• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Car no workie

D

Doug Hodges

Sep 12, 2008
20
0
#1
So I'm on my way to Vegas in My 84 Chrysler 5th avenue
for a corporate gig with my keyboard player...all of a sudden
the transmission starts acting weird...I pull over and look under the car and there is fluid gushing out from the
Drive assembly..Oh this is not good I think to myself..
so I decided I'd better pull all the way off onto the far right shoulder of the freeway...but as I put the car back in drive I hear a loud clunk and there is now no power going to the drive train even though I am giving it the gas...I get back out and look under the car and the entire drive train has fallen off the car and is sitting on the freeway...I had the car towed back to Baker....where I proceeded to give the car to the tow guy in lieu of payment...we rented a car in baker and made the gig on time...TRUE STORY
 
#3
What year was this? I hope it was 85.

My brother drove his 82 Oldsmobile Cutless to Colorado from Michigan in 1995 -- yes a bad idea. He had oil trouble in Chicago but made it. After they unloaded, they were driving down the mountain to town and the engine burst into twelve-foot flames. He jumped out and it rolled off the road and burned to the ground. He was very happy it didn't keep rolling down the mountain to town.

Point is... for long trips, don't trust the aged vehicle. The same sort of fire happened to my friends car just travelling a couple hours to a camp concert. We had to cancel and transfer all the equipment to the other car for a cramped ride home.
 
#5
Drove my cherry '65 bug over the Santa Cruz mountains from Palo Alto, CA to Santa Cruz, Monterey, La Honda, Pescadero, etc. for gigs from 2000-2004. I sold it when I moved to where they salt the roads in winter. The car is still running like a Swiss watch.

However, in 1968 I attemped to drive a '60 VW bus loaded to the gills with gear and band members from Providence, Rhode Island to a small town outside of Pittsburg, PA for a high paying society gig. We were the hard rock part of the music bill at the most elaborate party I have ever seen. Think billionaires at play.

That nice little bus burned a piston when we climbed the bridge into New London, CT on rt. 95 South. We ended up taking GREYHOUND BUSES all the way. We got our gear into cars of party goers to get home. Total nightmare, but the gig went so well, I can hardly believe it. We where even written up in a nationally syndicated Sunday newspaper magazine of the day, though the write-up mostly expressed astonishment at how loud we were.

There is more to tell which I will skip to protect the guilty, but after an engine swap, the VW bus lived to see me though a couple years of college and gigs until I gave it to another band member who was part owner. He gave it to his sister, who painted it purple and set off for CA and the Haight-Ashbury scene. I think she ended up hitch-hiking to San Francisco after the bus died, and narrowly escaped ending up as a hooker for survival. The old days...:eek:
 
#6
Yesss!! another VW gig rig, my little 67 bug is a trooper. and quite the scene with a cab secured tightly to the roof rack( or stuffed inside if the weathers nasty) and a bunch of other gear loaded up. luckily for me building VWs is a hobby of mine, so if something goes wrong with the car (and it has) ill usually be able to get up and running again in a reasonable amount of time.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back