Scary stories of your first beddie drive

[John Abbott]

Ok guys and girls,,,, I thought we would have a bit of a laugh of the first time drives of a beddie you bought or were going to buy .
The first time I drove my truck it shook and coughed and sputtered and conked out at a set of lights on a busy main road.!! So with cars beeping and trucks banking up behind us, the owner who was in the passenger seat got out and wiggled the battery terminals to get her going again. My first thoughts were lets get out of here Johnno  but after I haggled on the price with the owner It was to good a deal to knock back. After I cleaned out the carby and got a new battery, she came good and has been a great truck indeed.

[rumax]

Mine was going along the road and asked the owner if the speedo was accurate, cos I had just gone past a speed camera and was doing over the indicated 60... #########, but like everything else, what he said was B/S. Bought it and is the grey van of my avatar. Hard to start the first time (but starts real easy after that) & full of rust. New battery I think for Xmas.

That's why I bought the red truck- restoring that and using the grey ones mechanicals & brakes.

[BusyKiwi]

Mine was the first van I brought for the custom van. 3 parts

1st
Got to the guys place at 6:30am, had a flat tyre so his deaf brother comes out of the caravan to change the wheel, after first grabbing a beer.
They told me (not the deaf guy, his brother did), that it had no back brakes. I thought ok might just need bleeding up but drove it down the long driveway and it went and stopped ok so decided to drive it the 150k's home. About half way home I heard and felt this bang under the van, it was like someone had wacked the van with a steel pole. So I stopped and looked everywhere and couldn't find anything. Kept driving and it happened again and again until it was starting to really freaking me out, the noise was loud and rocked the van. Stopped one last time and looked over the whole van, was nearly about to give up (couldn't find anything) when a shiny thing caught my eye behind the rear backing plate. Jacked the van up, took the brake drum off and to my surprise there was no brakes, no nothing except the brake clyinder which dropped on to the road. The big bang was the wheel cly jamming as it went round and round. Put brake drum and wheel back on and went good as gold, no more noise.

2nd
10k's from home I stopped at the lights and smelt smoke, took the engine cover off and drove the last bit with no cover. Stopped at next lights and the smoke turned into fire, the vacumm line was actually a garden hose pipe and it was on the hot manifold, ripped it off, bunged up the hole and drove home.

3rd
Started to customize the van, started at back and worked forward, got to the front and found out the front chassis rail had a bad repair on it (they cut a hole to straighten the rail and welded a bad patch over it. You can read this story on my website but basically I cut the front off this van and swapped the front (he only wanted the front for a ambo conversion) for the current custom van I have now.

Lots of other stories but this is probably the most eventful

[rumax]

Gold Busy Kiwi, just gold! 

[Hobbit]

I couldn't even drive my spanking-new van away from the Holden dealer's yard without
grinding the gear teeth. In my excitement, I accidentally missed the gate into 2nd, and
tried shift into reverse. Woah! Big Lesson. Understandable for a Beddie virgin, I guess,
but I've managed to do the same stupid thing a few more times over the years.

One of the scariest things happened last week, when some clown ran a Give Way sign
and almost T-boned the drivers side of my van.  I did a huge left-hand swing and
missed him by a metre or less. Whew! Talk about adrenaline rush.

[Marishka]

i bought a LWB beddy back in 2003 from a guy in darwin.
and on the drive home it was raining.
i thought i might check the brakes to see if they were workin
ok, on a quiet straight road,
so i got up to 80kms snd stood on the brakes for 2 seconds to see how
they faired.
  (there,s no poop my pants icon)
well the breaks worked farkin really good!
good enough to throw the auto shift stick right into reverse,.
instantly locking up the rear wheels resulting in the van sliding sideways
down the road, i thought f*** i forgot to get a cover note from an insurance
company, .
but luckly no one was commin the other way.
the van slid sideways for about 50 mtrs before it stopped pointing back the
way i came from.
the motor had stalled, and i came the closest to pooping my pants that id ever
done in my 45 years of life.
after my heart stopped cavitating and the adrenalin had levelled out i started the van
and continued home.
first thing i did the next day was 2 get a heavy duty spring snd install it under the shift
so it pulled the gear lever towards low gear.
then worked out why it could go from neutral to reverse.
i never test breaks, anymore untill i know the vehicle,

i was surely blessed that night

[Rotti]

My first drive of a beddy, was my current beddy!
I went & checked this thing out one night, about 10:30!, as i have always wanted a swb cf.
This van didnt start because of flat batteries, out of fuel, out of gas, was parked under a building so could hardly see it, especially being matt black! My brain was hurting me & was telling me to walk the f away, but took it for a drive...attempted. After 2 hours of fiddling about, getting fuel etc....it started. Got about 200m up the road, no transmission! There was tranny blood all over the road. The dude said..."offers" I swapped it that night, all faults if any...IF ANY...RAONTFL!...for a beach cruiser! (which I bought back from cashies 3 weeks later)

The next morning I found the trans lines were air hose that dont crimp up too well when mixed with hot oil, fixed it & still fixing stuff up...but lovin' it.

Diff leaked everywhere, had no gear oil, fixed it & still noisy as Fluck, trans has just started to get 3rd...manually, almost overheated her, DONT GET ME STARTED ON THE ELECTRICS!, now the lights went out in the rain at 6pm...all of them except the indicators!

BOOHAG, she's noisy, fumey, challenging, worrying & snorts more juice than a gym junkie, but shes my beddy!
character building, stress & anger managing & parts traffic quicker than moses parts the red sea!

Currently being semi restored,........

[MaTTe]

It wasn't my first beddy drive, that day was a pleasure.

My scariest drive was the day when in peak hour traffic, travelling down a decline towards traffic lights the brakes went to the floor as I approached a red light (westcoast highway and scarborough beach road).
Having just spent $1K on the brakes thru a 'brake specialist', this was far from ideal.

A quick swerve to avoid the car infront as I ducked into a clear lane to the white line prompted the HZ ally calipers to separate themselves from the mounting bolts, bashing around inside the rims to SLOWLY bring me to a halt. Then with the van stranded in the right lane in peak hour traffic, with a short window of opportunity i accelerated to try getting the van off the road to avoid causing dramas for all those around. Unfortunately the calipers were now acting as a ratchet inside the rim, not allowing the wheels to turn. I was then forced to put the strength of the 350 and the traction of the 295's on the back to the test, as I scraped a set of 245s at the front all the way around the corner with many an onlooker in disbelief and a missus having just experienced her life flash before her eyes.

I got the van off the road, got a tilt tray home and figured it was all over.

Then the bloke got me to jump in the van, foot on the brakes (which shouldn't be an issue seeing the brakes are now 'locked' on and put it into neutral to roll down the tilt tray - after removing the winch cable.
Unfortunately this is where we discovered the brakes were liek a ratchet. The brakes weren't locked on in reverse at all. I flew down the tray at 60km/h+++ hit the grass at the bottom with a thud, and continued sliding backward toward a powerpole at great pace. after 25-30m finally coming to a stop about 400mm from the pole.

Needless to say this was one drive I have always hoped never to need to experience again.

[mezzmo]

Hey Matte, i'm eagerly awaiting the next installment of that story - what happened to the brake guy??

[MaTTe]

I had the brakes done in 2 stages, the fronts first, which resulted in the van stopping on a dime.
The second time the rears were done and the above was the result.

The investigation (by my grandad) found that the front left caliper had not been sufficiently torqued, which was why the first one sheered off, leaving only the drivers side caliper stopping the van and resultantly sheering.

The rear solid line had a crack in the pipe - HOWEVER, the master cylinder was still completely full, so the fluid hadn't been leaking out.

The 'specialist' agreed to fix the issues for free (to prevent being dragged thru the dirt)

In the end it was my grandad doing basically all the work as the 'specialist' had no idea on how to go about fixing it, there were a number of weeks that grandad spent there getting the van operational again.

In the meantime I bought another car, resulting in me not driving the van for 6 years.

Long story short, the decision to save grandad a couple of hours servicing the brakes led to him having to spend a couple of weeks rebuilding the brakes. This was only one of 2 times I have let anyone other than myself or grandad work on the van, both times burnt so I just learnt to do it all myself.