WERE THERE IS A WHEEL THERE IS A WAY

by Richard Boudrias

A few days before our Club planned weekend event, I heard a noise; the rotating type, coming from my front or rear wheel.

At first glance I thought it was perhaps one of my hubcaps that was loose or something else of that nature. I checked them both only to find out that everything seemed to be OK. The noise came and disappeared the next day. Then it went away permanently.

On Saturday we had our event up north and all was well. Fifteen other cars participated in the bucolic tour, we stayed over night at the Hotel Baluchon: top-notch but rural hotel accommodation.

On Sunday afternoon, we came back home on the Autoroute at 110Km/hrs, followed by a fellow Club member also driving also Traction. All of a sudden, I saw my front left wheel leave the car. A sight I would not wish at my worst enemy.

Managed by a phlegm unknown to me, I grasped my steering wheel with both hands in order to steer the car towards the right lane of the Autoroute. At this point, I was amazed how great the car handled on three wheels. So well I could keep one hand on the steering wheel and pull the emergency break ( hence the name) with all my strength until the Traction stopped.

Meanwhile, my wheel with the brake drum, nut and hubcap had traveled diagonally across the lane, bounced on the oncoming lane at the speed of a cannon ball, rocketed onto a marsh, probably killing a few frogs, and climbed again and crossed a merge entry ramp. All this without hitting anybody or anything.

Claude who was following me saw the wheel trajectory enough to guide our search to retrieve it while my wife Louise, still sitting in the car, called the CAA for a tow truck. Although the CAA arrived within minutes, it took Claude and I at least thirty minutes to find and bring back the lost wheel.

We jacked the car in order to temporarily fit the wheel back on the shaft so that the Tow truck could pull up the car on it's platform.

Any damaged you ask? None, amazingly! Well you see, once the wheel pulled away, the car sat on the brake plate and on the ball joint. Both parts became skates that slipped along the concrete surface until the automobile stopped. Luckily Claude found a new ball joint and the brake plate was not really damaged. We only needed to grind and hand paint it.

We know we could have killed others and ourselves and rolled over many times. But we did neither. It's a miracle, that's for sure! As a result we are seriously thinking of building a shrine dedicated to André Citroën.

Why did this accident happen? I still do not know. Two hypotheses are up for consideration:
A). I forgot to insert a cotter pin when I re-did by brakes a year ago, or
B). The cotter pin broke and the nut unscrewed itself from the splined shaft. I doubt that it is the first hypothesis because another Traction member also lost a wheel a few years ago but at just 5Km/hr. In his case someone forgot to put a cotter pin after a $70.000 restoration job! Since then everybody here is extremely sensitized to forgetting cotter pins.

Although we will never know for sure, one thing is certain; From now on I will check my nut at least once a year.

Citroënly yours.
©VEA