short story time

autox19

autox19

True Classic
I was telling a friend a few short stories about me owning an X19. thought this would be a good place to post a few and maybe even hear a few.
I recently posted a pic of me preparing to move to Arizona. As with most trips in an X it was eventful. it was a 1979 with a 28/36 weber, the catalytic covertor removed and only a turbo thrush $15 special on for an exhaust. 4k was sooooo droning for 2000 miles. I was following my cousin in his pickup with a trailer. we had walkie talkies to communicate between us. this is where we hit issue number 1. Radio interference. The plan was for me to be the runner to scout out any speed traps. well as soon as I got in front of the truck, I would lose communication. as soon as I went beside it or behind, I could hear clear as day. took a bit to realize with the 2 engines between us it was causing too much interference or blockage. so that plan was scrapped. we played a game with the duck tape that got loose and was flopping behind the trailer, I ended up trying to drift behind the trailer and run over it with my X. well learned about areo that day. as soon as I got close, it would fly up and land on my hood. Here comes the "typical long trip part. we were coming into amerillo texas and the electric gauge want to 0. pulled over and everything looked ok, but no voltage. in a forgien car, deep in 'merican texas. we called a wrecker and we got lucky. we were having him tow us to a motel where we could sleep and hopefully work on the car when he pointed out his brother had one of these fiats. He towed us to his brothers house (think VERY horror story looking place) and sure enough he had 3-4 of them actually! Although he didnt have a good alternator that would fit, he actually had a rebuild kit for my exact one and said he could have it up and ready be tomorrow morning. We went back to the hotel for the night, looked in the yellow pages for a place to eat, and I kid you not, under animal carcass remove it said see Johnson Canning company.
Next day the guy actually brought us the car as he pointed out he was test driving it and went right past the hotel anyway. We paid him $100, he asked for $30. and drove him back to his place. the rest of the trip was uneventful other then the 70 MPH drone. We pulled into HotTopps (no not a strip bar, it was a convertible mini truck kit company my cousin worked for) about 3 am, and just slept in the parking lot as we were to tired to go further.


Odie
 
Short Story #2: winter part 1
Before I did my brief stint in Arizona, I lived in Michigan (where I am now) My X was my daily driver. It actually is a pretty good car in winter with a few caveats IMO. 1. Making a turn will require careful balance between steering with the steering wheel and steering with your accelerator. Just turning the wheel from a dead stop and accelerating quickly will usually just cause the car to go straight with the front wheels either becoming snow plows or they just ride on top of the snow. 2. momentum when the snow is over 6" deep. yeah the car doesnt have 6" of clearance so once moving, you will become a plow and need to keep momentum. If you stop, you will liely have to go a little backwards before going back forward to start the plaw action again especially in wet snow. So the story. I worked at a car dealership. It was late fall when a 82 mustang GT came in on trade. it had a hit in the rear but only cosmetic, and it wouldnt start. I was talking to a mechanic about it telling him because of the dents and it not starting they are going to wholesale it cheap and it might make a fun beater. He chuckled and said buy it he was confident he could get it running in less than 5 min. So working at the dealership we bought things for $100 over when they had into it. so about $700 later I owned a miustang. the mechanic waited until the previous owner was gone and the sales manager wasnt looking as took my to the back lot where it was towed, crawled under it and came out and said start it up. I got in, cranked it and it started without an issue. "Ground Strap" he said with a grin. So I know had a beater. after the first snow a few weeks later about 1-2 inches, I figured it was time for the stang to earn its keep and could get the X out of the snow. I had a slight hill out of the parking lot at my apartment. yeah, the mustang didnt like that. after a runing start I made it out. on to the next "hill". about 3 stop signs from my place there was a stop sign on another un noticable incline. again the stang slipped and slid and could not make it up the hill. I turned around and went home to pick up the reliable winter car. the X19. I did eventually get snow tires on the mustang and it was fun to drive, but sold it next spring because it just wasnt as fun as the X. and the X never got 100% stuck in the snow. (ok it almost did, but that is winter part 2)


does any one else have any quick short stories?

Odie
 
Winter inspires lots of great car stories. I have many, but will tell this one. I had made plans for a first date with a young lady I met at work. It was winter 1981 and I had a 1980 X as my only car. As mentioned by Odie, they are wonderful winter cars within reason. The day of our planned date, winter decided to sleet first, then dump 8" of snow during the late afternoon. I made it home and got ready, but then looked at the weather and called the young lady to postpone. That call did not go well and in the end I decided to see if I could get to her apt about 30 minutes away in good weather.

Problem one, there was a sweeping curve on a downhill section about a mile from my apt. The section was only a few hundred yards long, but steep. Given the weather, I was travelling at only 5-10 mph. It was already dark and as I got to the point where the hill started down I saw a line of cop cars blocking the uphill lanes. I tapped the brakes trying to figure out what they were doing there, it became apparent when the X started to very slowly rotate. Yep, the plows had uncovered the sleet. the hill was an ice rink. So there I went, slowly spinning down and across the hill towards the drainage culvert that ran along side the road. It was really not scary, it was so slow motion. The car would spin faster when the engine weight was downhill, then slow as the engine made the uphill part of the circle. It was almost funny and seemed to go on forever as the culvert got closer.

I made it about half way down the hill before the X went into the culvert. Lots of good luck here. At point of entry the culvert was about 4ft deep with a very gentle grass slope covered in fresh snow. The X slid down the slope easily and came to rest aiming downhill. I had stepped on the clutch early in this journey, so the engine never died. The driver side wheels were sitting on the concrete bottom of the culvert. I couldn't see over the top of the culvert from in the car, but my headlights revealed that the melt water had cleared the center 2 feet of the culvert. I figured I would just drive down the culvert to where the cops were at the bottom.

As I started down the hill in the culvert, I suddenly noticed lots of activity above me and realized it was a group of cops that were struggling up the hill to save me. I didn't stop, just kept going to keep my momentum up. Fortunately, the culvert got shallower the further down the hill I went. When I got to the bottom of the hill, the culvert was only about 1 foot deep with the same gentle bank, so I decided to try to get up on the shoulder. The X drove right up the bank and I stopped on the shoulder about 10 feet from the line of Police cars. The cops were back down the hill and laughing there asses off by this time. I said, "Maybe you should have somebody blocking the top of the hill too."

We all checked out the car and it was fine, so off I went on my date. It was mostly highway from here on and the plows and salt trucks always hit the highways early. At least I got an X story, the date itself was forgettable.
 
Here in Texas, icy road conditions can occur once or twice a year. In the late 80's while in my 86, we had one such weather occurance and I was trying to make my way home from work. Everyone was slipping and sliding around. Leaving from a stoplight, I was the front row in the line of traffic. I made it to the other side of the intersection ok, but then the rear end started to slip and it was too late. I knew it was coming around. There was a parking lot on my right, and the car came around and came to rest exactly in the first space in the lot. I couldn't pass up the opportunity, so I quicky climbed out of the car and headed towards the front door of the building whose parking lot it was, pretending I had orchestrated the whole thing.

Second story, same icy conditions. I ventured across the street in the X to the grocery store parking lot for some quality donut time. The store shut down early and sent everyone home because of the weather, so the lot was deserted. It was dark by this time. I commenced doing some laps to get some ice-driving training, tail hanging out. Then some headlights appeared at the edge of the lot and just sat there. I figured it was a cop and I was busted, so I pulled over to the side of the lot to wait for him to come over. It was not a cop, it was a fellow gearhead, and he took his turn doing donuts/laps while I waited, then he politely yielded back to me and we each took several more turns before calling it a night.
 
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Winter #2. lower Michigan is pretty flat. but we do have a few hills. I was driving to a friends house out in the boonies during a small blizzard. top off, heat cranked windows up. Great fresh air driving. his house is about 8 miles down a road that in normal conditions would have about 5 cars an hour going down it. not busy at all. It was after 11 pm, so there were even less. When I started down the road I was following "2 tracks" made down the center of the road in the snow. after about 2 miles, those were covered and I was making tracks. the road looked pretty flat, but I knew there where small (less than 2-3 feet) little dips/hills in it. there if farm land on either side so quite a bit of drifting going on. I had to try and keep a steady speed as each time I hit a drift that ended up with me going totally under snow it would slow me down. I knew if I stopped I would be doomed to not be able to restart momentum. and yes, I still had the top off. Plundering down the road I reached a spot where the road goes into a valley about 150 feet down then back up. Crap. I did my best to get as much speed as I could going down. when I thought I hit the flat spot at the bottom, I was wrong and quickly got engulfed by snow as the car plowed in and stopped moving forward. the now was about 60" deep. Keep in mind the height of an X.... and yes. top is still off. So The inside was now full of snow. car was no longer moving forward. I am under a drift on a road that although no very many people go down they still do and I am pretty much hidden in the middle of the road unless they come from behind me where they can at least see my tracks. Keeping the car runing as I didnt want to think about what would happen if I couldnt start it, I climbed out to check things out. appears that I might be able to still go backwards if I clear a bit of snow. I hand dug down to pavement behind my tires for about 4 feet. Climbed back in, digging spots in the snow to get my feet down in the well. (the entire frunk was under 2-3 feet of snow so I couldnt reach the top to put it back on) and hit reverse. I Moved!!! woo hoo!! slowly going back and forth for what seemed to be about 1000 times, I finally got enough momentum to get back up to the top of the hill. sitting at the top, I contemplated how to either turn around or try to plow my way through. I decided to try to turn around. after about 15 minutes of wiggling, I finally got the car facing back to where I came from. then I see headlights.. crap. I am still in the middle of the road. with the snow that got crushed down from turning around, I actually got moved over, good thing as the headlights coming towards me was form a large plow truck. He obviously knew he had to keep speed up so he buzzed me close enough that the snow off of it, shook my car. I was getting ready to see this thing blast through the snow at the bottom then I heard a big THUD. yup. he was stuck t the bottom off the side of the road, the plaw angle and the weight of the snow shoved him off. I walked down to see if the driver was ok. He was but was going to be a bit before someone could come get him out. We walked to the nearest house (it was before cel phones) and I called my friend and he came with his dad on snowmobiles, made a track back up the hill and the driver and I actually followed them back to their house in my fiat. Yes the interior was wet and still snowy, but I did put the top back up. He was blown away that I got my self out of the drift..... ok honestly so was I, but I had nothing better to do than keep trying.

Odie
 
When we lived south of Keene NH, we had our 1980 X. At the time we had three cars, the X, a Ford Fiesta and a VW Scirocco.

It was early November and I had driven the X to work. It started to snow and as my wife worked the morning/afternoon I called her to leave me the Fiesta and have her take the X home as I didn’t want to drive in deeper snow and salt.

When I got home I found out that when she went through a village just south of where I worked she had done three complete revolutions down the center of the village main street alongside the green on what was not snow but black ice. Happily she touched nothing and as she approached the turn in the road the ice disappeared as the car was pointed in the direction of travel and she proceeded on her way.

That was the last time she or I drove an X in the winter (as in when there had been precipitation), I do drive mine up until the salt drops and then again after it has been washed away after several rain storms in late winter/early spring.

The road in that town splits to go around the village green, she was proceeding south on 12 which went around the left side of the green in this image. Had the ice continued she would have had an even more interesting ride due to the corner at the bottom of the green. Where she started spinning was about where the 12 is in the image below, she had tapped the brakes to slow down for the approaching downhill turn.

Fun times for her :oops:

985EDD9D-26D8-4D8B-A1EB-4A49070FA74C.jpeg
 
kmead said:
Chilly here with snow up north, its coming here though that is for sure. Just a matter of which day now.
Click to expand...
we had some about 2 hours ago.. nothing stuck, but it was coming down. and we are not in the lake effect area like you!

Odie
 
Winter driving in Los Angeles is great; it's the same damn weather all year round.

We're actually going to have a 90 degree Halloween.
 
when I bought my first X. It was 1986. a dealership down the road from me had 2 cars I was interested in. a 1968 camaro and a 1979 fiat x19. The chevy was $3500 and the fiat was $2000 (hindsight the investment was way better on the camaro) I was leaning towards the chevy each time I drove by. When I finally when in to actually look/drive them, I fell in love with the X as soon as I sat in it. I went for a test drive and found the only issue I knew about was it had a sticky throttle. Not a bog deal as there isnt usually much causing a sticky throttle (so I thought). After doing the paperwork I purchased the little green machine and it was my first car I had to make payments on Woo hoo!! Step to adulthood. I went to drive it home and found it got worse to the point I pretty much set it like e throttle on a lawn mower and drove it without touching the gas to get it to my Uncles house who was car savvy.
My uncle is a big guy and couldnt believe I bought something so small. After looking at the carb, it was figured out that it was sticking in the cable or pedal. Without any manual (or a great forum like this) we started to figure out hot to get at the pedal. I am in mid Michigan mind you, 'merican car country and although he worked at oldsmobile, he has never worked on a mid engine car so the assembly wasnt like 99% of all the cars he has worked on. The big advantage he had, and he reminded me many times is he cant fit in it so I had to do all the work. This was also the first car I really worked on. after alot of choice words and some "we will figure out how to get it back in later" conversations, we got the pedal out. sure enough it was really stiff. we tried soaking it in penetrating fluid or WD 40, I forget which. maybe both. nothing. We figured out that it was corrosion in between the metal pedal and the plastic mount. After cutting away a it of the plastic we had success.
Today I can probably put the assembly back together blindfolded. Actually because I found you are doing it mostly by feel blindfolded wouldnt matter. Back then I was really perplexed. we worked on it a few more hours but it was now nighttime and he drove me back to my house. bummer. "new" car and I couldnt even drive it. I had school the next day and was anxious all day knowing I would be working on the car after school. I was bummed as I didnt have a cool car to drive to school that day. time went by and finally got to my uncles after work. sitting on top of the car was a purple book we all have become familiar with. a haynes manual. We also found that although very helpful for many things, the pedal assembly wasnt one. but it gave us enough info we could get the job done. Not only that, it is where I learned that the top can be stowed under the frunk!
this began my life long obsession with these lovely cars. From this I have packed my X knowledge with the following.:
  • almost all I have owned need the pedal fixed to keep it from getting stuck
  • If you dont tune the carb right the catalytic convertor glows red and the car will stop running.
  • replacing convertor and muffler with a cheap turbo thrush makes wonderful sounds albeit loud.
  • although not a Lamborghini, revving it before downshifting to pass on the freeway still evokes cannonball run memories.
  • it can fit under most parking gates.
  • nobody really knows what it is but once said, it seems like everyone knows someone who had one.
  • can out corner a mustang full of idiots (different story)
  • if you park next to a F150, they can use your top as a table right outside their window. Perfect height.
  • it is possible to shift from 5th to reverse if you really want to (yet another story)
  • 25 MPH can seem like 50 in this car.
  • 50 MPH in a 25 zone will get you a ticket.
  • It can out brake a cop car (another story)
  • entering the car with the top off needs to be like magnum PI one hand on the targa one on the windshield. no door needs to be opened
  • being flexible REALLY helps when working on these cars.
  • the people who are addicted to these are the friendliest people I know.

Odie
 
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