went from florida to wisconsin to stay w/ his dad every summer. summer before senior year, his dad bought him a 69 mach 1 & they drove it back to fl together when the summer was over. he had mentioned that the high beams never worked as the front wiring was from a 70. i was following him one day as he crossed some railroad tracks & it looked like the car was hinged in the midle as it flexed really bad (paint was chipped on front edge of doors & rear edge of fenders). as it turned out after looking closely, the whole front clip & subframes had been cut off the car at the firewall & replaced w/ parts from a 70. the flexing was due to the subframes being grafted together with a handfull of sheetmetal screws & one tack weld on either side. i never rode in the car....

[KBMWRS]

Mmmm where do I start????

Brake booster installed upside down
Throttle linkage at carb was a soft metal clip which continued to wear and broke...while driving
Hurst shifter rods were cut and re-welded with a threaded portion...putting it all out of alignment
Intake manifold attached with caulking as gasket
Not dangerous but wrong....instrument gauges held in with wood screws.

[AtlantaSteve]

as it turned out after looking closely, the whole front clip & subframes had been cut off the car at the firewall & replaced w/ parts from a 70. the flexing was due to the subframes being grafted together with a handfull of sheetmetal screws & one tack weld on either side. i never rode in the car....

WOAH.  That's gonna be a tough one to beat!

[TexasAxMan]

Not a Mustang, but ...

An old Blazer.  PO (and I know him) "fixed" the passenger side power window wiring with some of the flimsiest speaker wire I've ever seen.  Of course it held out until I got it.  Little fire in the door panel, not fun.

[mach514]

When I  first got my Mach 1 the PO had plumbed in a remote oil filter which used a roll of toilet paper as the filter? I'm told this was the craze for awhile back in the eightys but I'm still not convinced that it was such a great idea.

[GTA6T7]

I picked up my 67 fastback from the PO on a hot summer evening and proceded to drive it from Northern Virginia to my house in Maryland (about 80 miles).  Being summer we had one of those wicked thunder storms that just dump tons of rain on the highway.  As soon as it started raining, I felt the rain start to hit my feet and lower legs.  It was like it was flooding inside the car from the cowl vents.  Everything under the dash was soaked and I was worried the wiring would short out and catch fire.  The next day when I got home from work and had a chance to look the car over, I learned that the PO has replaced all the fuses in the car with copper wire the same sizes as the fuses.  To this day, I can't believe the car didn't just burst into flames :barf

[Midlife]

The PO of Midlife sold it to me...and the heritage of the Curse of Midlife lives on and on and on...

[Tony R]

I was looking at buying a lifted 80s Toyota pick up at a car dealer.  I drove it and it had some bad vibration.  I climbed under and saw that the drive line was too short since the truck was lifted at least a foot in the air.  So the owner got longer bolts and used about 3 inches of washers between the drive line flange and the rear end flange.

[janschutz]

The PO had tied the gas line to the frame with Wire ties (the plastic straps).  Several had already gotten brittle from the exhaust heat and broken.  if one more had broke, the rubber gas line would have been on the exhaust pipe.

[RustyRed]

The kid that owned my car before me was using it as a DD.

Using them as a driver is fine except the brakes were in terrible shape and one wheel bearing was dangerously bad along with pretty much everything else on the front suspension.  I pretty much refused to drive it after I got to looking at it until those items had been fixed....it was a time bomb.

[Sacbill]

On my '65 Coupe, the PO was telling me that he always went through the car and had it set up to be a solid reliable driver, since his wife and their young daughter rode in it daily.

The car was the most solid I'd seen in the MD-VA area, so I bought it and drove the car home.  Since I was a newbie to old Mustangs, I took it to my mechanic to see what work it would need to pass inspection.

Some safety check for the wife; my mechanic pointed out there was no steel tubing on the car.  Just rubber fuel line running from the front to the tank, held in place by wire ties.   

[Gigantopithecus]

Oh, let's see.  PO had problems bleeding the brakes, rear line was busted.  The throttle assembly was cut up, and jb welded together, backwards.  See pic



I'm not even gonna mention the wiring hackjob in it....that managed to catch fire.

[70solo2convert]

Not really dangerous, but the PO somehow broke off the dipstick tube down at the bottom, ground it down to a point so it could be jammed into the broken-off stub in the timing cover, then sealed it up with blue silicone that matched Ford engine blue.  I discovered it when I pulled the heads to deal with a blown head gasket a few years ago--I unbolted the tube from the head and it came off in my hand!