OT: Bumper Stickers

Or how about.... It's so nice out... I think I'll keep it out.

I have two on my car, "Shiite happens" and "Jesus, protect me from your followers". I've had the latter ripped off of my car (once with a sizable chunk of the bumper) three times. Before I totaled it, I had all of these on my last car:

- "Photons have mass? I didn't even know they were Catholic!"

- "If animals weren't made to be eaten why are they made out of meat?"

- "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, its too dark to read!"

- "Vote early, vote often!"

-"42" but my favorite one is still "God loves me, so I have to kill you now". Can't seem to find it though. GCC

The axle trick DOES work, it just requires the addition of a 60% stick and a cap ;)

First of all, I saved your post for ideas. Second of all, you must not like your cars very much. d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

--I used to have one that said "Buy Molecular Bonds". When someone asked me where to get them I always said 'high school' heh..

Well, I know it DOES work - at least it did on a '67 Galaxie XL 390. A friend who had a bad habit of tearing out of the lot at the garage where he worked found out the hard way. It bent the ARMCO he was chained to, and tore the axle loose. He was on a 25 foot "leash" of logging chain.

Less destructive but still effective, is a simple padlock through a U-joint arm. An out of balance condition that is hard to drive fast with follows.

Cheers Trevor Jones

Hummm that matches what I observed with a police car about the same vintage and likely the same brand, in Grayling Michigan, about 1968.

The local yokels had a habit of backing up against the logging chain fence along the railroad tracks behind the movie theater on slow nights, and taking a siesta. Parties who shall remain nameless low crawled under the squad car and chained the axle (one side) to one of the fence posts (made out of railroad track for that artsy look) with about 50 feet of

The same two, not long after, had a purple military smoke grenade affixed to their rear springs with a bit of commo wire wrapped around the can so when they took off..it unwound, and released the spoon.

It was quite fascinating to watch a slow moving police car trailing a huge cloud of Goofy Grape, with neither of the two officers bothering to look backwards, as it paraded through town.

I of course as a part time gas pump jockey, had no idea of who or how that happened. Sigh..the good old days..a gas station on each of 4 corners of the main intersection..we used to make tennis ball cannons out of beer cans and lob tennis balls at each other, when we werent playing Guts Frisbee on slow nights.

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Okay, so I'm late and catching up, but clare at snyder.on.ca wrote on Sun,

There are things which MythBusters debunk, which ain't necessarily so. I'm sure that they can't test all parameters, but ... give the chain enough slack so that the car can get up to speed, and I'll wager you'll see an axle in the road. But I also doubt you'll get that "air cannon in the trunk" leap so popular in the movies.

Remember, in the real world, for the most part explosives create a grey cloud, not a black and orange fireball. That's an effect of using gasoline or other petroleum accelerant to "enhance" the effect for the cameras.

tschus pyotr

No, you need thrust, not destruction - Dynamite burns too fast.

Around here (Hollywoodland) they usually use a 12" long (+/-) section of extra heavy pipe, a square of 3/4" plate (thoroughly welded together, full penetration multiple pass - Obligatory Metalworking Content), a few pounds of Black Powder (Don't ask me the grade...), a blasting cap, and a short chunk of telephone pole turned to the ID of the mortar pipe and stuffed inside the end of the pipe with some tape or wadding to hold it in place.

Oh, and an expendable stunt car with a full roll cage installed. (Yet more ObMWC) And a driver that's done this a few times.

Weld this mortar underneath the car, open end facing down, location dependent on which way you want the car to flip and Black Powder charge size dependent on how many times you want it to go around. Load and arm it, then drive past several rolling movie cameras (to get all the angles in one take) and trigger the charge.

In the case of the American Graffiti axle shot, you use a small mortar charge in the trunk or back seat when the chain goes taut, just to pop up the rear end and sweeten the effect, and you can also put a few shaped charges on the rear suspension so it comes apart on command just the way you want and you leave the rear axle totally behind.

Explosive bolts (Aerospace) would be nifty, but you need a source.

You could also build shear pins or strategically weaken the rear suspension, but that has a lot more room for error when the car has to still be strong enough to do a tire-boiling full throttle departure with the cameras rolling. I'd rather cleave it clean off on command and you know what you'll get.

(Okay, I'll go write "I watch too much Mythbusters and Demolitions shows on the History Channel." on the blackboard 500 times.)

-->--

Another guy I used to work with had a brand new V8 fargo (dodge) pickup back in '57 (little Hemi engine) in North Bay Ontario. The LEOs would finish their door check on main street at about 10pm Fri night and sit down for a game of cards in the police station. Then the young hooligans would burn rubber down main street, and quickly "get out of dodge". The LEOs would come out a-running to see if they could catch anyone. This guy was one of the "hooligans" and decided to have MORE fun one night. He snuck up to the cruiser, popped the hubcaps, and removed ALL the nuts from both rear wheels - sticking them into the hubcaps with axle grease, and popping the caps back on. Then he lit up the pickup in front of the station and watched as the rear wheels rolled down the street. The cops knew who did it, but couldn't prove it. He left town and moved south that fall!!

...

Well, I saw that show, a couple of times, and I'll take that wager. They gave it plenty of slack and when a 5/8"(!) cable broke, they went to weakening the suspension. They blue wrenched most of it and tried again. One side of the axle did come loose, but jammed in the wheel well. Those axles are held in there really well, especially on the older leaf-spring cars (which was what they used because that was what was in the movie).

That show was so convincing that when I read in this thread that somebody did it, I think to myself, "Well, did you do it *yourself*, or did you just *hear* about it? And did you hear from the guy who did it, or did he just hear about it?"

Bob

I heard stories of patrol car axles being ripped out at the end of a chain back in the 50's. And when I worked as a deputy sheriff in the early 70's, it was pretty much conventional wisdom among cops that it did, on occasion, happen. I can't say it I knew personally anyone who had it happen, although the Sheriff himself had his rear bumper torn off and a Highway Patrolman I knew had his car tipped over while he was in a bowling alley on a coffee break.

And a deputy I worked with told about an incident in a department where he previously worked. A disabled veteran (one leg) ran a popcorn wagon on a downtown street during the summer. The cops would park alongside and B.S. with him. One night, a car full of kids came tearing past. The cops took out after them and found the hard way somebody had tied the patrol car to the popcorn wagon and they ended up dragging that down the street behind them.

Jerry

Which reminds me of the time a male/female pair of deputies, on a slow night..decided to become a bit better "aqquainted" with each other. The action apparently got hot on the front hood and the now nekked pair decided to avail themselves of the rear (caged) back set rather then risk gravel burns and somehow during the activities, managed to get the rear door to slam shut. Dispatch was Quite concerned as they didnt respond on the radio for some 2 hours or more.

I was the one to find them...having some inkling of where they might be located ..and extracted them from their prediciment. This was in the days of low range handhelds and an in car repeater..so it was simple to damage the battery connections to account for the fact they were "marooned on an investigation and the radios/vehicle suddenly died"

Both were married, just not to each other.

It was quite fascinating to pull up to their squad..and find a bra and panties hanging on the push bumper...

Gunner

Political Correctness

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

Bruce L. Bergman wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Heh. But loosening the wing nuts that hold the lightbar onto the roof works quite well.

Or so I've heard...

American Rolling Mill Corporation, Middletown Ohio, AKA Armco, now AK Steel. I grew up between their original plant, and the new one built in the early 60's. The original plant spewed red corrosive dust over SE Ohio for decades, till they were forced to add scrubbers. There were frequent explosions at their slag dump, and the coke plant required an open flame to burn the waste gases from the ovens. A nasty operation, in all ways.

OTOH, I had a friend who worked as a chemist in their research center who would bring me lots of useful steel. He brought me large pieces of aluminized stainless when the first developed it. I used it for body work on an old Chevy stepvan. Those wheel boxes will never rust out, again! :)