Just had the scariest moment of my life !!!

[BAGT514]

I just had the most dreaded experience one could ever have - watching your pride and joy take off down the street with no one behind the wheel and racing towards a solid brick house......

I started as just another messed up day - my FMX had finally decided that 16 years of lugging around my 1800kg 1974 LTD with a 2800 dominator converter and 400hp Cleveland was enough and the front clutches burnt - leaving me with reverse but no foward gears. My mate dropped by with his 100 series V8 Landcruiser and picked up my car trailer. Loading it up went well untill we dicovered when loaded the right side tyres were not pumped up hard enough and looked definatively flat. So we creeped the car around the corner at very low speeds to the servo and pumped them back up from 10 psi to 38psi...

The Landcruiser pulled the trailer and car very effortlessly and we parked the car up the road from the driveway ( I have a 20 degree slope on the road out the front of my house) with the intention of reversing the car into the driveway - down the slope which is 30 degrees. When we went to drive the car off the trailer it decided not to want to start (flat battery) but the slope was enough to roll the car off the trailer so that is what we did.

Until the extractor flanges caught on the lip of end of the trailer the ramps slot in to...

I stayed in the car while my mate and his son tried to pull the car up and over the lip but it was stuck hard. I through the car in gear and put the handbrake on and ran down the house to to get my large trolley jack which I put under the cross brace of the A-frame of the trailer. I am not sure if my mat ereleased the handbrake but he got out to check to see if the extractor flanges had clearance. Next thing you know my car was off the trailer and rolling down the hill : You could hear the ratchet paul on the park clicking away but not holding it. My mate and I sprinted over the car trailer and I grabbed the front guard ( I was on the passenger side) and my mate dived into the driver seat and rammed the shifter into park and jumped on the brakes. While I had hold of it I was pulled 100m down the road - and 200 m later was a T junction with a very sturdy Besa Brick house. I am not sure which would be worse off but I know the way it was taking off it would have been doing at least 60 if we hadn't have stopped it - and if it had of hit
the house......

It would not have been a pretty sight for either.

My car is home safe and the car trailer parked back in it's hidey hole. My heart is still doing 200 beats a minute half an hour afte the fact and no amount of beers has calmed my nerves.....

I hope airing my bad experience stops others from making the same mistake. Never let the person in control of the car get out while the car is coming off the trailer....

[tankclare]

Crap hey..I would of been packing myself.

Had a similar thing happen years ago but to my parents when we lived in the main street of Kandos. Had an XD and left it running in the driveway while they went inside to grab something. Next thing you know the car had jumped into gear somehow and rolled backwards out of our driveway, over a median strip missing 2 trees by centimetres and was heading straight towards the deli (now pizza shop) across the road..somehow it managed to turn itself 180 degrees and head back up the median strip where my dad quickly jumped in it..very close to having some bad damage but luckily there were no marks on the car or shop but alot of red faces lol

[4vxc]

lucky you could stop it, leason for everyone there.

[Spanrz]

Without trying to sound dramatic, but have to mention it.

I know a mate of mine, had the same thing happened to him, except he was on the receiving end.
Car came down a steep slope, with a dog at the wheel. Funny that. Owner left car to go in house for a few seconds, dog hit the park brake and it started to roll.
Car crashed into house, severely injuring my mates daughter. She lost her leg in the event.
Lesson learned.....

[ebxr82nv]

never think just cause its in gear with the park brake on its safe on a hill, always turn the wheel into the gutter and lock the steering column.

my work truck(8.5t gvm) had its hand brake fail and rolled backwards in 2nd gear 50m down a hill, through 2 front yards and gardens, missed the house by less than a meter, over a 1m retaining wall, across a driveway and over another 1.8m retaining wall.

I now use the above method when parking on any slope

[TUF_302]

Sounds like you need a stiff drink mate!, very lucky you saved it from going into the house!

[DJMaRV]

sounds just a crisis averted!!...

Originally Posted by BAGT514

The Landcruiser pulled the trailer and car very effortlessly.

yea a cruiser could pull the earth of axis.....maybe time for an upgrade for yourself?..

[Kamshaaft]

I didn't know there were parts that were interchangeable between the Porsche 550 Spyder and the Ford 351 LTD!

Close call!! I think 'Big B*stard' would be a very appropriate name.

This morning I woke up at 8 sharp to a drunk driver just outside my bedroom taking to half a dozen signposts, letterboxes, a fence, two steel bollards, and a small tree like an unstoppable juggernaut. The kind that does not stop on his merry cruise fo' nothin', even 5 inch thick concrete culverts. Just kept on truckin'. But he left a few bobs worth of audio gear behind.

I would have shat myself in your situation. You're one lucky sob. :

[BAGT514]

Originally Posted by DJMaRV

yea a cruiser could pull the earth of axis.....maybe time for an upgrade for yourself?..

I have a 351 86 F100 in Adelaide as my designated towcar but I am two weeks away from heading home so I was at my mates mercy as far as my LTD was concernered and the LTD is the only car I have in Queensland with a towbar
The Landcruiser is nice but very expensive for what it is ...AND THIRSTY

Shane

[BAGT514]

Originally Posted by Kamshaaft

I didn't know there were parts that were interchangeable between the Porsche 550 Spyder and the Ford 351 LTD!

Close call!! I think 'Big B*stard' would be a very appropriate name.

This morning I woke up at 8 sharp to a drunk driver just outside my bedroom taking to half a dozen signposts, letterboxes, a fence, two steel bollards, and a small tree like an unstoppable juggernaut. The kind that does not stop on his merry cruise fo' nothin', even 5 inch thick concrete culverts. Just kept on truckin'. But he left a few bobs worth of audio gear behind.

I would have shat myself in your situation. You're one lucky sob. :

It's nickname has always been "Deadly Dinosaur" - 383 stroker with 2V closed chamber heads and a 2800 stall dominator with genie stainless steel tuned length extractors and a mandrel bent custom twin 2 1/2" exhaust. It looks like a restoration until you here it rumble.....

Shat myself is an understatement - it took off like a shower of ************

I am glad I caught it too

[zdcol71]

Good on you for averting major disaster, this is a classic case for the legalising of something a little more calming than a "stiff toddy"!!