Weirdest and wackiest car mysteries and repairs

[LV202]

What is the strangest thing any of your cars have ever done?

Years ago I had an old Mustang. One day I fired it up and it didn’t crank over, however it kept cranking and cranking on it’s own! I turned the key off right away, but it kept cranking, it cranked until the battery died out and could crank no more. Turned out to be a faulty starter solenoid. I bought a new one for ten bucks and recharged my battery and all was well.

[The Warden]

I had a '65 Chevelle, and the screw that held the turn signal lever on came loose. The lever was metal, so when the screw came out, the lever shorted out the horn...right in the middle of commute traffic right by the San Jose Int'l Airport.

Took the steering wheel off, tightened the screw down, and everything worked perfectly.

I just wish that whatever was wrong with the engine would have been that easy to fix...I wound up selling the car 'cause I couldn't figure it out...

[Kestas]

I once had a 74 Torino that had the alternator light come on. This was in the morning when I started my commute to work, I figured, oh well, I'll drive my 20 minute commute and deal with it at the end of the day. I knew from experience there was enough juice to get me to work.

At the end of the day, to my surprise, the car started up strong and got me home... the ALT light still shining and the car running strong! I went to my shop manual, studied the charging system, and saw that only if a certain wire was open, it would give me the weird condition I was experiencing. Sure enough, when I traced the wires, that wire had rubbed through all the way from underhood vibration! This was the most proud diagnostic I've ever done.

[kerry]

In 1977 I bought a 67 Austin Healey Sprite that was smoking like a steam engine. Owner said headgasket was gone. I agreed, but the price was right and I figured no big deal to replace the gasket. Did so. Still smoked just as bad. Thought maybe head was warped. Put on 2 headgaskets. Same problem. Gave up on head and thought rings must be shot. Rebuilt the engine. Still smoked! Getting really bummed. Took the engine apart and put rings in it again. Still smoking. Drive around the block and when I return I drive into the cloud of smoke it left behind.
I'm standing there completly out of ideas. My wife walks up and says, 'How's it going?'. I said take a look and started the engine. She took one look and exclaimed, "Yikes that thing needs some serious pollution control equipment."
Something clicked in my mind. I reached under the hood and disconnected the PCV hose. PROBLEM SOLVED! It had been sucking oil directly into the intake manifold from the oil pan via the failed PCV system.

[Mark DiSilvestro]

In 1984, I bought a '67 Sunbeam Alpine with a severe smoking problem. It looked and smelled like a bad head gasket. It turned out the leaky brake cylinder had flooded the power brake servo unit and the engine was burning brake fluid. After rebuilding the brake cylinder, I drove that car for 14 years and never had the head off.

Weirdest car problem I've seen was at the shop where I used to work. The other mechanic had the dash apart on a fuel-injected '85 Buick. He had been trying all day to repair the dashlights and taillights until the boss handed the job to me.
Funny thing was, along with the light problems, the engine idle speed would change up or down, in response to the dashlight dimmer control! Turned out the ground for the taillights and electric fuel pump shared the same terminal, which had broken loose from the ground screw in the trunk, leaving the fuel pump to ground through the dashlight switch!

Happy Motoring, Mark

[jjl]

Rebuilt my 116 2.8, but would not start (it would catch for 2-3 secs then die). I tried everything - 4 MONTHS later still could not start it - pulling hair out, kicking the cat, nothing worked. Eventually tried it with the exhaust system disconnected - started first time. Blocked exhaust!

[G-Benz]

When I drove my 73 VW during my high school days, I once had to repair one of my turn signal housing wire harness after ripping the whole mess off one winter trying to get packed snow out of the fenderwells... anyway, I digress.

Much later (in college) the flakey repair job eventually corroded with age and developed a short. So when I hit the turn signal one day, it blew a fuse. Never noticed that the turn signal didn't work anymore (the relay still clicked) at the time, but all of a sudden, the car won't hold an idle and stalls at every intersection.

After some hours of scratching my head, I discover the blown fuse and replace it. Everything is fine.

Come to another corner, hit the signal and "bam", the idle goes bad again.

Now I have not yet correlated the relationship between the turn signal and idle control...just that the idle goes bad when I come to a stop eventually.

This goes on for most of the day, until 15 fuses later, I install yet another fuse and accidentally hit the turn signal stalk during install and see the fuse blow and the idle immediately go bad.

AHA!

Idle control and signal share the same fuse! DUH!

So I discover the shorted wire, make another half-baked repair, replace the 16th fuse, and everything works great...so I make a weekend road trip in the Bug...all smiles...

[R Leo]

In an earlier life I had a 1972 Datsun pick-up with a cool little 1600cc OHC engine and a Weber carb. The PO had rebuilt the engine just prior to selling the truck and I'd owned it about 6 months when one morning, on my way to head out to work, I hit the starter and the whole engine just spins...I mean it acted like there were no spark plugs or compression. It had run just fine up until the point I shut it off the night before.

Anyway, I was sitting there thinking that maybe the cam chain had parted and remembered that the front of the valve cover had a big rubber plug that you could remove and expose the front of the cam sprocket. What the hay? I'll pull it off to see what I can see...

So, here I am, in my office attire at 7:20am, peeling the front off of the valve cover, thinking that for sure I'm going to see a chain with two ends. When I removed the cover I noticed that the chain was still there but, the bolt securing the sprocket appeared to be loose...in fact, it was finger tight. I reached into the opening and, with the tips of my fingers, backed the bolt out of the cam and saw that the cam sprocket on that engine was held in time with the cam by a metal dowel. Evidently, the cam sprocket bolt had never been properly torqued!!! The loose bolt allowed the sprocket to move forward slightly, come off the timing dowel, loose cam time and leave me in the predicament I was currently in.

I thought about it and decided that if I simply rolled the engine through until the dowel lined up with the hole in the cam, the engine would, once again, be properly timed. So, I grabbed a socket and ratchet from the garage and started gently pulling the engine through until I had the holes lined up; then I pushed the dowel in place, reinstalled the bolt and tightened it all up.

After snapping the rubber cover back in place, I hit the switch and away it went like nothign had ever happened. I glanced at my watch and was astonished to see that it was only 7:35!!! This whole thing had barely taken fifteen minutes!

[jcd]

I have a vacuum leak in my door locking system,,,, too cold to fix.

Anyway, I think that is kind of funny that I have to lock the driver's door to turn the car off and to get the heater to come on.

If you didn't know diesels, you would either have paid a high repair bill to fix or still be sitting in a running car, while freezing to death.

[kerry]

P;ug up the vacuum line going to the doors under the hood and you'll be in business but without door locks. I think it is the yellow line just to the right of the brake booster above the oil fileter housing.

[Bruce B]

Back when I was in High School my parents bought a '76 Mustang Cobra, V-6, 4 speed. One day while on the way to work after school, it just quit. About 10 minutes later it fired up and ran just as before. This happened a few times until the electronic control box was determined to be at fault and was replaced. My Dad rarely threw anything away that "still works" so the box hung on the wall for a few years. This car burned up three more of these units and we couldn't figure out why. When my brother started driving another burnt up and he grabbed the original one off the wall and it was still working for two more years 'til the 'Stang was sold and never even hiccupped........

[865sp300e]

My 300E had a mysterious noise which drove me crazy for months. When coming to a slow stop or slowly moving forward there was a sound which was like a ball bearing on a smooth surface. It would come and go and sometimes I wouldn’t hear for weeks. I narrowed down the sound to be coming from under the seat or base of the driver door. Of course the sound never appeared with someone else in the car.

My wife thought I was imagining things but on many occasions I had her slowly move the car back and forth while I laid on the backseat floor listening. Finally one day the sound appeared and I narrowed it down to the driver seat. I found some loose change by the seat rails but the sound persisted. It then struck me to check the heat duct. I stuck a coat hanger into the duct and probed. I could hear something moving around and I eventually worked to the opening. The culprit was a short round pencil which found its way into the duct from the rear floor. When in the right position it could roll front and back a good distance in the duct under the seat. You cannot imagine how good I felt when I fixed this problem.

My father had a ’63 Chevy which would make a ticking sound when going slow, it would do it going forward or reverse. It drove him crazy for quite some time, but to make a long story short it ended up to be a small stone inside one of the rear hubcaps

Originally Posted by kerry edwards

In 1977 I bought a 67 Austin Healey Sprite that was smoking like a steam engine. Owner said headgasket was gone. I agreed, but the price was right and I figured no big deal to replace the gasket. Did so. Still smoked just as bad. Thought maybe head was warped. Put on 2 headgaskets. Same problem. Gave up on head and thought rings must be shot. Rebuilt the engine. Still smoked! Getting really bummed. Took the engine apart and put rings in it again. Still smoking. Drive around the block and when I return I drive into the cloud of smoke it left behind.
I'm standing there completly out of ideas. My wife walks up and says, 'How's it going?'. I said take a look and started the engine. She took one look and exclaimed, "Yikes that thing needs some serious pollution control equipment."
Something clicked in my mind. I reached under the hood and disconnected the PCV hose. PROBLEM SOLVED! It had been sucking oil directly into the intake manifold from the oil pan via the failed PCV system.

ding ding ding we have a winner, I think someone would have to make something up to top that one.

[Kuan]

I had a fuel hose running out of a red plastic gas can in the spare tire compartment in my VW bus. That's as whacky as it gets.

[TX76513]

The Noise

The SDL developed a noise that drove me absolutely bonkers for months. The sound? Like sporadic heavy drops of rain on car sheet metal. I always felt the sound was coming from the driver side near the firewall of the car. It only happened at highway speeds of +50 mph – but not all the time. It would be hard to guess how much time was spent on trying to locate this.

The conclusion?

When the car would be moving into a head wind and traveling +50mph. A small strip of the windshield gasket looking like a rubber band would extend out from the windshield frame and slap against the roof metal. When you stopped it would neatly retract back. The sound developed once while the other half was driving. On a lark I opened the sunroof and stuck my head out while proceeding down the highway. Problem solved shortly after stopping with pocket knife.