Have done a few roadside overhauls. Did a headgasket on the side of the SE Freeway coming home from an event. 186 Holden. The racecar was the same model and like many I always had spares!! When a HQ Racing engine sealer I must have done a dozen at the racetrack. Record is around 20 min to unbolt the head, scrape off the crap and replace head gasket. Me reseal it and have it running. Later on we deliberatly left the wire a little loose so they could flip it and change headgasket. Most of the heads had been milled 100thou plus to get compression,,, that A made the head quite thin and B made headgasket failures fairly common.
Have changed radiators on the side of the road more than once. 90s Fords have a habit of blocking up radiators so I carried a spare that had been cleaned out. These days I would just carry a new one. These were used cars and until you gave them a test you did not know. Generally they would be fine except when towing,, even then sometimes only on stinking hot days. Usually IF I made it up the long climb to the top of the freeway I was fine.
Lost a brand new [fitted the day before] waterpump belt near Yumali in the mallee.. Fun! 40 deg day cutting off all the shredded belt to replace it with,,, the old one!! Maintenance is a bad idea!
Twice towing the speedway car I had to 'steal' fuel from the racecar to get to a fuel supply. 2 litre Coke bottle at a time!
Ran out of brakes on my way to Winton in my Dodge truck. Old Highways truck and where the brakeline ran through the chassis It had rusted out. Covered in dirt and bitumen. We blocked off the pipe and proceeded slowly to Benalla with only front brakes. Where we found a brake shop who fabbed up a new pipe about 15 feet long. I then refitted, bled the brakes and we were gone.
Going to Sandown in the same truck we lost a retread tyre on [ofcourse] inside rear. Luckily it happened literally about 500 metres from the retread factory that had made it. This at 7am in the morning. We were off again at 8.30 with a new warranty tyre. So still had a spare.
A friend of mine who was an animal driver with his Holden Van used to carry a spare gearbox and diff and axles. And regularly changed them on the side of the road.
Late 70s coming down the freeway on my way to an engagement party coming from Tailem Bend rallycross towing I ran out of brakes.At the bottom of the freeway. Boiled the fluid at a guess. Drove very carefully on rear brakes only about 6k to the party. Stayed at the party and got up expecting to have to fix the brakes,,, they had fixed themselves!! I did flush them out when I got home however.
BMC A series?? I was never that silly. We once traded an old Mini that then immediatly ran out of clutch fluid. I filled it up only to watch it disapear near as fast. My saleslady [who traded it] however sold it to her stepfather who eventually fixed it!
She traded some shitters but always got rid of them.
Edited by Lee Nicolle, 03 June 2022 - 03:36.