Bugger! blast! blimey! crivvens & jings....

[alexblack13]

I have just decided to enter the British bonnet hurling whilst doing 'aerobatics' on the way down whilst tripping when walking past one's car team (With bonnet in both hands of course!!)

Fecking close shave.. I tripped and fell headlong over the front of the car with bonnet in hand!! Landed un-neatly at the front having directed the bonnet's flight path almost clear of the car's wing (s).... I said almost. After I had stopped ***&^%$?$%^& ...err, talking, and had raised myself back to the upright position checking for collateral damage on route, I surveyed the damage. There was what looked like a large graze down the o/s wing and lamp pod!! I could have screeeeemed..Think I might have in fact. But on just wiping over the 'damage' I was amazed to see it just come clean off .. Halliflamminluya. A quick wipe with some gentle polish and no damage. I was amazed (and sore!) Surveying the bonnet though I was not quite as lucky and found a small chip out of the front n/s edge which thankfully touched up ok.

Lesson learned. Remove car from ramp (good idea to lower 1st) Raise the ramp. Drive car onto clear, flat, & trip free floor before doing anything.. Risk assessment over.. I am NOT doing that again!!


Alex (sore but lucky!) B.....

[johnsimister]

Very good... and the Lotus gods were obviously smiling. The paint must be pretty tough.

A friend was less lucky with his Elan. He's the one who converted the UK Sports Cars 'Sprint" that used to be an S4 fhc, and I think this particular calamity befell that car but it might have been another one. He was in the process of changing the diff, and having extracted it he was carrying the diff over to the workbench. On the way he tripped over a garage heater and dropped the diff on his foot. Blue air ensued, and a trip to casualty to investigate a broken toe.

A few days later, he resumed the task and carried the replacement diff over to the car. En route, he tripped over the heater again but this time he dropped the diff in the direction of the Lotus. Through a side window it crashed, grievously bending the window frame as it went, to land on the seat among shards of glass. The heater is now somewhere else.

Moral: engage brain before feet. Or something.

John

(Have just corrected Sussex Sports Cars to UK Sports cars, where VOW 193J is for sale. Got my sothern England dealers confused, apologies.)

[oldelanman]

Alex, I thought you North of the Border boys were into tossing your cabers. Throwing bonnets about sounds a bit girlie to me!

Glad to hear the damage was only slight. Be more careful next time!!!!

Regards,

[trw99]

Alex!

Glad to hear that you are okay - what would your cardiologist have said?

Obviously an amazing paint job!

Tim

PS When did you say the bonnet hurling championships are taking place?

[alexblack13]

OK...Some luck that eh!...

Here's another true story. I watched this with my own eyes and bursting out laughing could have been fatal...

Local accident repairer fitting windscreen in Merc estate car. Second attempt apparently. Two off guys, one is the boss. They are both huffing n puffing to get the glass in and boss man has a rubber mallet in hand and is very gently bumping at the rubber seal etc whilst mate is pulling out the rope and guiding in the glass when...Crack! Second screen is u/s... It's what happened next that was the funny bit.. Boss man hurls said rubber mallet in the direction of the open door but aimed a bit high. Sorry I am killing myself laughing just recalling this...anyway. The airborne mallet strikes the lintel above the door and reverses its track directly towards said Merc' and flew straight through the rear door glass!!! Estate car remember..Boom! Another bit of sh1t luck... Anyone laughing at that stage would have regretted it and I was biting my lip. Boss man then strode out the door and jumped into his Jag' xj6 and burned rubber all the way out of the street and did not come back that day (I'm told!)..

No luck eh!

I was very lucky not to have damaged my car and I will (seriously!) be looking more carefully at poss trip hazards among other things.. Just fitted a second fire extinguisher adjacent to my garage door (I can make a grab for it as I am running like the devil out the door ) It will live in the car boot when the car is in use, and on the wall when not.

Take care out there...

Alex B....

[alexblack13]

Soon Tim soon... I just need to get rid of the bruising 1st so I can look good in my Kilt..Topless of course. There is nothing to match brushing the snow off your shoulders on a fine Scottish day..

Nah. I escaped with not a lot of injuries. Thanks..

Take care though..

Alex B....

[mrob]

When I read posts like these, I am reminded of Gerald Huffnung and the barrel of bricks.

http://bleatings.blogspot.com/2006/01/l ... ament.html

Hearing him tell the story on one of his recordings is best.

[GrUmPyBoDgEr]

Walking around with a Bonnet held up in front of you is not as easy you think when you've crashed into something.
My Bonnet got a chunk knocked out of one of its edges in an almost identical way & that before the restoration was even finished.
I spent Days kicking myself for that.

We're all candidates for the "Darwin Award"

I was once forced to watch a Guy replace an exhaust System on my ancient Fiat 127 many years ago.
The exhaust had parted company with the rest of the car on the way to Work.
In order to get home after Work it had to be replaced.
I booked it into one of those quick fix places for Lunchtime.
The guy struggled with every Tool available for God knows how long, which at first was for me amusing but later I began to have doubts.
When he resorted to an Oxy-Acetylene Torch to cut the Bolts holding the front System to the Manifold I really started to wonder who was taking the Pi55 but when he trod on the red hot Studs lying on the Floor with his rubber soled Boots & started dancing around to put he Fire out; well that was when I started earnestly looking around for the hidden Camera!!

[twincamman]

geez ---may be you guys should stick to the midget toss --I walked in the shop carrying a battery and got my leg tangled up in an exhaust --went down hard on all 4s as the shop gasped and prepared to dial 911 for the old guy ----I yelled ---'its OK -I saved the battery '----everybody fell down laughing and the skin did grow back eventually -your old football [ not soccer ]training never leaves you-ed

[billwill]

When I read posts like these, I am reminded of Gerald Huffnung and the barrel of bricks.

http://bleatings.blogspot.com/2006/01/l ... ament.html

Hearing him tell the story on one of his recordings is best.

The Mythbusters (a USA TV program) apparently did not realise that this was a Hoffnung after dinner speech and had it down as a Myth, to be determined if it could happen or not. So they staged the whole scenario, (they use a Crash Dummy as the victims in these tests). It took a few goes but they eventually got it to do the whole sequence.

They had to seriously weaken the barrel to get it to happen.

It was very funny.

[alexblack13]

So was the post! And I'm still sore from the fall. so stop it.. Laughing is painful!! (again).

The barrel story is very funny.

Alex B...

[robertverhey]

No matter how bad a day you have, someone out there always has a worse day.

Here's something else to be wary of

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG-7RXM9zMg

[pereirac]

I tried bonnet hurling in the 1980's.

My Elan had just been tuned on a rolling road in Cambridge (Peter Baldwin) so I decided to "try" her out on the M11. It seems that somewhere along the line we had forgotten to fit the bonnet spring (or it came off). Anyway as soon as we hit a couple of bumps on the motorway (still there even today) the bonnet flew off, over my head (the roof was down), clipped the rear of the car and ended up in the central reservation. Fortunately motorways were quieter those days so I could pull over to the hard shoulder, run across the motorway, collect the bonnet, run back, refit it and drive off before anybody noticed! The only damage was a star crack in the middle of the bonnet and a few scratches - amazing!!

A lesson learnt -- Always check the bonnet spring when the bonnet has been opened

Carl

[tyasman]

How about this one..... While driving down the A1 near Scotch Corner in my S4 I spotted a motorbike broken down on the hard shoulder, with a lady rider looking a bit helpless (as they do - sorry girls). Being a fellow biker, I stopped and asked if I could help. Her bike had stopped and she didn't know why. 10 seconds later I worked out that she had run out of petrol. I always carry a spare gallon in my boot (Elan gauges never being the most accurate in the world) so I went back to my car (the roof was down), opened the boot and got out the petrol can, leaving the boot lid up. Went back to the bike, filled it up, refused to take any payment for the petrol, (being a Good Samaritan), and pleased that I could help a damsel in distress (actually she was a bit old to be a damsel). She rode off thinking that there are still a few gentlemen left in the world and I walked back to the car with my empty can, chuffed that I had been of help. Went to the boot to deposit the can and OH NO! NO BOOT LID! I immediately worked out that the draught from passing lorries had been too much for the hinges, and it had been sucked off the car. Last time I stop for an (elderly) damsel in distress, I thought. I then looked at the road, expecting to see hundreds of pounds of fibreglass lying in a thousand pieces having been run over by a hundred lorries. Nothing! Where has it gone? I then noticed that the lid was nestling comfortably in the gap behind the rear seats, as if placed there by some guardian angel. It had snapped off at the hinges, done a cartwheel in the air and landed back in the car. No damage to the boot or the car, just two broken hinges, no stress marks in the fibreglass, nothing. A quick call to Susan Miller and everything was back to new for a few pounds. As I said in the title..... there is a God, but beware of leaving your boot lid open on Motorways or in strong winds when helping lady bikers. Anyone else got any similar stories?

[69S4]

Oh yes! In the middle of doing some work in the Elan engine bay that was going to stretch over two days I put the bonnet back in place without connecting up the spring. Next morning I pushed the car back out onto the driveway ready to start work on it but went back indoors briefly. When I came out the bonnet was at the other end of the drive upside down in a flower bed. The wind had caught it from underneath, flipped it over the car and onto the tarmac. No structural damage but the paint was a mess, chips and scores everywhere.

Never managed to help motorcycling damsels in distress in the Elan but I did once use a 100cc motorcycle to tow a lady in a broken down VW Beetle on the autobahn nr Frankfurt about two miles to the next services.