broke some sh**, blessing in disguise

[Flatdad]

It was an interesting Sunday.

In the same afternoon, broke my recently acquired '86 dodge pickup, and '70 RR in the same trip no less! (My brother was driving the pickup)

First, the pickup let out a loud BANG while going down the highway. A U-joint cap had failed, the resulting rattling and vibration broke a rusty gas tank strap and cracked a fuel line. Since I was following in the RR, I hot rodded it back to the house to grab ratchet straps for the hanging gas tank.

Both vehicles made it back home, but in the process of rushing around and pushing the motor hard in the RR, what was once a slight drip from the rear main became a major leak! So, after roughly 3400 miles I get to pull the engine at the peak of nice driving weather...

There is a silver lining though...

 The purpose of buying the dodge was to do some cheap offroading, thank goodness those parts failed so close to home. Same story for the Road Runner. Better to have a failure close to home, and now a perfectly good excuse to add some 'go fast' parts!

[jimynick]

Count yourself lucky! My son Nick was driving our old Ram over the Burlington Skyway @ 120kph when not just one, but both U-joint straps let go and the driveshaft came out- in 5pm rush hour traffic. It's getting to sound like Dodge may have some issues with U-joints and their straps. A large PITA, for sure! 

[Super Blue 72]

Glad your are ok!

I had a "blessing in disguise" deal myself.  I have a vacation house and left my old Honda Odyssey there and the rear brake drums rusted to the backing plates.  Pain in the butt.  But in my banging of the rear drums to free them up it elicited a brake fluid leak from a rotted passenger rear steel brake line going into the wheel cylinder.  If the rear drums hadn't rusted onto the backing plates I could have driving home (about 90 miles on the highway ) and the brakes failing.GOd's watching out for me!

[73440]

Super Blue 72 , Just noticed the SBD of your car is 8-17-71 , that is the birthdate of my youngest brother , my Godson.
He knows pretty much nothing about cars.
I bought a 67 440 for his 5 year old son , my nephew who loves cars.
One day we will get a chassis for his engine, still have a few years to save for that.

[Super Blue 72]

Super Blue 72 , Just noticed the SBD of your car is 8-17-71 , that is the birthdate of my youngest brother , my Godson.
He knows pretty much nothing about cars.
I bought a 67 440 for his 5 year old son , my nephew who loves cars.
One day we will get a chassis for his engine, still have a few years to save for that.

How cool is that!  You must be the "cool uncle"!  Yeah, good to introduce the younger kids to the history of the old muscle cars.  The other day I had to explain what a Hemi engine was to a newer car enthusiast.  Scheesch....           

Sorry to go off topic, Flatdad!