Well, last night was the highlight of my TR6 ownership experience.
Driving home with my daughter at 10:30 pm, cruising up the freeway at
about 70 mph I noticed a vibration in the floor (a *new* one that is),
so I pulled over to have a quick look. Nothing obviously wrong...
tires still on and inflated, nothing trailing under the car, body
still attached to the frame. Off we went, hoping it would not
degenerate. A few hundred yards further on the vibration acquired a
noise... sort of a light 'thumping' from the rear end. I immediately
started thinking of U-joints, wheel bearings, etc. and got off the
freeway to take a slower road up to my local britcar specialist.
At this point the thumping was getting louder and more worrisome so I
called my wife to meet us somewhere between here and there, depending
on how far we got. Off we went, thumping down the road at 30 mph,
hoping to make it to Trevor's. Only a half-mile from the end of our
journey (5 miles of thumping later)... the driver-side rear wheel flew
off! Now this is an exciting experience, sitting in a seriously
listing vehicle sliding down the road watching one of your wheels go
by! Anyway, I managed to slide us onto the shoulder and retrieve the
wheel, then call for a tow. Turns out one of the wheel studs must
have cracked as everything appeared tight when I had checked earlier,
but at any speed it would wobble and eventually shook the other nuts
off.
As we were ok after this and the car suffered nary a scratch (seems it
rested on the towing flange which protrudes from the bottom rear of
the frame) we ended up being quite amused by the experience with my
daughter wondering if we could do it again! Beats riding roller
coasters ;-)
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* Mike Himelfarb - '76 TR6 | "When all else fails, use a hammer..." *
* Mike@ShoppersDrugMart.CA | Taylor *
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