Strangest thing to happen to your motor?

Had someone knock the door last night informing me my car had rolled down my drive and across the street! WTF!

It rolled down the drive to the opposite side of the street, bumped it's back wheels up on the kerb and was stopped because there wasn't enough energy for the fronts to get up onto the kerb. No damage as far as I could see. It didn't hit anything and only my backbox scraped the kerb on the way down.

Can only assume that brakes cooled and in doing so allowed it to roll. Luckily the handbrake was applied to a degree and it didn't roll very quickly. Needless to say, was left in gear and handbrake 5 notches up (4 is hard to apply normally!) after that.

Anyone else got any stories?

First time driving my 1974 Jeep CJ-5. I went out, put the key in the ignition, pulled the choke out, gave it two blips on the throttle, turned the key over and lightly pressed on the loud pedal.

A little bit of history behind this Jeep....

It had:
1. A 4.0L inline six bored out to 4.5L with a Crane cam
2. Holley 4 barrel carb
3. Custom manufactured madrel bent, 2" pipes from each cylinder going 6-into-2 three inch collectors, flange mount cherry bomb mufflers, and Monza resonator tips mounted directly to the back of the cherry bombs.
4. Mallory 75,000 volt MSD ignition into Bosch Platinum plugs through 8mm wires.
5. 24" diameter K&N high-flo filter
6. Too much internal work to list here




I was parked in the ship's parking lot (I was in the Navy at the time), which was sized for 3 aircraft carriers (somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 acres) and I was pretty much dead smack in the middle.

The engine turned over three times and caught, then died (hadn't been started in 2 months with us out to sea).

Tried again with a couple more pumps of the accelerator, then turned it over again with the pedal held about half way.

I think you can already tell where this is leading......

Please remember this was at Long Beach Naval Station in the LA area (car alarm central of the USA).

It started on the second revolution this time. With the loudest, almighty
BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!

It scared the crap out of me so bad I dumped the clutch and stalled it.

Once my hearing returned, I discovered that the shockwave from the explosion of all that petrol I had pumped in had set off EVERY car alarm in the entire parking lot!!!!





Well, needless to say after I figured out what I had done, I sat there with the biggest **** eating grin you can imagine waiting for all the alarms to go quiet and reset so I could do it again!!!


Which I did........ :sheepish grin:


I then spent about 30 seconds trying to figure out why it wouldn't go into reverse, only for it to finally dawn on me that it was a 3 speed instead of a 4 speed!! :duh:

My old Citroen decided to pop out of gear and redline the engine, with me touching none of the pedals. I pulled over and turned the engine off, with the engine overheating like a pig.

When I restarted the car, the engine made a funny sound, which can only be described as.

ARKKKKKKKPUGGGGGGHHHHHH and then fired up. Was so loud and so weird, everybody in the street stopped to look, one passer by said it sounded like my car just threw up a hairball.

The car was totally fine after..

My new mazda 5 did the same a couple of week ago, rolled down the street (I live on quite a bank) and into a telegraph pole at about 15mph. Amazingly only minor cosmetic damage to the bumper of my car but the whole telegraph pole needed replacing, lucky eh? Madza said it is a common fault with disc breaks on the rear where the discs cool down and cause the handbrake to slip, advised to leave it in gear.

The Mondeo V6 made a strange Moose noise at idle on a cold morning.

Why do so many people not leave their car in gear? I thought this was common sense!

About eight years ago I was driving my missus' F-reg Fiat Uno home from the station. I was going round a reasonably sharp bend doing about 20 when there was suddenly a clunk from the engine bay and the car slewed towards the side of the road and came to a halt very rapidly.

Turns out the engine had literally fallen out of the engine bay and grounded itself in the tarmac throwing me off course and lsowing me down. due to the position we came ot a halt it was very embarassing as the police had ot be called to direct traffic around us for half an hour until the AA picked us up. Then when they dropped the car off back at our flat they let the winch down a bit quick and the front axle snapped and wheels fell off.

iCraig said:

I pulled over and turned the engine off, with the engine overheating like a pig.

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How long was it bouncing off the limiter for to cause it to overheat?

BigT said:

About eight years ago I was driving my missus' F-reg Fiat Uno home from the station. I was going round a reasonably sharp bend doing about 20 when there was suddenly a clunk from the engine bay and the car slewed towards the side of the road and came to a halt very rapidly.

Turns out the engine had literally fallen out of the engine bay and grounded itself in the tarmac throwing me off course and lsowing me down. due to the position we came ot a halt it was very embarassing as the police had ot be called to direct traffic around us for half an hour until the AA picked us up. Then when they dropped the car off back at our flat they let the winch down a bit quick and the front axle snapped and wheels fell off.

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Ahhh - Fiat Unos. So many memories....

Baron G said:

Ahhh - Fiat Unos. So many memories....

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lol

The engine would have weighed about 5 bags of sugar. You could have tied it back into place with some string and got back on your way.

....due to the position we came ot a halt it was very embarassing as the police had ot be called to direct traffic around us for half an hour until the AA picked us up....

OcUK traffic control would have been help there

strangest thing to happen to my old car is when i had been on a long run i would turn the engine on and it would over run for about 5 seconds.

thedazman

My first motor, a D plate Pug 309

Being the novice that I was, me and some mates installed a new headunit and some 6x9's, we sort of knew what we were doing but bodged it at the same time.

A couple of weeks later whilst pulling out of a carpark i noticed that i couldn't steer

It turns out we had routed some speaker cable that had somehow become entangled around the steering column somehow

Christine moment #1: Me and Dad walked into the garage one Saturday and the Cobra fired up all by itself as we walked in. Scared the crap out of us and it's a good job it wasn't in gear.

Christine moment #2: I had the hotrod over Christmas and thought it would be funny to get my girlfriend to have a go. Y'know, 300-odd hp, race clutch etc. Anyway, pulled up and left it running as she shuffled over and I jumped in the passenger seat. Door didn't close properly so I reached over her and gave it a tug and the handle came off in my hand. Strange. Then she presses the accelerator down and nothing happened, it just sat there idling. So she mashed it into the floor and it just did the same. So I reached over and pressed it down with my hand. Still nothing, just idling. WTF? As soon as she got out and I pressed it down with my foot it was fine

Jonny69 said:

Christine moment #1: Me and Dad walked into the garage one Saturday and the Cobra fired up all by itself as we walked in. Scared the crap out of us and it's a good job it wasn't in gear.

Christine moment #2: I had the hotrod over Christmas and thought it would be funny to get my girlfriend to have a go. Y'know, 300-odd hp, race clutch etc. Anyway, pulled up and left it running as she shuffled over and I jumped in the passenger seat. Door didn't close properly so I reached over her and gave it a tug and the handle came off in my hand. Strange. Then she presses the accelerator down and nothing happened, it just sat there idling. So she mashed it into the floor and it just did the same. So I reached over and pressed it down with my hand. Still nothing, just idling. WTF? As soon as she got out and I pressed it down with my foot it was fine

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obviously telling you that woman are not good enough to handle to power (except maybe sabine).

[SKR]Phoenix said:

Had someone knock the door last night informing me my car had rolled down my drive and across the street! WTF!

It rolled down the drive to the opposite side of the street, bumped it's back wheels up on the kerb and was stopped because there wasn't enough energy for the fronts to get up onto the kerb. No damage as far as I could see. It didn't hit anything and only my backbox scraped the kerb on the way down.

Can only assume that brakes cooled and in doing so allowed it to roll. Luckily the handbrake was applied to a degree and it didn't roll very quickly. Needless to say, was left in gear and handbrake 5 notches up (4 is hard to apply normally!) after that.

Anyone else got any stories?

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lol mate, this happened down my road a astra van (I think it was) rolled down the hill and into next doors jeep lucky though cause if the jeep wasn't there it prob woulda smashed into my house

agw_01 said:

How long was it bouncing off the limiter for to cause it to overheat?

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At least 15 seconds before I could find a place to pull in, I was doing 30mph on a busy stretch of road.

When driving the old Jazz - got near to the limiter in first, clutched in and a dump valve ish noise came from the engine, into second and then let off and the same happened again - was odd.

I came out to my car to find one of my mates in the driving seat smiling at me - his keys could open my car....

iCraig said:

At least 15 seconds before I could find a place to pull in, I was doing 30mph on a busy stretch of road.

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Ahh. Why not just take your foot off the gas?

agw_01 said:

Ahh. Why not just take your foot off the gas?

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He said he wasnt touching the pedals.

Stellios said:

He said he wasnt touching the pedals.

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Oops... that'll teach me for watching the TV while posting