I sold my aluminum Buick to a guy in Louisianna. He had a guy he knows show up at my house to pick it up for him. They guys pulls up in a Mercedes. I like this guy. He's a man after my own heart when it comes to making due. We packed the whole engine and stuo tranny into the trunk, along with the manual bellhousing, clutch and manual tranny. What hauling 'adventures' have you lived through? r
Not quite the same situation but i had a guy visit me four times to view an old Opel engine. He spent more on gas in them four trips than what the engine was worth.
I had to get my 430 Lincoln to the machine shop so I pulled out the passenger seat in my '64 VW Beetle. It leaned a little to the left but worked out great.
I went from Chicago to Nashville to pick up my $27.51 ebay 196 AMC motor. I layed it down on a tire in my buddy's Dakota and off we went. Well, the seller didn't drain the oil, in fact he had added a few extra quarts, for what reason I don't know. We stop at the Waffle House and choke down breakfast. It's now 11:30 PM and we need to haul ass back to Chicago. We came out of the Waffle House after generously tipping our waitress so she wouldn't beat us ( she was a surly brute) and as we come the truck we see oil dripping out from under the tailgate. A quick inspection reveals a sea of oil inthe bed of the truck. Screw it, we got 575 miles to go. Hit the road!! We're on the highway about an hour when some yutz in a motorhome decides he needs to boost his fuel mileage by drafting off us. He got close and then backed off in a hurry, wiper arms flailing like Aunt Maude swatting away a bee at the family renuion. Seems the oil was being whipped into the air by the 85 MPH turbulence back there. We were oiling everything that come up behind us. Cars would cut in behind us to follow us at 85 +/- MPH only to be slicked down, James Bond style. Made it home, $121 dollars worth of fuel and 14 hours later, with the grimiest truck I've ever seen. Ahh, road trips, good times.
old parts can serve for utility, too. Once in a snowstorm I carried 4 sets of small block ford heads in the trunk of my DD lincoln for weight.
Yeah, the dead Pontiac 400 block I blew up in my GTO served winter duty over the right rear tire of my '66 Valiant for traction. Years ago, when I was truckless, I hauled a complete 283 and a TH350 home in the trunk of my buddy's beater '73 Toronado--love those air shocks!
Sort of the same deal as oldcarmike. I drive my litte S-10 P.U. down from Nebraska to Sunray, Texas to pick up an inline 292 Chevy motor. Fella assures me its stone empty. We hoist it into the bed of the truck and lay it on a couple old tires I had brought along. Down the road about 50 miles, I hear and feel a big "bump" when coming to a stop. Get out and take a looksee. Freakin' oil EVERYWHERE. Looked like the Exxon Valdez affair. I have full-size rubber mat on the bottom of the box, so everything was slick as snot. Drove on in to Liberal, KS where I was spending the night, found a car wash and proceeded to spray water and oil over about 1/3 of Kansas and every inch of my truck and myself. Got it decently cleaned off, bought some ratchet tiedowns at the local Wal-Mart and came on home. Then the real cleanup began. Pretty much the same shit all over again. Lesson learned. Don't take anyone's word for anything. And don't be so damn stupid in the first place. - LOL
I used my "MUV" to haul a 700R4 tranny about 20 miles to get it rebuilt, and picked up a load of bike parts, including a 1954 Triumph Tiger Cub, approximately 12" over springer forks, and a bunch of other parts. The MUV is my Motorcycle Utility Vehicle, a 1970 Triumph with homebuilt wheelchair accessible sidecar. The tailgate folds out to make a 3' long ramp.
Hey, I have a Tiger Cub! My dad pulled it apart for a restoration in the 70s, and never put it back together... When I was a teen, my only car was a Maverick. On two different occasions, I brought Vespas home in the trunk of it. Drop the engine/rear wheel in the trunk, and let the front fender hang over the side. No problem. About the same time, I had to go rescue my Dad after his Vespa died in a rain storm (he rode it to work daily, almost an hour commute, often loaded with a TV or a stereo or something for a customer, on a home made luggage rack). We didn't own a truck, so I had to help him load it into the back of his Lancia Beta HPE, a little hatchback. I had to haul the transmission from my pickup, a TH350, to and from the rebuilder in the trunk of my wife's Camry. I was afraid it wouldn't fit. As it turned out, I'm pretty sure I could have fit 3 of them in there. My wife is a very understanding woman... Slonaker
I'd ask if it was for sale, but I'm picking up 3 bikes in a couple of weeks as it is. I won't be using the sidecar to pick 'em up this time, they're about 300 miles away. I don't think I could fit a '65 Triumph 650, '69 Triumph 250, and a '71 BSA 650 in the sidecar.
So i'm picking up this 700r4 and converter that I bought near Lancaster, I guess about an 1hr and 45 from me. I meet the guy put the trans in the back of my Tahoe. I get about 15 mins from home and I smell trans fluid. The tailshaft was bagged but I decided to take a look anyway. So I pull over, look in the back no oil that I could see, cool. I also notice there is no torque converter SH*T I left it at the gas station where I met the guy. I call the station talk to some giggly high school girls who find it, I try to tell then not to turn it over as it was full of fluid but they weren't listening, from what I could here they dumped all over the place. I told them I'd be there tomorrow to pick it up. I get home unload the trans only to find out it dumped about a quart of atf on my carpet. Now its 1:00am and I'm cleaning carpet. My truck still has a faint smell of atf on hot days.
Michelle and I picked up an sbc with our grand cherokee... was pretty clean, so it didn't make a mess, but I'm pretty sure she was wondering "what the heck did I get into with this idiot"... we went shopping on the way home. I still owe Tuck for helping me unload it... I didn't have a cherry picker at the time, and didn't think the whole thing through! Ben
Couple weeks ago I went out to Lincoln Neb. to pick up a 354 Hemi. I took my VW Jetta, it was dimantled. Block in the trunk, heads and crank on the back seat and intake carb dizzy on the front floor. 2200 miles at 47MPG and a $350.00 Hemi Priceless.
Went with a mate to pick up his A Touring, we guessed about a 9-10 hour round trip to get it. WRONG, his POS commodore couldn't pull the damn thing! Then we had to go through a mountain range, I told him put it in 1st (Auto) and use the brakes lightly, he didn't know shit about cars so went down in drive riding the brakes. Had to stop at the bottom of the mountain with a small brake fire, seized the left rear caliper on! Warped the disks and glazed them. So he hands the car over to me, saying 'You do better' Man scary trip, If you ever drove from Exeter to Nowra over mount Camberwarra you would understand. Started going up the next hill and all of a sudden it seems this A on the back had gained a few thousand pounds. The auto trans started to slip in an effort to pull it up the hill! Pulled over, one of the trailer springs had de-arched (Tandem) this pulled on the handbrake for the trailer. No wonder it didn't want to move! Slowed us down even more. 17 hour round trip to a place ironically called Howlong! A couple of months later going through the same mountain range in another mates HG Monaro, the diff dropped out! Parted company with the springs and dropped its arse on the road. About 1am, foggy night in the middle of the road on a crest going around a bend. Came close to being hit a few times in the dark. Same mate comes to pick up the car, whaddya know?? The POS Commodore didn't have the guts to pull the trailer with the HG over the hill. On a kind of different note, but still about towing. I was sitting on radio picket in a command post during an exercise in Australia during my Army days when one of the drivers comes running in asking for help. I took the radio and followed to get one of the better laughs I ever had. He was towing a 1 tone trailer with a Landrover when he hit a series of bumps on the dirt track. The springs are so stiff on those things that it catapulted it into the air where it landed on top of the Landrover, emptied its contents allover the track, bush and rover, bent all the top supports flat then the trailer had rolled down the side of a hill about 70 yards totaling it! He asked me, "Do you think anyone will notice?" On a road trip to Darwin one day I was co-driver for a Unimog with an 8 tone trailer. Being a long 6 day drive trough nothing we sometimes have a little fun and play snake, a column of trucks swerving there way along the road. Now its not dangerous, its dead straight road and you can see oncoming traffic at about 5 miles out. Anyway here we are swerving across the road when this tone 8 tone trailer passes us!! Yup, the hitch failed and our own trailer was passing us. Luckily it just coasted to a stop on the scrub off the road, the Tiffy's fixed it up and we were off again. Last one, While being posted to an Artillery unit as a medic we were returning from a long Ex, just drove from Darwin to Sydney and were turning off the highway onto the road to Holsworthy (Home base). We had the M198 155mm guns, being towed behind the Mack gun tractors. As we turned through the intersection the outside wheel parted company with the gun on the truck in front of us, rolled about 5 or 6 times coming to rest on the bonnet of a car waiting at the lights!! Totaled the gun and the car, expensive accident! Doc.
This was back in the 70's. I was racing Sprites back then and I heard about a trick motor for sale at a machine shop in Oakland. I went there and it was a real, factory hot rod with dry sump, heavy casting block etc. He said that it was dry of oil/water so I put it in the back of a borrowed, brand new, Dodge Tradesman van. The BMC oil pan is as flat as a dime so I figured that I could make it to Berkeley without problems and if it fell over, no big deal, it is dry, right? About 1/2 way there, I had to do some extra steering and, clunk, there goes the motor. About a minute later, I started to smell something strong and acrid. The motor was full of bean oil. It hadn't run since the 60's and that's what the sporty guys (who could afford it) ran. And it was old bean oil. I drove flat out to my shop, dumped the motor on the floor and started to disassemble the van's interior. Not a biggie. The back seat comes out in a flash and the floor was covered with a black rubber floor mat that is retained by chrome strips around the edges. As I unscrew the strips I notice that about half the screws are missing but keep going untill the back is stripped bare. I throw in about 5 pounds of grease sweep and head off to the "quarter wash" (that's what it cost back then) The clean-up goes pretty well and in time, the van is sparkling, but wet. I go back to the shop and wet vac, all of the water out of the low spots and re-install the mat and strips; then in one of the low spots I spot a handfull of shiny chrome screws stuck in a wad of bady caulk. Good job Chrysler!
1000 miles with a '42 Ford hood on top my PU topper, Daytona to Orlando to Tampa with a 223-6/3sp in the back and a Model A frame strapped to the top. Another time i simply pushed a complete SBC in the back of my PU and drove from Miami back to Tampa, no straps, no problems, but I got back to late to take it out before going to work the next morning. A dumbass in a KIA changed lanes in front of me and I had to panic stop... Inertia is a bitch, dented the crap out of the front of my 6 month old PU box and the back of the cab. Hauled my 65 Corvair Conv. on a single axle trailer with no springs about 10 miles in 5 0'clock traffic with my PU... Hauled the engineless carcass of my 46 Tudor the same way. Tow dollyed a 68 Dart from Tampa to West Palm Beach with my PU... Same for my 52 Ford... Did I mention my PU is a 2.2L 4cyl./5 sp Isuzu PU? Sold two Ford V6's to a mustached guy who showed up in a 65 Impala... and heavy blue eye shadow and lipstick. We hoisted them into the trunk side by side. He called himself Shannon I think. Weird.
I think the best one I ever pulled off with out getting killed or getting a ticket was when My daughter bought a 67 Mustang GT parts car for me to bring home sight unseen. I took my 78 Ford 1/2 ton and was just going to strip it and bring the parts home like she said I could. When I got there the guy said I had to take the whole thing and even offered to load it with his tractor. We put the car in (motorless) rear end to the Cab and tied it down real good then I drove home (450 mile) I don't think anybody but me and the person that does my laundry knows how scarry that ride was.
My girlfriend used to have a '96 4-cyl S-10 pickup. We used it once to haul a complete 350 for my old Nova. Thng was it was the middle of winter, so we'd already put 200lbs of sandbags in the bed, then we piled in the engine hoist, and the 350. Poor little thing topped out at 65mph on the flats, and with the pedal to the floor got down as low as 35mph on the hills. A buddy of mine joked that he was going to do a photo study of 'crap I've strapped to the roof of my celebrity'. He put so much junk on that car we talked about addig a diamondplate panel to the roof with tiedowns built in. The things I can recall of the top of my head were: A complete VW microbus poptop camper unit, the bodyshell back of the rear wheel from a ford taurus, & a fullsized clawfoot bathtub.
These are classical. I have some interesting hauling stories, but they include imports and I won't tell them here. r
I put a 29 a pickup with fenders in the back of my wife's Burb. Even an extra cowl. Met up with Crusty Nut in Bako and made it back over the Goreman pass before they closed it due to snow!
None of these are as bad as this: http://www.snopes.com/photos/automobiles/lumber.asp how stupid were these people?
I remember pulling the passenger seat out of a 1980 VW Scirrocco and hauling home an engine and transmission! Good thing I didn't get into an accident, or I'd have been crushed to death.
i hauled the free front end i got I beam with dog leg wish bones stuck the bones in the trunk and tied the i beam to the bummper and tied the trunk down and drove the 80 miles home in my 52 plymouth biz coupe got a bunch a thumbs up from some old guys it was great
Drove about 400 miles once in a 1.3 litre Corolla towing a 8 x 5 foot trailer to pick up a rolling '34 chassis. Stripped the chassis down at the sellers house, put most of it on the trailer, the rest of the parts in the car and then headed home. It towed nice but was pretty slow up the hills. At one stage we caught up to and passed some Model A Fords out on a Sunday drive. Soon afterwards we got to some big hills and I ended up with them passing me as I crawled up the hill in first gear. Judging by their smiles when they passed, they didn't get too many opportunities to pass modern cars
A couple of years ago my brother needed to haul one of his hudson engines to a shop for some upgrades.since I was visiting and didnt have my truck there,we had to improvise,so we folded down the rear jump seats in his checker marathon,and set the engine on the rear floor of the car. the guys at the speed shop got a good laugh when we opened the rear door and they saw a complete hudson six on the back floor of the car..
The Jalopy Journal
