[V8] Re: Things not to do with your V8 (NAC)

[quattro + 5 or 8 = fun]

I am now a married man in my 30's living many, many miles away from my
parents.  Thank God as I would probably be over there every night fixing
some screw up of my dad's.  The man is BRILLIANT.  He has 3 doctorate
degrees, 2 master, speaks 5 languages fluently, reads and converses in 3
more, has started 4 VERY successful business and can't figure out how to
turn on a computer.  Now that I have set the scene, let me finish it out
this way:

When I was just of the age (10) when I discovered how fun it was to "barrow"
dad's car (then a Toyota Tercel), I managed to get it stuck.  You see, I
grew up in the country in Eastern WA state.  Many miles of road for a kid to
drive on.  Funny thing was, this time I had his permission to barrow the
car.  Anyway, I reported the bumper deep in mud car to my old man.  He being
quick to "rescue" me jumped in the backhoe we had and rushed to help.
Instead of taking some chain out of the chain box, he proceeded to use the
bucket to "gently" push the car out of the mud bog.  Needless to say, the
Tercel now had some nice "speed holes" in  the trunk, bumper and tail light.
Oh, at least he was worried about the holes.  He "fixed" them with silicon.
Eventually, as the car appreciated in value, he "painted" over the rust and
"fixed" area with a proper air can of Rustoleum.

Another neat trick of his was to line of the same toyota in front of the
suburban have my mother hit the gas (much to her dismay) on the toyota,
while he "gently" pushed the toyota from behind.  What was the point of
this?  To "plow" the driveway, which was 1/3 mile long.  You see, the toyota
had NO ground clearance at all.  It is beside me why he did not use the
tractor with the blade on it.  WHICH IS WHY HE BOUGHT IT.

I could go on and on and on and on with stories like these.  Anyway, now the
guy drives a clean Tahoe (he had an audi but got rid of it after breaking
his neck, could not "squat" down to get in it anymore.  VW did not have the
Toe-reg at the time).  He is to old to care about piled up snow.  He is to
old to care about pulling stuck kids out of a ditch.  Now he just laughs,
calls AAA and gives the kid the bill.

Morale of the story; don't feel so dumb about messing up the trunk striker
latch.  Unlike my old man, just don't do it again.  ;)


Shayne


Bay Area, CA
Eastern WA State


PARTING:  1972 Mercedes Benz 280 SE 4.5
PARTING:  1986 Audi 4000 CS quattro


>> 
>> And I KNEW I shouldn't.  But I did.  And I screwed myself.
>> 
>>   I had to get my "new" GT out of a snow bank and into storage.  It was icy,
>> so I thought instead of digging through 10 feet of ice twice to make tracks,
>> I would use Der TorqueMeister to get the GT out.  Good idea.  Worked like a
>> charm.  Car came right out.  However, my lapse of judgement (I KNOW, I KNOW,
>> I KNOW not to do this) was to use the trunk pin as a tow point.  I just
>> wanted to get it done quick and I figured 10 feet wouldn't matter.  It did -
>> to the tune of 1/4 inch.  I pulled the whole panel out just a hair and bent
>> the pin.  So, after much hammering, swearing, slamming of the trunk, getting
>> on my hands and knees to see why it wouldn't latch, and shimming the pin out
>> 1/4 inch with 4 spacers from something in the new GT (the misc. bolt bucket),
>> I got the trunk to latch.  Total time to move the car 10 feet?  2 hours.
>> 
>>   Doh.
>> 
>>   I couldn't be bothered to just get a little dirty to start with, huh...
>> 
>>   idiot.
>> 
>>   Carter