car at the time was an old Austin Marina 4 door, 4 cylinder, 4 speed.
Sometime after I left I lost the brakes or at least most of them.
Since I
was driving in the very early morning during the week on mostly 2 lane
roads through the countryside, I made it without incident. REALLY
STUPID,
I've got one of those. '60 Falcon, returning cross-state to Cow College
(mostly 2-lane roads) after Christmas break with my girlfriend, Saturday
night. Next to no money, of course. Partway through the trip I started
hearing odd little noises, and shortly after passing through a small
town
the noises got not so odd and not so little. Rear wheel bearing went
out.
Returned to small town to find only service station now closed. Decided
to press through, figured we could sleep in the car if necessary.
Bearing chewed itself to small pieces, the heat took out the brakes
(single-circuit), and the geometry change took out the parking brake.
We'd go about 15 MPH for 15 minutes, then stop for 15 minutes and
throw snow on the rear wheel until it stopped hissing. The trip was
interminable, and definitely a strain on the relationship. One of the
games I'd like to play in that car was to see how far I could get on my
trips without using the brakes, so I was well-practiced with a
now-needed
skill! (The tractors on our farmlet had bad brakes, so this was
something
you needed to know how to do.) By the time we got to the next (and
only)
big town the situation had stabilized, and we decided to continue on
(after a very late dinner) the final 30 miles.
The repair (at the Ford dealership) was actually quite reasonable.
One wheel bearing, a brake slave cylinder rebuild, and a bit of metal
or two for the parking brake. I think they knew they couldn't put
the bite too hard on college students, and word of mouth definitely
works in a place like that.
-- Jim
