Hi all..
Kenyon's post reminded me of a couple minor incidents that my Mom and I had
with my 62 Crown. Many years ago, I was maybe 12 , we were visiting
relatives in the Seattle area. At that time, for those of you who know the
area, the Interstate still went through the town of North Bend and there was
a stop light in the middle of town...the last stop light on I-90.
We had left my uncles, and were going thru town and on home from
there...original plan. At the light, instead of the normal feeling of
coming to a stop, I heard a subtle expletive from Mom ( with me as her son,
that was not unusual ! ) and we swerved into a parking lot. We had ZERO
service brakes, and by Grace alone we avoided hitting anyone! There was a
service station nearby, so we walked over to see if repairs could be had.
The mechanic had us drive over...mind you very very slowly...and we were
nicely lined up with the door. The guy was standing in front of us and
motioning Mom to come on forward, apparently nobody noticed the slight
incline into the garage. Well, we sat there not able to climb the grade at
an idle, and he was no doubt somewhat annoyed at the slow progress. He
said, " Gun it lady!" or words to that effect. The main thing I remember is
seeing him jump..literally springing up onto the workbench as 2 1/2 tons of
Imperial narrowly missed pinning him to the bench. Fortunately there was no
damage, just embarrasment all around....except for my laughing
uncontrollably at the sight of him jumping onto the bench and yelling!
Second thing....and its not nearly as long, when I was just getting into
working on cars, I was given permission to do a minor tune up on the car. I
thought it was soooo neat to do the plug change, new points, wires, etc
etc..filters , all that stuff. When it was done, I wanted to check the idle
and timing like the FSM said, and in particular the idle in gear, lights on,
air cond on..etc etc. I had my tune up tools on the fender and was
standing there doing whatever so I asked my Mom..." Would you put this thing
in Drive " I presumed she would get in the car and do that....what she did
was reach in thru the open window and press "D"!
Our driveway was very long and flat, and I know the car was idling a bit
higher than it should have been....luckily I was able to get out of the cars
way and was able to jump in the passenger side window, reach across and kill
the ignition before we ran into anything substantial.
Ok...just a trip down memory lane, but since Kenyon was willing to share, I
thought it was only fair that I would!
Take care everyone
Mikey
62 Crown Coupe
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