Scariest vehicle you have driven?

Blaze

Blaze

The Jeeper Reaper
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Location
Wake Forest, NC
Like, as in deadly and not stupid fast. :lol:

I just bought a ZJ from a guy off of Craigslist, I was going to buy it as a wheeling rig, but it is going to end up as parts inventory. :lol: Dude totally misrepresented the thing, and if I didn't deal in Jeep parts I would have been pissed he wasted my time. My tow rig is waiting for me to install the new turbo this weekend, so I figured I'd drive this one home, guy said it ran and drove good.

Uh, no. :lol: This thing is a damn widowmaker. I live up in the sticks up windy roads. I was taking it easy (I think, the speedo was broken) and I came around one turn and the rear axle felt like it was about to come out from underneath the Jeep. I am pretty sure the body of the Jeep was going at about a 30deg angle to the road and still going straight. Then the brake light came on and the pedal went to the floor. :lol: Luckily I was almost home and limped it to the shop and parked it. I have driven a lot of stupid things in my life, this was by far the most terrifying vehicle I have driven, in no way was this thing roadworthy. :lol:

Got me thinking of what other dumb stuff you guys have driven home.

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Bought a K10 at auction, on the drive home I quickly found out the rag joint on the steering column was toast. Wheel would turn about 90* before any thing happened at the tires
 
1) back in the day when Callalante was known as Pond Mountain I broke the rear axle yoke on my CJ7, and then proceeded to break a hub on the front. drove it from there back to Boone with 1 wheel drive - only the front right pulling (front locker). SKETTTCCCHHYYYY damn near changed lanes getting on and off the throttle. with a 5 speed and the mountains you can imagine the butt pucker factor. not advisable

2) drove a new to me barn find EB that had no bushings in the front C's that was a hoot too. it had been sitting for years until I picked it up and upon the first braking they crumbled and fell out. heehaw

3) riding- anything I was passenger in while Dylan was driving. if he reads this he'll know about the low speed Callalante parking lot adventure.
 
I drove a concrete truck that had all those problems you listed and probably a few more....
 
I was 16, freshly licensed, and drove my grandmother's 1970 Plymouth Scamp from her house to the store down a hilly, windy road in western PA. No power steering or brakes on that beast and I was pushing on the brake pedal with both feet at I pulled on the steering wheel to generate any stopping power. Thought I was going to die several times. That car looked exactly like this one:
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That's crazy @Chuckman, I have nearly the same sketchy story, just a five speed Cherokee. It actually finally let go in Huntersville when the front diff. locked up and snapped the last axle.
 
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My brother in law bought an old 50's f600 dump truck several years back. I drove it home in the dark in 30 degree rainy weather with no windshield wipers and only the front right brakes were working and the rear end was locked in low range. To top it off it was only firing on 5 cylinders and would cut off if not kept tached up when stopping.

Oh and it had no exhaust past the manifold and between the rusty floor and no shift boot I almost died from the fumes and smoke. It looked like cheech and chong were driving.
 
I have driven so many death trap jeeps... Drove home 20 miles using only the ebrake on the XJ once... Used to drive with Death wobble in high school.

I don't even want to think about it. Haha. Rough days.
 
Bought a 85 extra cab Toyota for an awesome deal, only kicker was it had to go that day. I didn't take a trailer so I jumped in it and off I went. I bought the truck for cheap knowing the rear frame was rotted and needed replacing.... The rear leaf hanger detached itself from the frame not long after I left.
 
Years ago,like mid 90's or something,there was an editorial in one of the car mags(Car Craft/Matt King I think) about things being "Car guy safe".It basically said that cars that were car guy safe weren't necessarily safe for the gen public.I have drove many that were in questionable cond.
 
75 BMW R90 that i managed to find race pistons for and got the last Daytona race cam out Germany. I had big home grown Delorto carbs and a 2 into one Dunstal race pipe.

Damn I loved that bike. I put the best tires made on it and would leave sport bikes occasionally. The scary part was the fawking suspension and the rear brake was agricultural at best!
 
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I also took a 70 Jeepster on a 750 mile road trip from Asheville to Chicago. It was SOA with a 350 and SM465.

Rear end was a welded 44 out of a Scout! Bitch purred at 75 mph!!!
 
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strange1 said:
Probably @StretchASU's cr250 when I had the throttle cable routed wrong. It's not a lot of fun when you can't let off the gas.
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A friend rented a place right beside me in the 80s and had 2 guys he worked with move in with him, Mike and Mitch. They were from Michigan where they raced Snowmobiles and Dirt bikes. Mike was a big boy, about 400 lbs. and had a strong, built KX 500, and could ride the shit out of it. About a dozen of us were wheeling/riding one day and Mike offered to let me ride his Bike, I declined, I was 21 about 170 lbs, I'd only ridden a RM125 a few times and not much experience w any fast, 2 stroke motorcycles. Then they teased me, called me chicken/poosy etc. so I said alright and jumped on it. He told me the shift pattern but nobody told me the rear shock was shot, the damper wasn't working at all.........only a spring back there on the swing arm I'm sure was tweaked to hold Mikes fat ass. I took off down the power line like a rocket, the bike was insanely powerful and a brand new knobby on the back....1st,2nd, 3rd, now going 60 at least I came to the first of several small berms they build to stop erosion on the power lines. I stood on the pegs and throttled as I hit hit the berm. the rear bounced up and bucked me in the air , landing/ riding the front wheel for a bit, my hand on the throttle twisted w my body as I came back down to the seat and goosed the throttle, about popping a wheelie just in time to hit the next berm, this time my ass was on the seat cause I missed the pegs and when the back tire hit the berm I was launched almost straight up, feet high above my ass, looking straight down at the dirt and rocks wizzing by underneath me riding on the front wheel again, I swear I almost flipped over the bars, This bouncing- throttling- another berm,bouncing continued at least 5 more times and I was sure I was gonna be hurt real bad or worse,I think I saw my life flash before my eyes! but somehow I finally slowed down and turned around. I rode back in 2nd gear to the laughing crowd, stopped, jumped off and threw Mikes Bike on the ground in front of him. He just kept laughing and told me that the shock was busted, I told him that was not funny, and don't ever let me ride that f-ing bike again.
 
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YotaOnRocks said:
View attachment 178914 My brother in law bought an old 50's f600 dump truck several years back. I drove it home in the dark in 30 degree rainy weather with no windshield wipers and only the front right brakes were working and the rear end was locked in low range. To top it off it was only firing on 5 cylinders and would cut off if not kept tached up when stopping.

Oh and it had no exhaust past the manifold and between the rusty floor and no shift boot I almost died from the fumes and smoke. It looked like cheech and chong were driving.
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My dad had one almost identical to that truck. One day I decided to take it to get some mulch ha I made it about 2 miles turned that bitch around idk how he drove, it had a round of play in the wheel and brakes were iffy guess he was used to it I wasn't gonna try it.

When I was 16 first vehicle was a 78 cj7 thought I'd lift it found some longer shackles at auto zone more like flat bar with holes. Anyways put them on the highest hole, set it up quite a bit. Took out of the driveway if I touched the gas it shot in the other lane touch the brake it was in the ditch lol
 
I built a 70 dart with a nasty 472 big block. It had 8" drum brakes all the way around and a 3:23 geared axle. It literally would make the needle disappear when it swept over. The car ran low 7s in the eighth on radials (not sticky radials) at 92MPH with a stock hemi converter and the 3:23s. It was an easy 140MPH car and a genuine 500 HP. It had 90-10 shocks, the pinion snubber was adjusted to rest on the floor pan and it had a manual steering box that I could not keep the bolts tight on. Every once in a while it would death wobble and I knew the bolts needed to be tightened LOL. That car was a genuine widow maker.

I once had 3 buddies from the dealership with me on a hotdog run to the Grocery Bag in Archer Lodge. We were coming back when another coworker came up behind us and attempted to pass us coming down that long hill toward the Neuse River bridge in Wilson Mills. I stepped down on that skinny pedal and when it downshifted it spun the tires a few feet at 50 or so MPH HAHAHAHA. I held it to the bridge and there was a road crew down there painting lines. I will never forget the look on that guy holding the stopsign when I went by at about a buck 30. He followed us with the stopsign as we went by in complete shock as dual 3" Flowmasters roared by in that Lemon Glo (genuine Dupont color of yellow from Jeff Gordon's car) Dart.

I had the most fun of my life in that car. I also came the closest to death in it a few times when trying to stop it from triple digits with 8" drums and loose steering box :eek:
I drove it like a fool and it is a complete wonder to me that I didn't get killed in that car.

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Not exactly a death-trap, but I bought a 94 Taurus SHO when I was 20 years old. It was way too fast for my common sense to keep up. There used to be a place near North Wilkes High School that we called Haymeadows Hump. There was a long downhill straight-away, then a sweeping left hand turn, with another straight going up a little hill. At the top of the hill was an intersection, then it dropped sharply off on the other side. We always thought you could jump it if you hit it fast enough, but nobody with a fast car was dumb enough to try.... Until I got a fast car. Lets just say that if you enter the left hand turn seeing triple-digits on the speedo, then accelerate another 30-35mph or so, a Ford Taurus will literally fly (for a second or two anyways). That spot has since been bulldozed and now has a round-about at the top of the hill.
 
GF's (now wife) Bronco II 'her first car' - she complained about driving it to my house one day, so I took it for a spin... Bushings gone on the TTB front end, all 4 shocks were dead and no sway bars to help. Combine that with the power steering so good you could turn the wheel with your pinky, I was shocked she made it on a 30min drive. Any twitch of the wheel at 55 made it nearly leap across the road or in the ditch.

Then to top if off, later that night after deciding to replace the shocks, I find out that she's got a significant fuel leak in the line leading up to the filter canister on the frame rail
 
I guess you can call it self inflicted, but the most scary unnerving drive I've ever had to make in a vehicle was my old blue xj on 44/9 on 36 tsls on the way back from windrock ohv during a mid Carolina jeepers club run about 4 years ago. Jeep always ran great at any speed but during the four day wheeling trip I managed to banana my rear driveshaft pretty bad. On top of that I was fighting with my steering bolts coming loose and some 5 year old heim joints on their last leg. Last day of the trip, I and a few others (Gillis Coleman's 1 ton JK on 40s and a guy named Ricky with a JK on 35s) drove from oliver springs Tennessee back home to south Carolina in the freezing cold downpour rain, or at least attempted to lol. Ricky was getting death wobble at interstate sppeds, Gillis had only a set of wooden doors with no windows and little to no defrost. The three of us were traveling in a very close posse, me in the middle with my jeeps driveshaft on the verge of detonation. Outside of Knoxville it got so scary we had to stop and scrape pennies to get a motel room and continue the drive the next day, after some much needed repairs. Totally epic in every way.
 
not really the vehicle faults as much as my faults for lack of maintenance, but:

'93 ZJ I lifted and put extended brake hoses on. well I didn't bungee the hoses back and ended up rubbing the tire until it rubbed a hole through the brake hose while running 70mph up Hwy 52 through Winston. I found out when traffic came to a sudden stop and my brake pedal went to the floor. Luckily there was a hole in traffic to my right and I dove between two cars to the emergency lane and coasted to stop.

'65 Mini Cooper. Steering column splines let loose in the middle of a left hand turn through an intersection. Somehow I figured out REAL quick that If I pushed on the top of the steering wheel and pulled on the bottom it put enough tension on the splines at the bottom of the shaft to turn again. Drove it on home like that.

'73 Commando SOA done by the PO. For some reason they thought they needed to rotate the pinion when they lifted it and the steering is all the fawk over the place. eventually just got use to it. Still haven't cut the perches off to fix it. Have to drive like this:driver: to keep a straight line.
 
I'm usually pretty comfortable as long as I am behind the wheel. Even if its about to hit the fan. Ignorance, denial, whatever. Haha. Now riding WITH people...yeah that takes me a while to get comfortable and the dumbest stuff seems to happen when I am riding shotgun.

Fall Crawl...maybe 07-08ish? @farmboy had just gotten his buggy back with the 5.3 swapped in. He drove it around the Verda field for a little while and on the obstacles. We decide to head down into town for food or something, not wheelin yet. He pulls it out onto the road and nails the throttle to see about all that woopow. Well shonuff that thing hangs WFO and we are pointed straight at that first old gas station on the right past the field. :lol: Idk what scared me more...the idea of slamming head on into gas pumps, or his flailing around inside the buggy trying to either slam it in neutral or hit the kill switch. Whole situation was priceless and I am sure we were both ghost white when that buggy rolled to a stop on the side of the road. :lol:

A year or so before we were all at Uwharrie and Got4Lo's yellow TJ has the absolute WORST death wobble I have ever seen. Swears up and down its not that bad. So we roll out of the outpost and onto the highway and he just yells "I'm just gonna drive through it!" Well "drive through it" means the Jeep goes full effin potato and it only seems better because the wobble is so fast it actually smooths out! I thought for sure that we would die if there was an oncoming car because it looked like the whole front end was walking between two lanes.
 
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