Rebel - how can you possibly say that I'm bad luck for anyone working on my cars??? Oh, I suppose you should also know about my mechanic.....
I had decided to put my previous Cobra up for sale. I had advertised the car for a price that I considered fair considering all of the quality parts throughout the car. To ensure that the car was worth my asking price, I went through the car from top to toe to make sure everything was spot-on. The 750 Holley had a slight stumble with a quick jab of the throttle, so I set about having a fiddle with the carb. If you knew what I was like with Holleys, you'd understand why the car suddenly felt worse after I'd played with it
I called my mechanic to ask him for some advice, then got to work again. After doing what he wanted me to do, I took the car for a test drive. The stumble seemed better. About 300 metres from home, I rolled on the throttle in third gear to see how the transition from primaries to secondaries was, and
BANG!!! Stripped the teeth clean off third gear and the cluster gear in the trans!!!!!
I towed the car straight to my mechanic's home (on a Saturday afternoon) and we get to work on it immediately. Someone interested in buying the car wanted to see it in three days time. Obliging and long suffering mechanic doesn't have anywhere near as many tools in his garage as his workshop, but we'll make do.....
Every bolt in the engine bay was a stainless cap screw, including the exhaust collector bolts. These are often tight in the threads at the best of times, but cap screws in the collectors just plain suck. Ian didn't have the sockets that have the allen key inside them at his house. A plain old allen key wouldn't budge the cap screw, so he attached a ring spanner onto the handle of an allen key for better leverage, and the allen key slipped out of the cap screw. It flung directly into his eye with a sound that I heard from the other end of the car. He got up from under the car asking if his eye looked alright, because he couldn't see out of it. How could I tell if it was alright, I couldn't see because there was too much blood in the way
We went straight to the local doctor who told us to go directly to the emergency ward of the PA hospital, where they'd be waiting for us. After spending a week on and off in hospital, 11 different eye tests, 2 operations and biggest bloody migraine he could have imagined possible, the 12 lacerations in his retina started to heal.
He still has problems with his night vision in that eye.......
Are you sure you don't want to come over and help me with my car
