[Fot] 50K

[Ken Gano, home]

This afternoon I took the TR3 to the next town (20 mile round trip) and
notice, as I pulled into the garage that I was within 2 miles of turning
50,000 miles since rebuilt.  Seeing as how that is something of a milestone
I decided to wait until the cool of the evening and take a run around my
usual tuning course.

It was a beautiful evening.  Cool and the car was running very well.  I had
this whole long, self congratulatory post planned, to tell the story of
dragging this car out of my fathers barn in 1995 and spending the next 7
years rebuilding it and cap it off with how I had been, mostly successful in
putting 50,000 trouble free miles on it in the 5 years since.  A real back
slapper about driving it to both coasts and several dozen destinations in
between and about fixing whatever minor problems arose with basic hand tools
in motel parking lots and racetrack paddocks.

Well, the car had different ideas.  About 10 miles into the course, and 8
miles after I had passed the magic 50 K mark, I hit a railroad crossing a
little fast and BANG, the rear axle shifted about 6 inches forward and the
left rear dropped 4 or 5 inches down.  I am assuming that the axle came free
from the spring mounting, but its too dark and too remote to try to fix it
right now and it is clearly not drivable as is.  I will send a tow truck out
in the morning and better assess the damage (This will be only the second
ride home on a hook) and hopefully have it back on the road well before time
to leave for TRF / Pittsburg Grand Prix / VTR, but this is not the ending I
was hoping for this story. :-)

These cars certainly have a knack for keeping a person humble.

Ken Gano


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