[tortuga]

So the wife and i were pulling off into what looked like a parking lot adjacent to a road through our local shutdown military base, when WHAM! felt the car drop nose down and land engine racing...Shutdown and got out to survey what was surely the entire front end crunched. Looked perfect? Tried starting it up, right to about 3k RPM, shut it down. Then the wife points out the shifter box up through the shifter hole and the ring all separated.

Looked around the motor and realized that the reason it was racing is that it had shifted and the throttle linkage was opening the carb.

Having no metric tools to readjust the linkage we limped it home 5 miles by shutting the engine off (not good from 3000 rpm) or dragging the brakes.

Final toll mechanically is pretty much just ruined olthoff motor mounts, cobra valley trans mount, and bent center removable trans mount. On inspection the lower bell housing caught the curb which was luckily pretty weak (no steel in it), two scuff on the frame and a little on the gas tank, and a shifter boot.

Ordered new mounts and had the bracket straightened. Meanwhile i jacked up the motor and scooched it back (forward about 3/4") to where it should be.

There are two dings where the side pipe hangars hit the body and the passenger side header exit has some stress cracks. The glass under the carpet where the shifter comes out is broken but some clamps and poly resin will fix that. The body work will just have to wait and probably hide under some strategically placed silver adhesive tape...

Really amazing how all the rubbery and removable bits prevented major damage...

Should be back on the road by this weekend for another crab run! Watch those parking lots!

Steve H
1764