begin quoting gossamer axe as of Fri, May 20, 2005 at 02:11:57PM -0700: > > I was a passenger in a car when the distributor ate itself at 70 mph. > > Must've been one toothy distributor
:) Well, there's a stack of plates and springs and things to handle the timing advance, all with a pretty tight clearance. We guess that a screw "fell out" in there somewhere, and the timing advance mechanism turned itself into a metallic gravel. The distributor sounded like a rainstick when it got pulled out. > > We were able to steer the car to the side of the road and stop. A > > bit worrying, but it wasn't a problem. > > I used to have a 1973 Plymouth Fury III (or 2), when the engine died > the steering locked up (ugh), Yikes! Why? Totally hydraulic steering? > it had a bad stalling problem, used to > freak me out when I drove down the freeway and thought about it. what > happens if I'm going (at that time) 55 and the engine quits and the > steering locks up? Luckily my Mustang will coast, no steering lockup > but the power steering goes away and it's difficult to steer but > managable, and more pushable than the Plymouth boat I had. Heh. I really do think it's a good idea to go somewhere flat without any obstacles, and to test how a car drives in various situations. Turn off the engine and try to steer. Same again but brake... > You were very lucky, your guardian angel was watching out for you (or > someone). Yup. The "drunkard's walk" of the (then-uncontrolled) wheel kept us on the road, just barely. If it hadn't flip-flopped back and forth, we'd've either ended up in the stand of (largish) trees, or the school playground. > > Losing power can be dangerous (if this had happened as we were > > crossing some railroad tracks, say...), but not nearly as dangerous > > as losing steering (or braking). > > Very, but computer based cars or 100% mechanical cars it does happen. Yup. But computer-controlled systems *still* end up delegating to mechanical systems, so it's an extra failure mode that doesn't appear to eliminate any other failure modes. :) > > -Stewart "I write software. Therefore, I don't trust it." Stremler > > do you not trust the software you write? Not if I don't have to, and I trust others less. Especially when software is being used for convenince or cost-reduction instead of where its weaknesses are more than counterbalanced by its utility. If I were to write the software to control steering of a car, I'd also really want a mechanical fallback system. To the point where if I could get away with it, I'd refuse to write the software w/o such a fallback system in place. -Stewart "Not all errors are avoidable. So avoid the ones you can." Stremler
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