DIYbanter - View Single Post - Funny new book

wrote:
I hate to admit this, but when I was poor, young and dumb in the
mid-70's I owned two of the cars in this book - 1974 Mustang II and
1973 Chevy Vega.

The only thing good about the Vega is it had a heated rear window, so
your hands didn't get cold when you had to push it!

Well, I had a '76 Vega with 4-speed and the fancy instrument panel
(4 gauges plus tach speedo and clock). A/C too. It worked, and
pretty well. I blew the 7" clutch at 18000 miles, and had the
option to put in a 14" clutch plate. I did, it lasted through the
76,000 miles I put on the thing and was still going strong. But,
the clutch was undrivable. I had to invent a special technique
to drive it, which I wasn't able to teach anybody else. When
you started to engage the clutch, normally you'd increase the gas
a bit as the clutch was nearly fully engaged. This would cause
giant clutch chatter that would nearly break your teeth! Instead,
you took your foot OFF the gas until the clutch was fully engaged,
the get back on the gas.

But, other than burning a little oil (well, maybe a LOT of oil)
it really wasn't such a bad car. Got incredible gas milage, like
40 on the highway.

My vote for the worst car ever was a 1973 Dodge Dart Swinger, sometimes
confused with the Bic Bananna, as ours was yellow with a black vinyl
top. This was one of Chrysler's first unibody models, and they had no
idea how to control vibrations and resonances. When you went over
railroad tracks, the steering wheel would vibrate up and down with
such violence it was like holding onto a pneumatic jackhammer. I
actually got BRUISES on my hands from this! I eventually learned
to hold the wheel at 3 and 9 o'clock with my fingertips only, when on
rough road surfaces. If you needed to brake or turn on rough road
surfaces, just forget it -- the wheels were not actually on the road
surface more than 10% of the time.

But, the worst part was that the brake cylinders were not adjusted for
the weight balance of the car. This thing had a 318 V-8, automatic
and air conditioning, as well as power steering and brakes. but, they
only provided one set of brake cylinders for all variants, from 6-cyl,
man trans with no accessories to the massively front-heavy ones like
ours. The result is that when you hit the brakes, even for a relatively
gentle stop, the rear wheels locked up! In a panic stop, due to the
extremely light rear end and locked rear brakes, the thing would spin
on you with a vengeance! On ice, just taking your foot off the GAS
would make it start to get squirrely on you! I was greatly relieved
when that heap of CRAP went to the crusher. We did get to see that the
door beams really worked, though, as we got hit by a Buick! So, I will
give them credit for doing SOMETHING right.

Jon