Please keep your fingers crossed guys!!

[RICH MUISE]

Keep your fingers crossed for me guys. We've got storms coming in from 2 sides. Two tornados on the ground ne of Amarillo, one headed for downtown Pampa as we speak.
Short version...I blew a brake line in my '57 this afternoon trying to tighten a fitting. I have no brakes, my car is outside and can't be moved. The storms are bringing large hail. I hope I still have a salvageable car in a few hours. No Tornados in the Amarillo area at least so far, but lots of damaging hail.

[hiball3985]

Why can't you move it? YIKES!!

[57 imposter]

Get your neighbors and friends and PUSH!!!!!  Good luck.  I know when we travel anywhere in that direction, we carry an ample supply of moving blankets. I know they won't stop the golf balls but will handle the pea sized stuff.

[hotroddonnie]

Rich. I could jump on a plane from Canada and lend a hand pushing, but that would be to late! HRD

[57redwhitered]

We had a couple of tornados pass by about 10 miles east of us this evening along with some hail.  Everything I own is under a roof so should be ok.  By the way we are under a blizzard warning for tomorrow.  You gotta love Kansas weather.  It has been really crazy this year.

[rmk57]

Cant you use your parking brake to creep it into your shop?

[RICH MUISE]

Short explanation...I don't have a normal garage at the end of the driveway.
long explanation...Earlier this year I rebuilt our back deck, extending it back 4 feet. My work area/garage is at the back end of our back yard, and until I went to get the car out last week, I never realized how difficult I made it for myself. Under power, it took almost an hour to manuver the car out of the garage and past the deck...UNDER POWER! A lot of this was because I drove it in, where in the past I had backed it in. There was no way us pushing it across grass was going to get it in there. I was too embarrased to mention it, but when I pulled it out of the garage last week, I did some damage to the front right fender...and didn't even realize it until later.
One of the things I was fiddling with today was the idle speed....car does an easy 25 or 30 mph without my foot on the gas (but tach says just 1100 rpm?!). That's what I was fiddling with when I noticed one fitting leaking under the master. It had a brass adapter fitting to get it from the MM to 3/8 inverted flare. Anyway, I obviously overtightened it.

I knew the storm was coming, but I had arranged to use a friends garage for the storm tonight, and until I got something done about my garage . I was waiting for him to get back to his shop, and was just starting the car to bring it there.
So, I started the car and put it in drive at the same time stepping on the brake.right to the floor!
Hopefully most of the storm has passed us. We got a few wavws of pea to dime size hail. Too dark to see if anything is damaged. In the SE part of Amarillo, they got golf ball size hail, and in a town called Happy 15-20 mile from Amarillo, they got baseball size!!
One of the tornados went thru Fritch, where my wife's working partner lives. She called them, they had tennis ball size hail, but were still huddled in their storm shelter waiting for the storm to pass. Fortunatly, the tornado missed them. We're waiting to hear about damage in Pampa, about 50 miles from here. One tornado missed the town's center by less than 3 miles, followed by another that went right thru the downtown are.
Things are quiet now...hopefully will stay that way. I appreciate the concern.

[RICH MUISE]

Cant you use your parking brake to creep it into your shop?

Learned alot of lessons this week about getting too anxious....I have no back brakes at all yet...so no emergency brake. That won't happen again. Good thing is the brakes could have gone out on the road, not in my driveway where I had time to shift to neutral and then park. Hopefully no damage to the tranny. Wasn't going real fast...just scared the hell out of me.
When I do get some help to push it in the garage, I can start the car in neutral so at least I'll have power steering. I'm going to take out the door I just remade last month and widen it by 2 feet before I try squeezingthe car back in there.
So much that could have been disastrous today, I'm not gonna sleep well. If we don't get any more hail, what happened today won't set me back that far. It's also a good reminder of the importance of a modern master cylinder with 2 seperate systems!!

[Ecode70D]

Rich
I'm wondering how you made out with the storm.  I hope that it passed you by and that your car did not get damaged. 
Jay

[Ford Blue blood]

See the "green dot" by your name....any news?

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks for checking on me, guys!
Redwhitered....10 miles is plenty close enough for a tornado...glad it wasn't any closer to you.
The car is ok...just went out and looked. My old Subaru is ok also, so my wife's  Honda we just got a few weeks ago should be ok as well. She left for work before sunrise.

The fitting I overtightened was a special adapter I got out of Arizona. I'm going to order a new set and a spare this morning, should be here in a few days. We've got wind and rain today, but ok after that for a few days, so hopefully I'll get a bigger door put on the garage while I'm waiting for the fittings, then it's probably back inside until it's finished before I drive it again.

[Ecode70D]

Rich
      I'm happy that you survived the storm.    You do have a dual master cylinder on the car... right?
      Go and do something to that garage door also and get that car back inside the shop until you have brakes.
      If you don't get things squared away quickly, we may have to revoke your Mass. birth certificate.         Jay   
   

[57redwhitered]

Rich,  happy that everything is ok with you.  this is a crazy year for the weather here.  Yesterday it was 70 out then wind driven along with hail with reports of at least 20 tornadoes in kansas.  One of the twisters went down main street of a very small town 10 miles east of me doing property damage along with downed power lines, but thankfully no injuries.  today is high winds with rain that is turning to snow.  could be a long day.

[Zapato]

Glad the hail never hit hard in your area. We've been having some really heavy rain and wind for a couple weeks now. 2.5 inches expected today.

Been working on a pottery shed for my wife and trying to work around the weather. Roof was tar papered but was waiting for a break to get shingles on. Got a start on Saturday but had to stop and deal with some other issues. So Sunday climbed back up and was about 2/3rds done and a light rain started coming down. Eventually asked wife to get me a dry sweatshirt and continued on. Shortly thereafter rain turned to a shower with hail. Wife came out wondering if I should come off the roof till weather broke. A wiser man might have but one was not up on that roof. All I could think was another hour or so and it would be over for another 25 years.

A good warm shower, a cup of hot Chai, a warm fire on the stove and the look on my wife's face of appreciation as one more hurdle is done on her shed made it all worthwhile. Once that is done I start focusing on cleaning my shop, sorting out years of parts gathered and focusing finally on my 57. Wish me luck that nothing else happens to distract me again.

With fingers crossed in Zapatoville,

Zap-

[hotroddonnie]

Glad all is good Rich, I saw one of the tornados on TV and it didn't look very friendly! HRD