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BangShift Question of the Day: What’s the Best Thrash You’ve Ever Been Involved With?


BangShift Question of the Day: What’s the Best Thrash You’ve Ever Been Involved With?

With Drag Week having just finished up some competitors have awesome stories of thrashing up until they had a couple days left to get their cars assembled and on the road to Bowling Green for opening day. Add to those stories the tales of roadside wrenching and the stress level, work level, and intensity really juices up. In garages all over the country, lights have been burning bright until dawn for many of these intrepid racers, all in the quest to take part in one of the last truly great gearhead adventures intended for regular dudes.

It is not just on the for Drag Week either. At race tracks and in garages all across America this coming weekend projects will be rushed together by dedicated groups of gearhead buddies, race cars will be serviced in record time between rounds, and other lunatics will look at an impossibly hopeless situation and start the snowball rolling with the immortal, “Ya know, I think we can pull this off…” comment.

Whether your thrash ended in triumph, more busted parts, or the simple satisfaction of seeing a car do something you never thought it would a short time ago, they are all memorable and probably some of the most cherished experiences hard core gearheads have.

So, the question of the day is easy. What is the best thrash you’ve ever been involved with?

Walt Reynolds thrashing on his Camaro


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27 thoughts on “BangShift Question of the Day: What’s the Best Thrash You’ve Ever Been Involved With?

  1. jerry z

    I changed a T350 in 4 hrs by myself using only jackstands but did have air tools. This was 15 yrs ago though, couldn’t do it today.

  2. 66C10

    Me and a buddy pulled the 400 out of his 67 GS Buick, and pulled the 455 out a 70 Riviera and swapped it in. Started after work on Friday and finished up around lunch on Saturday working straight through. Had to make a pilot bushing for the automatic 455 crank and drill out a bunch of broken exhaust studs too.

    1. Anonymous

      I had the good fortune of helping on an independent top fuel team back in the late 90’s and that was without a doubt the hardest most intense work I have done on a car. Could not do it today if my life depended on it but I enjoyed it then for all it was worth at the time! 🙂

  3. Robert M.

    I once replaced a broken valve spring on an old BMW in a parking lot at night. I was able to walk to a place which had the spring (!) Home was 50 miles away and success was imperative.

    I did it alone with the tools I had in the car, including some improvisation and a flashlight.

  4. ksj

    2007 DragWeek last day at Cordova.Ev Bernado in his Twin turbo small block Chevy 96 Mustang in the SB/PA class.Ev was leading his class comfortably and made what was suppose to be an easy pass.150 ft out the driveshaft breaks in half taking with it the transmission and rear end.He had brought a spare tranny but no driveshaft or ring and pinion.When he arrived there was Mike Crow,FabricatorDave,one of the Hughes twins,Houston Alford and myself.Staging lanes were to close in one hour.
    After a short conversation I was under Mikes Cuda pulling the driveshaft while the others were busy pulling the tranny and 3rd member.Another racer had a third member for Ev to use.
    With 13 minutes to spare Ev headed to the staging lanes to make a pass and seal the deal.MsVicki took pictures as we were working.Apparently there were 50 -75 people watching us thrash.We didn’t even see them.LOL.

  5. 75Duster

    In between working on my overseas move back to San Diego, I was thrashing to get my ’75 Duster finished for a overseas flight at the auto hobby shop..

  6. 428FE

    Putting a timing belt in a Chevette on the road side with wind, sleet, and below freezing temps. Brrrrrr. It went pretty quick. I needed to get the heater running again pronto!

  7. Mister X

    35 years ago I got a phone call at 9 PM, Hey, how are you? I’m supposed to leave for Willow Springs for SCCA drivers class in the morning and I need a little “help” with the engine.

    So I went over to find the engine with only the crankcase assembled (Corvair), and the rest of the car not ready for the track either, and I’m like WTF? And he says, “my help bailed on me”, and I’m saying “no way”, but after pleading with me as a fellow gearhead I called two of my buddies and set them to work on the car fabbing brackets, wiring, etc., while I assembled the engine.

    Unfortunately, as I was installing the bellhousing, I saw the previous “mechanic” had timed the cam wrong by a tooth and I noticed too late, so I had to disassemble the engine, split the crankcase and re-time the camshaft.

    We finished by 6 AM and I got a couple of hours sleep and then went with the guy to Willow Springs as his mechanic, it was a 10 hour drive.

    During his first track run the generator broke and a Corvair needs that pulley to run the cooling fan, so no Gen, no more track time, and no SCCA license for my buddy.

    But I noticed another Corvair in the parking lot, and amazingly, I knew who the owners were and they generously offered the use of their Alternator as a temp replacement (it was the tow car for their race car), so I installed it on my buddies Vair and he was able to finish his class day and obtain his SCCA license.

  8. Mister X

    And then there was the time another buddy was running his Corvair at Laguna Seca in an SCCA event and during his first race the clutch blew out.

    And there was only half an hour between races so without any air tools and only a floor jack and stands, I told everyone to stand back and set to replacing the clutch.

    I did it, R&R’ing the engine and clutch in only 19 minutes, and got a huge cheer from all the onlookers who thought there was no way it would happen, and my buddy made the starting grid with 30 seconds to spare.

  9. Regular

    When my buddy and myself used to race enduro cars we had tons of thrash sessions. Once while racing at South Boston Raceway, the car took a hard left turn and slammed the car into inside wall. It literally bent the car into a U. We took the car home dissected it, pulled another car out of a junkyard and built that car in less than two weeks. Used everything from the other car. It wasn’t easy but it worked. One night we were up to 4 in the morning trying to get the blumming transmission in place…….so much fun.

  10. Scott Liggett

    I guess when I bought my ’65 Impala SS. It had a junkyard 35/th350 that I always intended to replace with my 383/th350 out of my then 73 Impala. I pulled them in my boss’s warehouse nose to nose at 8 am. By midnight, I had the ’65’s engine/trans out, the ’73’s engine/trans out; swapped different motor mounts, headers and a bunch of other stuff and had it in the ’65. Had it running the next day. Still wasn’t fast enough for the boss who saw the mess at midnight which I spent three hours cleaning of any sign, then shoved the engine-less ’73 Impala out in the lot. The salvage yard came and got it the the next morning.

  11. Anonymous

    Thursday night after work, before the biggest car show of the year and My car was on blocks, No front suspension, no trans, no motor, bare block on the engine stand. I worked till the wee hours thursday night, went to my real job on Friday…worked all day and night saturday and drove the car to the show 6:30 sunday morning…

  12. Brian

    Built my 1947 custom hot rod Ford truck from a 3 ton dually grain truck in 30 days and got done the day before the show I wanted it done for! Then we got a foot of snow and I didn’t even take it to the show!

  13. james

    I had sold my wrx to a guy in Chicago and lucky for him the center diff let loose two days before I was to meet him to pick it up. I worked nights and got off at 10 that Saturday morning had to clean out a bay (which took 3 1/2 hours by itself) pick up a trans and rear end as I had different gears in mine and swapped all night long. After dealing with a stuck bellhousing and two bolts breaking for the rear i finished about 7 am sunday and had to drive 8 hours to meet the guy. Then drove home back to Kansas city. 56 hours in total with no sleep.

  14. squirrel

    When I was 17 me and my brother swapped a 396 into the 59 chevy pickup, to replace the Six. Started Friday morning, drove it Saturday night. We didn’t have squat for equipment, pushed the truck over to the neighbor’s yard to use a crude A frame and come-along to life the motor, pushed it back to our house to finish up. Did have an AC stick welder, but that’s it.

  15. NWDragRacer

    My brother-in-law and I did 350 rings and bearings in a 70 Camaro – Started Friday after work and drove it out Sunday night..

  16. Rick

    Got in a bad wreck with my 57 Chevy years back. Nose damage and bad frame damage. Swapped out frame,Installed all my running gear and another front end. Including paint on the front end.All done in 40 hours.Of course i was pissed that the got wrecked in the first place.And this was done by just me.Oh to be young again.

  17. Chuck Hendrickson

    Removed and replaced a 700R4 trans in my suburban in 90 minutes, in my driveway, on jack stands, laying on plywood, without air tools, because I had to. It was 20 degrees Fahrenheit and the truck was too tall to fit in the garage.

  18. Greg Rourke

    In high school we had Power Shop class. There were car engines on test stands, including one on a water brake dyno. But the only engines we got to work on were mower engines. My best friend Gregg and I didn’t like that, and convinced the teacher to let us rebuild the motor from my Datsun 510. He excused us from every class assignment or test, provided we drove the car to school by the last day of school. Succeed, we got an A. Fail, we fail. Datsun parts weren’t easy to come by in 1975, I waited for months for pistons from Japan. The night before the last day the engine was in a million pieces, and we didn’t have an engine hoist. We stayed up all night getting it done, Mom took pity on us and rented a hoist. I repaid her by borrowing the battery out of her car and not telling her. We drove it to school with no hood, exhaust, plates or insurance.

  19. Dan Sallia

    Friday night assembled the 302 engine and bolted it into the Mustang and wired the car for tach and guages and hicked it all up. Overnight thrash with donuts in the morning. Raced it Saturday afternoon at Bandimere. Buddy John helped out even went and got the donuts.

    2010 Took the Burke Bros Avanti from rusted hulk to show car nice and raced it at World of Speed. Start to finish in nine months. Didn’t even get to fire the engine until Midnight then loaded it up at towed to Bonneville. What a thrash but would do it all over again if I could.

  20. CDOFIXR

    Started building a class 1 off road racecar on wednesday nite after realizing the damages to the old car were beyond repair. We started with a rack of chromoly tubing and welded up a new chassis, front beam, new trailing arms and torsion bar tube, steering and shifter linkages, body work. We entered the race ready finished car at the inspection area on friday morning at 9am, passed inspection, set up our pit area then went out on the track and practiced and did the media photo shoot. On Saturday nite, we bagged a bit over $60K by winning the inaugural Mickey Thompson off road race at the LA collseium. We won the unlimited class 1 race that paid $8500.00, then won the$50,000.00 Pepsi Challenge race. Adding in the sponsorship bonuses, the total that night came to over $60K. Not bad for about 60 hours work each for 4 men without sleep !

  21. Anonymous

    Putting a new clutch in my 72 Lemans in the driveway just to find out the pressure plate was defective and had to do it again. Did I mention this was in MI in the middle of winter when I was 16?

  22. Turtle

    Built my car in the snow on my back with nothing more than coveralls to keep me warm. Did it in three days. Fell asleep under the car more than once. Nah….but sounded good.

  23. b3m

    74 chevelle sedan 250ci, a monojet. Yes the 90hp engine. After work, it was getting dark by 5.. chill in the air. the straight six bent the long way refused to seat an intake…a few beers, I finally had enough. A few phone calls, a 70 mile round trip. the 35 miles home had a 350 running on the headers. I made it to work the next day with it. Funny enough, the monojet was the best part of the old engine, it is on my ricer today. The 350 chevelle made a trip down the local dragstrip, I got yelled at for approaching speed limits for street. Cost for the engine: $100.

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