[Closed] Mechanical problems no-one else has ever had

Sorry, that was actually quite common in the early days of aluminium crank bolts....... until people learnt to tighten down with the steel bolt and just hold in place with the aluminium.

I had a tailgate gas strut fail once, but it failed "open" and I had to drive from Dover to York at 2am with the van tailgate fully open.

Bloody freezing it was.

And the whole interior (including me) was wet with road spray getting sucked in.

Snapped front mech hanger yesterday. 1 rivet was already loose and the other one just snapped.
Just ordered a rivet gun to try to fix it.
Need to grind leftover of the rivets first, I'm bit nervous as it is carbon frame.

Snapped crank-bolt on a square-taper BB

A runaway diesel engine on a truck. Couldn't switch it off, unable to change gear and brakes were smoking from trying to slow it down. Eventually seized up after using most of it oil as fuel.

Been there, done that, run out of the workshop.

As i suspect anyone who has worked on prototype diesels has.

I had an exhaust explode on Ford Capri but as it did it cut clean through the fuel pipe too leaving me stuck on the M1 drying the pipe with socks so that I could tape it back together with some insulation tape so I could get back home.
Little disappointed to find out months later that the garage that charged me for fitting a new exhaust and fuel line hadn't replaced the pipe and my bodge was still working 1000's of miles after.

Snapped the spindle of an XT (760?) crankset.

I mean seriously ripped it into two pieces.

By just riding along. Slowly. On a steady climb.

Snapped the spindle of an XT (760?) crankset.

I know someone that did that to an SLX M665 one. It split sort of along and around in a spiral pattern so when he tried to pedal it unwound and got stuck.

edit: found a pic

[img] [/img]

Quite a few years ago, I replaced the cables, bottom bracket, chain, cassette etc on a year old bike and noticed that the bike was reluctant to shift out of the granny ring.

I rerouted the front shifter cable just to be sure but the problem persisted, I eventually discovered that the cage of my LX front mech had sheared and that the chain was jumping out of the split in the cage.

Twelve months later, the helicoil holding the retaining bolt in my new XT front mech sheared and I was left to pedal home in the granny ring again.

I've not had an issue with a front mech since.

The steering shaft in my car once snapped clean in half.

I had just turned off the QE2 expressway in Toronto onto Yonge Street just as the afternnon rush hour was beginning, when BANG!

Every pedestrian around jumped, and then stared. Smoke billowed out from under the bonnet, and my steering wheel was no longer attached to anything.

I bet no one on here has ever had that happen to them before.

I had a few on the motorbike but one I liked was the speedo conversion I did, I had a moment of senility and fitted 5 rotor magnets instead of 4, so the speedo overread by 20%. All of a sudden I was the fastest man in the world!

Not dissimilar Northernmatt, but mine was fully in two pieces. The drive side fell out. Glad I was on flats really.

I had a crash on a road bike ages ago where the retaining bolt on the front brake caliper came off. As I braked at the bottom of a hill, the brake pulled away from the frame, ran along with the rim until the brake cable pulled tight and then stopped the wheel dead. I exchanged 12hrs of memory for a night in hospital.

@saxonrider, I was walking along beside a road once when the last remaining mount failed and some bloke's engine dropped right out of his car onto the road. That also made quite a noise !

@saxonrider, I was walking along beside a road once when the last remaining mount failed and some bloke's engine dropped right out of his car onto the road.

Wasn't an MG was it? Happened years ago to my Dad

@saxonrider, I was walking along beside a road once when the last remaining mount failed and some bloke's engine dropped right out of his car onto the road. That also made quite a noise

I saw that happen to a Double Decker Bus leaving the depot near a station I used when I went to school. Might have been just the gearbox and transmission. Blocked the exit of the depot. Left an impressive mess on the road. I suspect someone lost their job that day.

Had a Mk 1 Ford Escort and the gearstick would come off if you pulled at it too hard (I held it in place by jamming matchsticks into the screw fitting that had sheared).

Still - it made for a great security device - it was once stolen from the cinema car park and we found it 300 yards down the street with the gearstick on the back seat, engine still running.

😆

Broke a 456 frame by splitting a huge lump of flint one half of which jammed between the wheel and the chainstay. Ended up with the rear mech ripped off and the dropout literally straightened out horizontally!

Ended up selling the frame to someone as a project and the first ride out on the new frame I ripped the mech off and bent the (this time replaceable) hanger whilst riding down a route we affectionally call 'rear mech alley'. As a group of 6 riders we lost 50% of our rear mechs in a little under a mile of trail 🙂

diesel accelerator cable jammed in a uj as i did a 3 point turn once.......

thought i had a runaway diesel.......

Wasn't an MG was it? Happened years ago to my Dad

on security devices, I used to have an Astra SRi (oh yeah, ladies !!) and had to park it up at the hospital where I worked. Those things were easier to get into without a key than with one - can't even count the number of times it was broken into (fitted a hidden immobiliser, so wasn't nicked but they'd always smash up the steering lock etc).
In the end I used to remove the steering wheel and fix it into the boot with a d-lock. They still broke in and then presumably sat the thinking "hang on, something's not right", so I used to put a sign in the window saying that the wheel had been removed.
Then I took it for a service and when I got home the note from the garage said that they'd found the loose cover over the centre of the wheel, took it off and "fixed" the loose nut which was held on by laggy bands - wasn't loose but certainly wasn't torqued right down ... until then. I couldn't get the nut back off and the car was nicked & written off the next woring day 🙁

I was once driving along, I think I had been overtaking something and only saw some debris in the middle of the road too late. I hit a plank of wood and heard it hit something on the bottom of the car, and a clicky noise followed.

3 of 6 bolts that fastened the driveshaft in place had been removed, the other 3 were loose (got about 50 miles down the road before an opportunity to get it looked at).

The day after an 80 mile epic, I went to swap tyres to something meatier for some rough/rocky/steep action. My rim had a crack on the brake track (it had initially been fitted on a bike with V brakes, some slight wear and then used with discs for years) almost the whole way around the circumference on both sides (must have been the box section part of the rim, as the tyre would've blown off otherwise).

One of my mates had a car whose driveshaft was tied up with string 😀

Rear driveshaft of my Landrover lightweight dropped and dug into road after the front uj sheared. Punted the rear of the Landy up into the air and nearly rolled it.
Ended up tying it up to the chassis to get the remaining 1/2 mile home.

The electrics I had on an old Astra vrs where a little temperamental and you where never quiet sure if the button or switch you where hitting would have the desired effect. At its worst when you hit the horn it instantly turned the stereo up to full volume. I discovered this on a sunny day driving along listening to the radio with the widows open. When white van man cut me up and I expressed my displeasure via the horn and brittney spears 'hit me one more time' blasted out. He laughed at me and drove away whilst near by pedestrians also openly laughed