I was living at Saline Valley all winter long and using my 68 Dune Buggy (built on a 59 VW frame) as a supply runner into Bishop, it was the only vehicle that could get thru the passes during deep winter, wrapped and actual chain around the rear rims and it floated over the top of the snow it was so light, so the 3-4ft snow drifts where not a problem. The lack of no heater was tho. I had two major breakdowns with it.
1) The rear axle stripped out in the hub, so car wouldn't move, had them weld on the cast iron drum to the axle, don't ask me how but they did it!
2) Hit a huge chunk of ice on the north pass that ripped out the hydraulic brake line, being single master cylinder I lost all brakes, of course the ebrake didn't work. Car went hauling azz down the mountains with no way to stop it, told my brother to get ready to jump but I tried one last thing, shut the engine off, jammed the shifter into reverse, started up the engine and then feathered the clutch to get the car to slow down.
Here is a call box at Saline Valley, funny to see one since there is no electricity around for many miles. It had a Styrofoam cup and a string attached lol.
I also had a 65 Dodge Dart convertible when I was a teenager, it was running on 4 of its 6 cylinders, the muffler had fallen off so the exhaust ended about midway on the car. The rear floorboard was gone due to rust. Well running on 4 cylinders the car backfired and popped a lot because of the unburnt fuel from the other 2 cylinders. One backfire caught the rear seat of the car on fire (because of the hole in the rear floorboard). So being an unwise teenager and not wanting my 65 Dodge to burn to the ground I drove it to 2 blocks to the nearest place I knew had water, a local gas station! Back then the water fill for the radiator was located on the island with the pumps, so I pulled a flaming dodge dart up to the gas pump and used the radiator water fill to slowly put out the fire, as those radiator water fill hoses had a really slow water flow rate. Crazy stupid thing to do, but I was a teenager.
Same old Dodge Dart, car lost its brakes going down a small side street at 25 mph, of course, no working emergency brake, single master cylinder car. I jammed the shifter into park, but the pin wouldn't catch at that speed, so I opened the door and stood/slid on both feet trying to stop car while holding the steering wheel. The car was convertible so I could do this. Well after about 50 feet of this, the park pin finally caught and I slammed into the windshield.
POS Dart again, did I mention the car looked nice but was completely rusted out on the frame and body? My friends used to come up and poke on the car and you could put your finger through almost any portion of the body, only the paint was still holding the metal there, used to piss me off when my friends poked at my car. Anyways, I was entering a driveway kind of fast, and the torsion bars ripped through the rusted out frame, slamming the front suspension way down. The car got stuck on the driveway entrance, and the slant 6 running on 4 cylinders was not strong enough to unstick it.
There was the time I rolled a front subframe with wheels from high school auto shop to my house (walking it down the city streets) to replace a frame on my 67 Firebird that I bent driving over a 3 foot concrete retaining wall...
Saline Valley again, my 69 class A RV; which if you know Saline Valley is crazy a class A RV was there to begin with; my battery box ripped off and i ran over my batteries, which happened to be both starting and house combined, RV was still running, I didn't shut it off and there is nothing around for hours, no tow truck is going to get a class A out there. Well, I drove over to an old mining camp and grabbed a pair of ancient Trojan 6volts from an old tractor and hooked them up. Lol those Trojans worked for years after that!
