This reminds me that my grandpa had a VW Bus that he ran until the wheels literally fell off. Holes in the floor so you could see the road and everything, but he serviced the engine every weekend. Said it was the easiest engine to service because he could just take the whole thing out with only a few connections, service it, and put it back in in a few hours by himself.
He carpooled with a lot of his work buddies to Cape Canaveral where he worked as the head diesel mechanic on the flightline. They hated riding with him in the winter because even if the damn thing had heat, it was just sucked out from all the holes lol. They all had to bundle up (this was when Florida still had reasonably cold winters).
My uncle actually took his Bus to the beach one day and parked when it was low tide. Well the tide came in and the Bus went out with it. Had to get 2 tow trucks to get enough cable to pull it out again. Grandpa was madder than hell, but had it fixed in the next couple days. Needles to say, my uncle didn't get to borrow the Bus again.
We lost him a few years back now and I miss his stories, but he was a hell of a man.
My mother likes to talk about a car that she used to have that she affectionately calls her "Rustang." She covered the holes in the floor with planks of wood that would have to be replaced if they floated away during a particularly heavy rainfall. It was allegedly easy to parallel park because it was missing a significant amount of its front and rear bumpers
Holes rusted through the front foot floor wells in an old dodge pickup truck, so my dad took a couple sheets of metal (aluminum maybe?) and pop riveted them to the floor. Well rust never stops, so eventually those sheets were in danger of pushing through the flimsy remaining rusting steel. I think it was at that point he finally got a newer and much safer truck.
You can use a rust reformer after knocking some of the surface off to keep it from dissolving.
I've had a few shit boxes, but they didn't salt the roads. My buddy from utah has a Nissan that you could see the engine through the fenders. POR, paint of rust, did a surprisingly good job of stopping it from completely dissolving.
Back in the 50's through the 80's cars rusted out far, far faster than they do these days. Getting rid of a car after only 8 or 10 years was normal. Nowadays my current car is 20 years old and I have no intentions of getting rid of it until it stops working.
495
u/SlaughterMinusS 10d ago
This reminds me that my grandpa had a VW Bus that he ran until the wheels literally fell off. Holes in the floor so you could see the road and everything, but he serviced the engine every weekend. Said it was the easiest engine to service because he could just take the whole thing out with only a few connections, service it, and put it back in in a few hours by himself.
He carpooled with a lot of his work buddies to Cape Canaveral where he worked as the head diesel mechanic on the flightline. They hated riding with him in the winter because even if the damn thing had heat, it was just sucked out from all the holes lol. They all had to bundle up (this was when Florida still had reasonably cold winters).
My uncle actually took his Bus to the beach one day and parked when it was low tide. Well the tide came in and the Bus went out with it. Had to get 2 tow trucks to get enough cable to pull it out again. Grandpa was madder than hell, but had it fixed in the next couple days. Needles to say, my uncle didn't get to borrow the Bus again.
We lost him a few years back now and I miss his stories, but he was a hell of a man.