(1/29/01): Had a little incident today... It
involved me, my car, and a guardrail (well, almost!) It was a close
one... Anyway, here's the story: I'm driving
up this road, and slow down, get in the merge lane, merge on to another road,
and speed up to 50MPH in the right lane. All of the sudden the Front right tire
LOCKS UP, and my car goes careening toward the barrier at close to 50mph! I
cranked the wheel ALL the way to the left, hit the brakes, and was way too close
for comfort from it. I was just about 20 yards away from a Phillips 66, so
I limped it in real slow; tire still locked. I get out and take a look under the
car. At first I thought the sway bar sheered off at one end (where the nut
goes), but after I removed it, I found the nylon lock nut that came with the
sway bar made its way loose... It eventually fell off (found it later in the
center of the lane), this caused my whole tire and lower control arm assembly
to move back and hitting the fender scraping some rubber off, locking the tire,
sending me almost into the barrier, and scaring the crap out of me. Luckily It
only took 5 minutes for backup to arrive. We made a parts/tools run home first,
then put the car up on jackstands, pulled the bar out, re-assembled and
tightened everything down. Made it home fine. I then removed the sway bar again,
cleaned everything up, relubed, reinstalled, used CASTLE NUTS instead, with
cotter pins. Works great now, and all I have is a bit of a scrape on the outside
wall of my left tire (no cords showing, not deep, cant even really see
it). I have decided to use castle nuts with cotter pins on
EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!! Anyway, here are the pics:
Notice where the fender is, in relation to the tire... The middle of the
fender *is supposed* to line up with the middle of the tire!
When looking under the car, this is what I found to be the problem. The
nut and washer simply fell off... (found them though!) Thankfully, nothing
was bent or damaged severely!
Just
a little of the rubber that got scraped off! (I later washed the tire, and armor
all'd it, and you cant even tell!)
ALWAYS
USE CASTLE NUTS AND COTTER PINS!!!!!!!!!! Don't trust those nylon lock nuts on
your suspension!
