Trans-Am meets Garage 
2003 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance
It happened when I was stationed in Germany at Sembach AB, a friend of mine
sold his Trans-Am to another friend is where this begins. This friend is
out cruising the Autobahn coming back from Frankfurt, running at approx
7.5k on the tach(speedometer was broken) had a sudden passenger side front
wheel bearing sieze up. The speed at which he was traveling when this
happened caused the wheel to break free and the car nose dived on to the
shoulder of the Autobahn. No one was hurt, the car did dig a nice long
track in the grass(only thing to save the undercarriage). It was towed
back to the base auto hobby shop, where it sat while waiting the parts to
repair it.
Once the parts arrived, all was well and fine, the car had been repaired
superbly. Excepty the T-tops were laying on the rear hatch, the hood was
open, the front jack stands still holding the front end of the car up,
transmission in 1st gear, and the battery is still connected.
Now he went in under the drivers side, legs in the air over the seat, to
remove the ignition/clutch lock out,(oh I forgot to mention the key is in
the ignition, not in accessory mode, but in on mode listening to the tape
deck). He managed to short across the wrong wire, the Engine cranks up,
being quick he managed to depress the clutch, meantime he is now pinned
against the gas pedal and the engine is now revved up to a deafening roar,
he reached up to shut off the key(with the hand that was on the clutch),
the car rockets forward off the jack stands, into the closed garage door,
the open hood now is engaged in the door, rips both apart in the momentum,
the T-top's are now just shattered bits on the floor, the jack stands
indented the undercarriage nicely with 12" holes in the passenger
compartment, the building now has an open bay without a door and several
missing concrete blocks, along with the new gouges in the pavement from the
embedded jack stands.
Damages to building were in excess of $4.5k, to car approx $6k and my
friend let his insurance lapse while the car was not street worthy, so it
was impounded until the building repairs were paid for and lost his
driver's License for not being insured(he had 2 more years to serve at the
time too). He was banned from ever being able to set foot in the auto
hobby shop the remainder of his tour and his car was packed up in pieces
and deported back to the US. We all wondered how he avoided no injury to
his self or others at the time. And most prayed he would never marry or
pass on his catastrophic bad luck to any heirs.
This is a true story and there are others tha can vouch for it(we wish
to remain anonymous, since we were also there helping). The moral is, if
nothing else, disconnect the battery before working on your car.
(feel free to edit gramatical errors) Submitted on 06/15/2003
Submitted by:
Anonymous
Reference:
Personal Memory -1982
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