Funny old engine pulling story

Just want to mention this took place about 45 years ago. Long before anyone knew about safety. LOL
My dad and uncle and my grandfather had built an A Coupe to drag race in south east Pa in the mid/late sixties. They found a 354 Hemi for it and when to get it. My uncle tells the story ...

The 354 came from Peter P. Haines. He lived along route ten. The engine was pulled from a dark green, 1956 New Yorker that had no rear wheels. Al and I towed the car up the hill with Haines' tow truck. The New Yorker and the wrecker were back-to-back with the Chrylser's rear in the air. I was in the New Yorker looking out the back while trying to steer. It took us at least three tries because the wrecker did not have quite enough steam. Every time Al took off the Chrysler just sat there for a second and then suddenly lunged. The wrecker would all but stop and then the big Chrysler would come slamming into the rear of the tow truck and we would take off. At least twice or thrice we got part way up the hill and the wrecker had no more stuff. I think when we achieved success we had backed ALL the way to route ten and Frid put the wrecker's throttle on the floor and did not lift until we crested the hill. The Chrysler must have slammed into the wrecker half a dozen times by the time we got up the hill. Each time the wrecker almost stopped and then, BOOM! and we were off! We pulled the Chrysler up the hill to the tree where engines were removed. The engine was put into the trunk of the black 1965 Dodge and we headed home. I could never forget that day.

So the engine ended up in this...

 

o sorry. Mods please lock this thread

 

Well damn, why don'tcha get all shitty about it!

 

Cool story, cool hot rod!!! Where is it now?

 

Heck the pic is worth reading the story for. Trees were the way I used to pull engines in my youth. If the overhanging limb didn't look strong enough, we would run a chain to the next highest limb, then the next till we figured we had enough "wood" to support the engine.

Or we just got four or five big friends and a long bar.

 

Original discovery of bump drafting ?

Being able to smoke the hides like that should have made it all worth while.

I got a kick out of the story, reminded me of how hard we sometimes worked to get over what would be minor bumps today. Good old days? HA HA, I'll take the here and now thanks.

 

No reason to get all pissy about it. Just hit the back button and move on.

What happened to the car?

 

I thought it was a good memory, I borrowed my dads tow truck to go get a 327 out of an 68 impala many years ago. A buddy of mine went with me, he knew very little about a cars or tools. We get there and the guy that owned it said "there it is" have at it. I paid him and he left. I pulled the hood off and the guy's neighbor came over to bs and seen I was basically doing this by myself. Next thing I know a few of those neighbors are under the car and on top and the motor was hanging on the back of the wrecker. All of us had a blast pulling that motor! Even my buddy learned a couple of things that day.

 

When I pulled the engine for my truck, some friends and I met at the junkyard. It was in a 77 chevy pick up with a mangled front clip. We unbolted/ pried the sheetmetal off, unbolted what we could from the top, and no one was thrilled about getting under that thing in the mud, so we threw a big chain over the roof and attached it to the door latch, then hooked it to a friend's truck. We rocked it until the truck could pull it over on it's side, disconnected the underside, then rolled it back over. My uncle pulled his tractor with a homemade boom that looked like a scorpion's stinger, chained it up and snatched it out. I have a pic. around here somewhere. Redneck engine hoist!

 

hahahahahaha, damn dude, I thought it was funny, thats the kinda crap we did!
ease up and go back under yer' rock

 

A friend of mine wanted to see if he could pull an engine without using any wrenches.
He nosed the Pinto up to a tree,cut the radiator support,motor mounts,exhaust pipe,etc with a torch. Chained the engine to the tree and pulled the body away from the tree with his wrecker. Like pulling a bad tooth!

 

Damn, who pissed in your wheaties this morning?

 

^^hahahaha , we used to use a 51 massey furgeson rusty assed farm tractor with a rope over a tree limb and some axle grease on the tree limb for it to glide on, crazy shit, my brother screaming at me to go up an inch or down an inch all the while I'm shifting and easing the clutch and brake and always went to far, but somehow, it always worked in the long run and nobody got killed. btw, I was 10 yrs old.

 

Neat story, remember it use to be Get er done!! Any way you could!

 

When were you elevated to the position of literary thread critic?

If you didn't like it, hit the back button without leaving a nasty comment...........damn!

 

Reminds me of the time me and a friend were hauling a 283 home in a pickup he borrowed from his boss. I was sitting in the back holding the engine and he took off from a red light hard. The engine started sliding pulling me with it. I let go and it fell out the back after knocking the tailgate open and putting a big dent in it. It landed in the middle of the intersection. As luck would have it it was right in front of the Gulf station where I worked. I ran over and got the tow truck, hooked the engine up and pulled it to the station. We loaded it back up and took it to his house. He got fired a few weeks later. Don't know if it was related to messing up his bosses truck or not. We were just a couple of dumb high school kids starting out and learning as we went.....

 

I'm happy you guys are chiming in with your stories. that's exactly why I posted this. I know it's not the greatest story but I figured there would be guys that appreciate it and add their own experiences. I especially like the one from jimmyv. That's hysterical.
Oh and unfortunately the coupe was sold in '70 I think. We recently tried to locate it but no dice. It seems it was sold to a couple young kids in the Hamburg Pa area. Possibly mushroom farmers??? if anyone thinks they recognize the car please contact me. We would love to have it back. It was raced at Maple Grove. Had best times in the 11's. Not bad huh?

 

Some of the most fun my dad and I have had was bringing home cars. Cool story, makes me want to call dad up and ask if he found anything lately to drag home!

Drove an old motorhome back to the house once just for the engine. Dad driving, me pouring ATF down the filler pipe and giving the coil an occasional smack to keep it running. Didn't make it home but dang we had fun trying! Too bad we didn't warn mom about that one, she thought we had squatters when she got home and found the RV in the driveway (called a BIG tow truck). Nope, me and dad sitting inside drinking a beer deciding what to do next. Man our neighbors must have hated us....

 

Buddy and I were pulling an engine out of a car in a junkyard using chain blocks and three poplar tree poles chained into a tripod. Don,t break the windshield I said to my buddy who promptly swung the chain into it.....

 

Same friend I was with when we lost the motor lived across the street from me. We always helped each other with our "projects". I had a 58 Chevy with a straight 6 in it I wanted to pull. Had the car sitting at the top of my parents driveway which was a small hill with a flat parking spot on top. I had it backed in and took off the front cap. I had a small bottle jack and he had some sort of small a-frame farm type jack. So we said lets do it. We got it lifted up enough to roll the car out from under it and as soon as we did it tipped over. We of course had not drained the oil which was making a nice long black gooey stream down my parents fresh white concrete drive. That was over 30 years ago and you can still see the black marks on their driveway. I joke about it with my kids whenever we are there.

 

Model, Im glad you started this thread because it reminded me of some really good times, and not just the one I posted. Thanks for some kewl flash backs!!! Plus I got some good laughs here as well.
Some people just pull their wallets and let guys like us pull their motors. Thats usually why they would'nt understand a thread like this. Not trying to be disrespectfull to anyone.

 

no shit x2

 

SHINY, my apologies for not running this response past you to make sure that it meets with your approval, but....

A LONG time ago, my brother and I used to use the big ol' tree across the street from my parent's house to pull engines. One summer afternoon we quit to go and get cleaned up for dinner and left our junkyard-purchased V-8 engine hanging from the chain. We wrapped the chain and the engine in garbage bags to keep out the dust & weather, but a nice summer evening thunderstorm blew through and rain water dripped down the chain all night and filled the intake to the top. The next morning when we realized what had happened, we just took all the spark plugs out and turned the crank with a 1/2" breaker bar to get the water out. (Yeah, it squirted the water WAY across the street, and actually looked pretty cool!!) We hurried and got the engine the rest of the way in the car and got it running that same day. It never really seemed to hurt anything so we forgot all about it and drove the hell out of it!!!

 

^^^^ x3. ^^^^

I remember the tree where I grew up when I was little had an old rusty chain in the middle of it; the tree had grown all the way around it. My mother told me that was where my great uncle always hauled his old engines out. I hadn't thought about that since I read this story, so thanks for that little memory burst.

Hell, up until just now, I couldn't think of anyone in my entire family who ever worked on cars or hot rodded. I should have known good old Cecil was a hot rodder! Thank you!

 

Change your screen name to ...''Web Balls''... your so tuff.

Hemi rod photo is bad ass.

 

What? No good story of your own?

Wasn't involved personally, but a couple buddies were pulling the 265 out of a 55 hardtop to make room for a 327. The tree was close to the shop and the only suitable 10 foot high branch was parallel to the wall so the 55 was nosed up to the wall. A 30 foot or so 1" nylon rope run over the branch, over the top of the car to a bipod made of pipe and down to the pickup hitch. The first pull stretched the rope a bit then the pickup started spinning on the grass. Second try, take a little run at it, same result with the rope stretching a little further. Third try, More run. The rope is now about 50 feet long and the branch is pulled down to the top of the fenders. At this time, what ever was holding the engine let loose, the bipod tips over and the pickup is acellerating away and out come the motor and transmission. Transmission took a chunk out of the firewall and the whole assembly cleared the branch several feet and came down through the windshield. Now the pickup hits the end of the rope again and nearly tore the top off the car.
The next step was to haul it to the junkyard and get another on. You could buy them for a hundred bucks.

 

Man that's a great story.I remember pulling a few motors under a big oak tree.I'm sure a lot of the old timers on here do too.

 

modelacitizen,
Sounds like the first "kinetic-energy" machine? Cool story.
The pic of that coupe boiling the rears is awesome!
Now,that'd be an awesome avatar pic instead of the Mustang....
(Just messing with ya)

 

Funny story ,I can't believe you steered the car ,Against the law now .Times have changed ,I appreciate these stories becausse us young guys are spoiled ,
Engine hoists I know you guys didn't have ,I guess that's where the phrase shadetree mechanics came from.......

 

Whats with the wasted time thing ? if your time is so hard to come by why are you here to start with, I can relate to this story I had a 57 ford I used an old oak in the yard to pull 9 motors for that ford. the tree still stands with the scars of that ford oh ya!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!