Classic Vehicles I Have Owned
...that all rusted till they were un-road-worthy...rust truly never sleeps!
This would be my 1960 Alfa Romeo Guilietta Sprint, parked street side in the early 70's in Detroit MI. My first introduction to bad unit body engineering and a slick Euro-trash used car salesman named Gerhart. This was a half fast restored project (I paid 600 bucks in early 70's dollars for this car.) that featured a fiber-glass repair to the rear floor pan. Unfortunately the rear locating links to the live rear axle were also close to where the rust repair was fashioned. New silver metallic paint. And a twin cam 1200 cc (all aluminum w/wet sleeved cylinders) four banger that screamed. The second gear synchro demanded a double clutch, the axle ratio was high, top speed was 90 mph (not observed by me.). That annoying clunk and creaking I kept hearing was finally pinpointed to be the aforementioned rear suspension link, detached from its rusted and MIA frame anchor. I sold it to an Alfa collector from Wisconsin as a parts car.
Somewhere between Phoenix and Tucson, southbound on I-10. I am travelling solo in my '68 VW bus when my oil light illuminates. Because there is no oil in the crankcase. I pulled the engine in the early morning because I was sure that new oil cooler was the culprit. Nope. Put it back together. Hitchhiked for some oil. Filled up the crancase, did some bong hits, took off. 10 minutes later, the oil light comes back on. Uh oh. I put the remaining oil I had in the crankcase, and stayed on the shoulder of the roadway, limping along at a snails pace. It took a few more hitched rides for oil and the better part of the day to finally reach my buddy's house in Tucson. Fixed it in Tucson with a thirty dollar cylinder and piston replacement. I neglected to re-jet the carb when I rebuilt the motor with bigger pistons originally, the lean mix burned a nickle sized hole in one of the pistons. Oops.
It finally died from neglect.