many of you who've been here a while remember this. some of you may have missed it, and some of you may still be too new to the forum to have heard it. this is a warning i hope you learn from me rather than 'the hard way'.
absolutely, under no circumstances, push your car by yourself. probably more so than any other production car ever made the c3 (and presumably the c2 as well) can be very dangerous. the problem is the proximity of the rear wheel in relation to the door, and in the case of pushing, you're body. if you really want the details just read the story below
backstory:
a couple years ago i rebuilt the engine in my '81. i took it out for a test drive but failed to make a critical adjustment. only about a mile from my house, the car stalled in the middle of the road. being a stick i thought, "no problem, i'll just push it, jump in and pop the clutch". so i got it rolling at a pretty good jogging speed and jumped. that's when things went horribly wrong. the rear tire clipped my left foot just as i jumped and took it under the wheel. the rest of me came down in the car with my right leg stuck between the seat and door sill. from that point on, i was pretty much along for a most unpleasant ride. ultimately, the car rolled about 100ft before coming to a stop at which point it rolled back off my foot.
i was only wearing a pair of old "garage shoes" no doubt most of you reading this have as well. the damage was pretty extensive.
pressure of the tire forced my ankle in direct contact with the asphalt, resulting in the "knuckle" part of the tibia being ground off. it also tore a playing card size hole in my skin and ripped out much of the tissue, including some tendon and ligaments in the area. as if all that weren't bad enough, the action attempted to pull my foot off at the ankle joint, separating the joint and allowing road rock and debris to get compacted up inside the joint.
the aftermath was a 10 day hospital stay, 3 months with 'external fixation' and 5 months using a "wound vac". it was about 5 months before i could even walk on that leg and i had to use a cane for a month or two afterward. the damage sustained is permanent and i'm now as good as i ever will be again. i have about 80% use of my left leg, which means no more running or jumping except in cases of extreme emergencies. i have constant discomfort, especially on long days in which i still make use of a cane. and my range of motion is strictly limited.
there are pics but the first time around they got removed because of the grossness. old timers can vouch for it. if you really, really want to see, there was a thread over in OT that didn't get shut down. just do a search for "gross pics" and go to page two.
you've been warned.
so, please understand, i'm not doing this to get sympathy or anything like that. i just don't want any of you to have to go through the same pain and trauma. please learn from this story. if you ever find yourself in the position of needing to move a vette, you need to have one person sitting in the car with a second or third person pushing. DO NOT do this by yourself!
