What stupid, abusive things have you done to your Mustang?

When this car was new, I never cared for it in the fasion that it now deserves. I treated it like what is was: a typical car that was probably intended for the junkyard after about 10-15 years.

Once, while in a drunken stupor I accepted a challenge from an equally shit-faced buddy of mine to a race from the bar we were at to my apartment about 15 miles away.

My Mustang versus his 70 Chevelle SS 396 ( really a 402 I think).

On a couple mile stretch of side-by-side 2-laner we were pretty much neck-to-neck, then it was a long stretch of winding one-lane country road. Lots of passing on the shoulders and in the dirt.

The entrance to my apartment complex comes up, I cut esrly across the grass and fishtail into the driveway...almost.

My car was ( apparently) stuck in a slight ditch, I assumed the damn low-hanging cross-member was hung-up...like they get on these cars.

Now, drunk as a skunk I decide to power through it so I just keep hammering away on the gas pedal.

No luck.

I back up a couple feet to get a good running start and it gets stuck in the same spot again.

After several minutes of getting nowhere, my buddy Dennis is out of his car, standing there laughing his ass off at me.

I gave up, decided to leave it there until the next morning and went to my place and passed out.

The next morning when I went down to check it out, I found that I had not gotten the cross-member hung up.

There was a huge decorative boulder about 1000 lbs or more in the grass on either side of the driveway. Somehow in my pickled state I didn't see this giant hulking rock and drove right into it...several times. Backed up and smashed it few more times. There were green, red and golden fluids of death all over the grass, the whole front end was smashed to smithereens.

Si that little adventure resulted in an entire dog-house ( front clip) off of a 72' junk-yard mach 1, along with new radiator, windshield, dash panel, shifter lever and rearview mirror.

And 6 months of "no Mustang to drive regrets".

That poor car has survived several incidents of my complete stupidity over the years. I am embarrased to admit I treated it that way, and of my general youthful irresponsibilty. I am thankful I never hurt anyone over the years.

Now the car is pampered. It will never be as nice as others, but I love it anyway.

when I first bought the car in 2002, I was a Friday, and I was working Saturday morning, the parking lot was empty, I did a ton of donuts until the drivers side tire went flat.

it was fun. it was the first and last time I beet on the car.

now its babied

Hi Kit,

You were a bad boy indeed, wern't you!

Sorry, but since i've owned my Vert from 2011, i've babied the car all the way.

Can't put my hand up on anything in that department i'm afraid.Hell, i don't take her out in the rain at all, and i don't wash the car in any traditional way also.That's got to be love hasn't it?:heart::heart::heart:

Greg.

Yeah, I was a typical punky-ass teenager & 20-something.. A lot of street-racing, beer-drinking and raising hell. Actually I didnt drink very often, but when i did, i always over-did it. One reason i dont drink at all now.

That poor car of mine has been to hell and back a few times because of me. I atone for those sins by babying it now.

So far - attempted quarter skin replacement on my own. rofl

I think the only bad thing that's happened to mine since I've owned it was getting it off the trailer on day 1. It was winched onto the trailer backward with no ramps (trailer was on an incline and the deck was only an inch off the ground). When it came time to come off, I hopped in... for no reason, really - other than to 'drive' the car off the trailer - Don said he'd let the winch ease it off the trailer (since I had no brakes or steering). The shop's lot had no incline, so I stacked up some boards at the end of the trailer... still had a 6-8 inch drop though. When I was in, he kicked the winch brake lever and we (the car and I) were off like a shot. I hit the end of the trailer, dropped off to the boards with a big bounce and thud, picking up speed, then just before the rear wheels hit the drop-off the boards scattered - so, now it was almost a foot drop-off - and we kept going. Once on the ground, the speedometer actually registered 11 mph before it started slowing down with the gradual up-slope on the other side of the lot. Fortunately, I was lined up with the outside stall and coasted to a stop only 1 foot short of where it needed to be.

I honestly had no good reason to be in the car when it came off - like I said, master cylinder was seized and no keys meant the steering column was locked... I was literally just a passenger in the driver seat. But, at least I was there with the car when it all happened.

From there on out, with the exception of being chopped up, welded on, ground down, and otherwise transformed from a rusted hunk o' junk into a once again living Mustang, there's going to be a lot of babying.

In 92, i was dropping my wife at work at a warehouse in Buffalo, NY. The warehouse had tractor-trailers all backed up and parked at the loading docks, without the tractor/ cabs attached.

Dropped her off...it was quite a chore to drive that car during the slippery, greasy, snowy driving conditions in a Buffalo winter, but I did.

Slowly...ever so slowly...trying to navigate out of the slippery lot, the car just started sliding uncontrollably straight...dead-eye straight for one of the trailer's tongue/hitch.

No matter what I did I could not slow it down, or turn in any other direction, even though it was only going about 2-3 mph. As I slid towards that trailer it was like a super slow-motion wreck happening.

The trailer tongue was high enough to clear the hood, and long enough so that it speared right into the windshield directly at my face.

I was pushing back on the seat back, trying to scrunch down as the big rubbery stretched-out glob of smashed windshield and the gluey crap inside came towards me, sprinkling millions of bits of microscopic shards of glass all over me and everything else in the interior.

I pushed so hard on the seat back that it broke the frame. If not it would have skewered my head.

The stretchy windshield stopped the car short of doing any body damage except for a small dent in the windshield molding difectly above the steering wheel.

I got out of the car and walked into the warehouse to get my wife. She saw me from about 50 feet away, and right away knew something was wrong, She came running to me, She said I was so pale she thought I was dying or something. When I told her what happened, she could'nt believe it.

After I calmed down, I backed the car off the trailer, drove home carefully, taped a big piece of cardboard over the hole in the windshield, and parked it in the street. It sat there for a few months, I pouted like a baby for a few months, then the wife had a windfall at bingo one night and paid for a new windshield for me.

When I restored the car, I left the dented molding in place. A little reminder of our history together.

I used to do this a lot.

when i first got mine, i bought it under the guise that it was in good shape.

it was far from it, even more so later when i really dug into the car and wondered how i did not Die driving it those few times.

the car was buried in the garage of my parents since i did not have a home for it.

an ever growing amount of "mustangs unlimited" and "ohio mustang" and various other parts supplier boxes then began to bury the car even more.

eventually i bought a house and it came time to transfer the car to my new home where it would then have to be torn apart and 90% of it thrown away.

So the big day came to take the car to my new home. my father begged me to tow it he figured it would breakdown at some point along the journey. I ignored him and filled the mustang and his van with as many car part boxes as possible and i took coolant and a fire extinguisher with me.

so after starting it 50 times the engine finally fired, blaring music via the one working speaker from the sear's robuck aftermarket stereo system. and so we begin dad following me behind just in case.

some 20 miles into the uneventful journey and discovering how many of the cars systems were inoperative, no speedo, no horn, told later just the brake lights were working, and constantly feathering the throttle trying to keep the misfiring cleveland going at stop lights i had arrived at a long stretch of straight road at a red light. moderate traffic. so i'm listening to the thumping beats sweating like a pig in a car with no A/C 110 inside the car 90+ outside and doing my footwork dance keeping the engine going, when a Buzzing noise comes from the drivers side.

the buzzing turned out to be a bunch of kids in a rice rocket, kantara stickers on the doors, coffee can muffler... etc. my window is down and its hard to hear anything over the radio and engine making a racket with the headers it had at the time.

so the ricer starts honking me intently. Thinking OMFG the car is on fire and this person is alerting me to that fact, i make eye contact with the driver. the passenger of the car then tells me my car is huge piece of shit and get it off the road.

while that registered, the light turned green and off he went.

pride....

So i floored it.... 1000 pounds of parts goes flying to my rear deck, engine back fires loud, almost dies, POP, POP,POP BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

and off i go... in about 5 seconds i blew passed the ricer with a sound only the concord used to make. i'm fighting the steering wheel left and right

as the 1 mile straight section comes to an end. at another red light,, i stomp the brakes, and i am met with that aweseome spongy feel of "we are not stopping", when suddenly the drums lock and thankfully i stop at the light... sweating insane i sit there and that buzzing again comes up on my drivers side... except the rice is now sitting behind my drivers quarterpanel and refuses to make eye contact.

I drive to my new house and park it in the new garage where it would spend the next phase of its life.

20 minutes goes by and my dad is no where to be found. suddenly he shows up.

he saw the entire thing. he starts yelling "how the hell fast was i going?" i said i had no idea as the speedo was not working.

he then changes demeanor and goes "Did you notice you lost something?"

no?

he opens the door on the van and sitting in a carpet still smoking is my exhaust,,, it broke off and fell off the car during my race.

we had a good laugh about it and i threw it underneath the car and off for lunch we went.

you don't even want to know what happened the next day; which is the event known as "my car gave birth" 90+ degrees plus insect life.

and a box of bug bomb.

LOL!! Best. Story. Ever. ::thumb::

LOL!! Best. Story. Ever. ::thumb::

Click to expand...

Awesome stories!

Awesome stories, I enjoyed them that much...

I am not be able to keep up with your stories because we have each other only for half a year. But the most stupid thing which happend was on the first day we met. And it annoys me until today!

After driving 2-3 hours to the location where my (hopefully) new iron-buddy waited I inspected him 2 hours in and out. After that it went to the great moment: the test drive. First the seller, I was passenger. Then the other way back. I was so excited... WOW, what a great feeling. But the 4-speed manual was very unusual to me - big clutch pedal ways - not as habitual from more modern cars... So it went to that point in history on one junction: gave it to much throttle, let the clutch snap to hard and around it went with the back after a long wheelie - only heard a metallic sound "Klonk" in the back at the same time. So the the seller was pale in his face and only said: "that was not good - perhaps the rim". I did not make any thougths further about it and enjoyed the test drive. Back to the home of the seller he jumped out the car and looked at the driver side quarter panel and pointed at it: a small dent from inside on the otherwise virgin quarter panel. Looking inside the trunk: the seller deposited some spare parts for me and a rim which jumped across them against the wall... DAMN!

So from this moment on it was clear: this car will be mine

And I still have no regrets about buying it ... :heart:

Tim

Awesome stories...I love 'em, and I got a bunch of 'em!

There was a long 3 or 4 mile stretch of fairly flat and straight road leading to the local scrapyard . That was the only business on the road and it was at the very end...no driveways or anything else along the way. It was used during the day, but rarely travelled during the after-work hours.

I used to get flying down this road around 100 mph and then lock 'em up for a long, smokey skid into a tire-frying fishtail/ U-turn heading back in the other direction.

I had a pair of mini- vice grips clamped around the parking brake release rod so I could feather the parking brake, and get it to fishtail ( we didn't call it "drifting" back then). It would'nt lock, so just take your left foot off and keep going!

The only way I can describe this by the first big chase scene in "Smokey and the Bandit". Long, beautiful skid from high speed, right past the camera, smoothly into a nice smokey fishtail down the dirt road. Awesome!

I had done that maneuver down that road so many times I could probably have done it half asleep.

I would take girls for rides and do that. Some got terrified and pissed off...others got turned on and then that would lead to other awesome stuff...for another forum!

Once a local guy with a nice 78 Trans Am said no car could handle better than his ( which is what every review was saying at the time. Pretty true for the most part). I said it is the driver, not the car that makes the difference.

I challenged him to follow me and to try and keep from losing me. He laughed and thought I was crazy. We bet $50.

I took off and headed for this road, about 8 miles or so away I think. Most of the way there it was like this: I could easily pull ahead on straighter sections, but braking and cornering is where he had it...he would catch right up. Pretty amazing actually.

So we get to the road in question and I laid the hammer down. He couldn't even keep up so I let off just enough to keep him in sight in the rearview.

At the right monent I locked 'em up for about 75 feet ( I think), pulled a beautiful u-turn and was just burnin' em, digging in in the other direction...and as I saw him flash past me, he was sawing away at the wheel with a look of total nervousness on his face.

Me and Angie ( the girl with me) made it back to "Jack in the Box", where it all started. Chris in the T/A was nowhere to be seen.

We were out of the car, laughing and bullshitting with the rest that were still there, everyone complaining about the stinky smell from my burning brakes, and me brushing the tire crumbs off the lower 1/4s.

A couple minutes later Chris drives up ( slowly), gets out and looks at the passenger side of his car. Somehow trying to make the u-turn, he side-swiped a chain-link fence and screwed up the front bumper and fender. Boy was he pissed!

I never collected my $50, either.

Leave it outside while I work on chevy's

Before we moved into our house I used to have some pretty obnoxious neighbors who would sometimes leave their garbage cans so that I had troubles getting into my driveway. I always had to get out and push them aside. One day I was too pissed to get out and simply pushed them away with the Mustang. That was before it got restored. It evolved from gently pushing into really hard shoving after that. (Frank Drebin style )

My neighbors probably knew by the sound of their flying garbage cans when I was coming home. Unfortunately after a while they seemed to get it and the cans no longer blocked my trajectory.

A few years ago we took the Mustang to Tuscany in Italy and on our way back we ran into one traffic jam after the other so when we finally got an open highway in Switzerland it started raining, aaand, of course the top was down. No way I was gonna stop now that we finally were making some progress. So we kept going under a typical summer downpour, thunder and lightning and all while the area behind our two front seats slowly turned into a swimming pool.

I still see the faces of the people on the buses as we passed them doing 140km/h pulling a cloud of spray behind us. They probably thought we were completely nuts.

It took the inside of the top three days to dry.

Nowadays I don´t actually abuse it any longer but it gets its share when I use it as a daily during the summer. Remember, this is Europe with small winding roads etc. And as I have that "binary" driving style (1 or 0, nothing in between) it gets put through the paces.

And then there was that time when I backed up into a field to turn around because the road was blocked but I forgot about the incline and the rear axle bottomed out when the car landed flat on the belly.

The veteran users on this forum might remember the pictures I posted back then.

No damage was done unlike that other time when I noticed that I had forgotten my wallet at home and drove off the road into a dirt road to turn the car around. Somehow I had not seen the rock that was lying in front of my car resulting in a broken front spoiler and a bent front fender.


Ok, just for fun, I looked for my old post regarding the backing-up incident. Here it is:

http://www.7173mustangs.com/thread-d-oh

I'm not that stupid to post the stupid things I've done to my Mustang...no siree!

sometime after i had redone my interior and gotten the some electrical issues sorted it was time to start addressing my engine problems.

Little did i know how bad the engine was and problems with many other systems

I had converted to electronic ignition with a petronixs thinking all my issues would be solved. I basically had to take apart the upper half of my engine figuring out if i had a vacuum leak.

i had changed my distributor from a HEI nightmare with hill billy MSD ignition and Tach adapter which never worked right to something more like stock

i had replaced my intake gaskets and valve cover gaskets but nothing seemed to work. back and forth in the engine bay behind the dash just trying to find a solution. this went on for months.

finally i had gotten the engine running the stench of fuel burning your eyes but running. i had taken it out for test drive where i proceeded to Blow my air cleaner base off my engine with a monsterous Carb back fire(lean). back to the garage for more work.

days later it was time to try it again, turn the key nothing....

then begin 4 hours of madness trying to figure out what the hell happened. well i had gotten to the point that i felt the neutral safety had pooped the bed, i had worked on the transmission linkage fixing a shift problem and replacing bushings and i figured while i was down there i messed something up.

so i jumped the neutral saftey, again nothing, i figured, let me hit the engine bay with a remote starter maybe i could figure out what the hell was going on....

it got to the point i had the car hot wired bypassing the ignition switch as a possible problem, and bypassing the neutral safety.

so i'm standing in front of the car and give the remote starter one last try before i just burn the garage down.

the engine started car moved forward knocked me over and stalled.

I cursed god, then opened the drivers side door and put the trans back in 'PARK' went and got drunk.

Similar story, not my car though. Had an employee of mine reach through the open window of a Chrysler K-car to start it. It was a manual, and it was in gear.

Those cars would crank without the clutch depressed...a potential recipe for disaster.

The car started, lurched forward and crashed through the closed overhead garage door, dragged the door across the parking lot out into busy traffic and smashed into a funeral procession. Hit the lead police car and the hearse following it. Continued through that mess and crashed into a store front across the street, smashing out the windows.

My garage-keepers insurance paid...then dropped me.

I was out driving and decided to stop and pick up some Pizza's from Little Caesars. My car died in the parking lot and nothing worked. THe car was fairly new to me at that ime, so I popped the hood, and started it with a screwdriver across the solenoid. She was barely running (as the ignition was getting minimal voltage due to a blown fusible link) so I feathered and babied the clutch and gas in an effort to get across the street to an Auto Zone. Kerpow!

I had a backfire that split the mufflers and blew a few pipes loose in the exhaust system. I'm almost sure that crossing that 5 lane street was done on recoil as much as engine power. Once I stepped away from it long enough to consider what had happened I started tracing the fusible link til I found a soft spot in the wire, clipped it, stripped it, twisted it together and drove home with most of my exhaust system destroyed.

I've done dumber things in other cars-but I'm not in the mood to come clean right now.

"I've done dumber things in other cars-but I'm not in the mood to come clean right now."

Yep. You guys got guts. I'm afraid I'd have to change the names (and makes/brands of cars) to protect the GUILTY!!!!

Just sayin' I shoulda been shot a few times and VERY fortunate to be alive to remember!!!! :blush: KIDS!!!!!!!

Ray