Well, it was a hell of a weekend.
We had a great time, saw some beautiful old tin (and 'glass - let's be honest!), as well as some monstrosoties of rusted metal.
The excitement came on Saturday night.
We were riding in the back of a '39 Chevy Sedan. We drove from the Louisville Fairgrounds to a Cracker Barrel near our hotel, about 10 miles south on I-65.
we had a nice dinner, chatting and shooting the bull with our group, the nice waitress, and other rodders that decided to have dinner at the same place.
So we pile back into the rods to make the three block drive back to the hotel. Making a sharp left turn to pull out of the parking lot, we heard a loud, unmistakable
CLUNK... James (the owner and driver of the '39) looked out his window to see if there was something he ran over or what.
Well, My father-in-law started screaming his head off at us to stop.
We did, and got out to inspect the car, and the left front wheel had a hell of a lot of positive camber that wasn't there earlier. The wheel was leaned in quite a bit.
We were blocking an entrance to the parking lot of the Cracker Barrel, so James decided to back up. That made the camber a lot worse.
Well, he removed the wheel and we saw the damage: The upper control arm ripped itself out of the spring perch!
We
believe the bolts were loose, for who-knows-how-long and eventually ripped open the holes in the metal.
Basically, they welded on a patch plate and got the car driveable again while the wife and I were driving back home today. The maker of the IFS kit (Fat Man Fabrication) is
MORE than compensating James, with replacement parts, the cost of the tow (which was covered by AAA) and "lots of other goodies". They certainly stand behind their stuff.
We're all substantially thankful that this didn't happen while we were on I-65. This is a work-in-progress rod that has no seat belts and a barely-there interior (it
did have seats!). If this had happened on the freeway, we'd all be in the hospital right now, if not in a morgue.
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