tow storys

[redneckwheelman2]

lets here about them towing pulling or other things along that line
i dont got any cause im 14

[OJOE]

i started towing cars in 1973, which story do you want to here? ha ha, well maybe i could tell them all and run up my post count.

[77shortybawx]

Wheres the popcorn eating smiley when you need it?

[71swb4x4]

Plenty of stories, a couple I am not proud of. Scariest was towing a 67 one ton dump truck on a car trailer. Scary part was the 1/2 ton 68 pickup doing the towing, no trailer brakes, 350 miles one way. Oh yeah, and the freezing rain for the last 100 miles.
I am happy to say we made it home without killing ourselves, or worse yet anyone else. It was very, very stupid.

[thirdstreettito]

I'm 16 and I've towed a bunch of stuff. First was just a landscape trailer behind and Expedition. the worst thin I towed was my 68 frame with just the bed on it, on a u-haul trailer, with all the weight at the rear, maximum speed that trip - 40mph. Those are the only major things I've towed.

Pulled - I kept hooking the chain to my tow hooks and yanking out oak trees, biggest was 6" wide and took 2 try's, I pulled out a total of about 40 trees in 3 hours.

Hauled - my 84 has been filled over the rails about 5 times with firewood. A bunch more times over the cab with pinestraw. And once it was loaded over the rails with oak and I had 6 guys in/on the truck(only drove about 1/2mi). And once loaded with parts headed to a meet. Loaded over the cab about 4 times with hay bales. And weekly loaded with everything from dirt/gravel to lumber/firewood.

Oh, and I've only had my truck running since March. Boy does she love workin!

EDIT: Forgot one, I have the truck loaded over rails with oak firewood pulling a trailer filled with a riding mower, weedeater, blower, fuel, 9 18" stumps and some more. And she did 60mph very well.

[tvblazer78]

I have one,

Two weeks ago pulling my blazer with my Yukon to Nashville from Knoxville about 200 miles one way. I left my house at 5:30am on Sat and went about 100 miles in the rain and BOOM! Ya a blow out about 2 miles from a exit and I drove it to that exit to Chaged it out in the rain, so I made it to the show ok. But I was thinking I may want buy a used tire in Nashville to take back with me just in case I have one more blow out, so I found a used one and had it put on. Well on Sunday I left out at 4pm in the rain! and went about 100 miles and BOOM! Ya a blow out agin and it was 1 exit down from the first blow out, Suck! so it was a good thing I went out and got a used tire for the ride home. And yes I have one more show this year and I did order all 4 new tires for my trailer. I am not doing that agin.

[redneckwheelman2]

good storys so far put some pics up if you got any

[Fraser Beatty]

Where to begin...towed a 1952 Minneapolis Moline ZAU tractor home 60 kms behind an 85C1500. I was driving tractor, Dad was driving truck. He's nuts, had her up around 70km/h, I had to fight to keep the tractor in a straight line, dodging rocks thrown by the truck all the way (went down some pretty rough gravel roads). Was waving frantically at him to slow down, he never turned around once, just kept on truckin.

Another time tried towing an 83 C10 into town with the same 85 C1500 using a tow bar fastened to the 83 bumper with tow straps. Straps snapped (twice), once in the middle of a busy street. Had to jump out, cut the remainer of the straps loose, and push the truck to safety. Ended up getting the truck into town another way (ahem don't ask!)

Towed a new Holland 270 baler home about 50 kms behind the 85. Lost a shield off the baler, turned around and drove back till we found it, resting in the ditch.

The 85 died once due to carb troubles, towed it home several kms with a 98 Pontiac Trans Sport minivan.

I could go on and on lol. Some of the towing experiences I have had...

[vectorit]

I traded a bunch of stuff to a buddy of mine for his broken down black 1977 K10 Silverado PU, it had a blown up engine and I thought this would be a fun truck bein a short bed and all. So I was excited to get it home, and swap in a new small block and get to havin that fun...
Well he lived about 80 miles away from me, so I rented a tow dolly and hitched it up to the burb. Brought another buddy to help wrangle that thing onto the dolly, and keep an eye ball on it while I towed it home on the SoCal freeways. For the guys n' gals that are familiar with SoCal freeways. The truck was in Cypress, and I lived at the time in Glendora so I drove the 91, 57, and 210 freeways. The 57 has a couple steep hills, one being Via Verde that goes over I-10. Steep goin up, and steep goin down.

I keep askin my buddy who has is eye's peeled on the front tires on the dolly if everything is still lookin good, and he keeps responding that everything still looks secure. Well, we pull into my driveway at home. No sooner I hop out of the burb, the PU just rolls right off the tow dolly and into the street! One strap hook broke, and the other strap just slipped to the outside just as the other gave way. The Safety chain gave way as well, since the welds holding it to the trailer just gave away. My buddy and I just kept thinking that if that happened on one of the freeway's we'd be on the local news traffic reports for causing a pile up or something.

Same truck... I am up in the Sierra Nevada back roads camping, and I head out exploring on the old logging roads lookin for fire wood. Well I am toolin along up a rutted soft dirt road, which is closed by the way and guess what - the thing just stops runnin. (Later found out the HEI module cooked).
Well, I get to walking back to camp, just hoping there is another camper their that will be willing to help me out. When a tractor with four kids on it and another driving it comes up on me, they stop and ask whats up with me and I tell them I am stuck down some closed off loggin road. They offer to pull my truck out and up to the road for a tow truck for 50 bucks, well I only had a single 100 dollar bill in my wallet... I tell em if they can pull me all the way back to the campsite I'd pay em a 100. They all get giddy with excitement, and say for me to wait there while they went and got a chain.
We meet up again on the road and I guide them to where I am stuck, the tractor pulls me out and for a few miles just fine. Then we get to the camp site, and there is a steep culvert to go through in order to get to the campgrounds. Well, things are going great till this spot comes. See they are pulling me from my trailer hitch, so I am driving the truck as if I am in reverse. So we get to the culvert and the kid speeds up abruptly and slows down abruptly for some reason, and basically rubber bands me into the back hoe shovel and litterally caves in my cherry tailgate...
The kid was so scared that I would freak out on him, that he said sorry man - you don't have to pay me.

From there this camping trip story is longer and gets even more crazier, but theres my towing stories for ya.

[El Jay]

A real long time ago, I was helping a very good friend of mine move a couple of vehicles.
I had a '76 Jimmy (Blazer) and was pulling a single axle trailer that had no brakes.
Well, we loaded up a full sized Ford wagon on that trailer and headed for our destination.
Westbound, on I-80, between Vacaville and Fairfield is a fairly decent grade.
Fortunately, I was in the 2nd lane because that trailer started pushing the Jimmy & the next thing I knew, "the tail was waggin' the dog."
The Jimmy stayed in the lane I was driving in, but the trailer was using about 1/2 of both lanes; left & right.
Chuck was behind me & he knew he was going to see his wagon & trailer flipped over.
Somehow, or other (only luck, no skill, on my part) I managed to get things slowed down & under control.

It's a good thing that this thing can't talk!!!!!!!

[fastwillie 696969]

my best friend is a tow truck driver on the bay bridge ,he's got stories you couldnt beleve,like the time in 89 when the bay bridge top level road slab fell onto the deck below
he was first on the scene,wasnt pretty

[70rs/ss]

Need I say more?

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by 70rs/ss

Need I say more?

Ah, oh, hope that wasn't your Sub!

[70rs/ss]

Originally Posted by DirtyLarry

Ah, oh, hope that wasn't your Sub!

Yeah it WAS mine 16k original miles, just bought it the day before and was on my way home after getting the title! I only drove it off of one trailer and onto mine before this happened! Still makes me sick to my stomach to look at those picts. We made it out unscathed and that was way more important than the Burb (my wife and three kids were with me at the time).

[DirtyLarry]

Originally Posted by 70rs/ss

Yeah it WAS mine 16k original miles, just bought it the day before and was on my way home after getting the title! I only drove it off of one trailer and onto mine before this happened! Still makes me sick to my stomach to look at those picts. We made it out unscathed and that was way more important than the Burb (my wife and three kids were with me at the time).

That is a heartbreaking story. Looks like something that would happen to me. Whatever became of that Sub? Still have it?

I lost a Sante Fe Railroad high-rail F250 off the back of our 1991 GMC K3500 Eagle Claw POS wrecker once. I hated that wrecker anyway! That was embarrising. Lucky, no damage and nobody got hurt except my pride.

[DirtyLarry]

Well, here is a tow story. Maybe not a very good one but it is a story. My dad owned a shop back from when I was a born though my 20’s and we had the FedEx account for service, maintenance and towing. Back around 1994 or 95, when I was on winter break from college we got a call from the FedEx terminal that the guy that ran the mountain route southwest of Pueblo was stuck in the snow on a ranch up above Westcliffe. The FedEx delivery vans at the time were just little Ford Econoline E250s. Not thinking anything more of it being these guys get stuck all the time, I jumped in the wrecker (1978 K20 with a slide in wrecker unit) and headed on the 1.5 hr trip to this ranch.

When I finally found this van, which took a while as it wasn’t where they said it was but about 2 miles further up the trail, it quickly became apparent that the driver didn’t tell the FedEx terminal in Pueblo the entire story as to HOW he was stuck or where. I was expecting to find the van buried in the snow or something, not lying on its side about ready to roll onto its roof in a creek bed. Mind you, I was by myself with nobody to help extract and upright this stupid van.

At first I wasn’t sure really want to do as this looked like a two man job. The FedEx driver never could be found (only later to find that he got a ride to the town below and didn’t tell anybody where he was at). We had no cell phones in those days which wouldn’t have helped anyway being the business band radio in the wrecker wouldn’t even reach back to the shop.

So there I was freezing my butt off scratching my head wonder what I was going to do, and there was no way to upright the van in the creek so I decided latched onto it and slide it out up out of the creek and drag it up the trail probably about 30 or 40 yards on its side like a sled to the biggest clearing I could find, which is where this picture was taken. The 427 big block in the wrecker and the winch got beat on simultaneously while I yanked and pulled the van out of the creek bed as it was a pretty steep drop off to the water. Once I got it to the clearing I couldn’t get the wrecker next to it to get a clean pull so I had to a snatch block to a tree nearby. The first winch point to the van (pictured) didn’t work out very well as the van just slid rather than roll over onto its wheels. I end up digging a hole under the van to wrap the winch cable over the top of the van and down to the bottom of the frame. I used a 4x4 piece of lumber from (that was always in the back of the wrecker) to prevent the cable from cutting into the roof. That worked great and the van rolled right onto its wheels but not without blowing the right rear tire of the bead first! Agh! What sucked was the front tire was already flat from when the driver crashed it.

So I picked up the rear of the van with the wrecker and changed the rear tire then dropped it, turned the wrecker around and picked it up from the front, dropped the drive shaft, plugged the transmission output shaft, hung the tow lights on and headed back to the shop.

My dad was pissed when I developed the picture and showed him rescue. He was just mad that I didn’t go down into the town below and call him for back up. I think he was just jealous he wasn’t there to play too

Too bad cameras were so terrible back then. This is the only picture that turned out and it even is pretty bad.

I don't know if the driver got reprimanded or not but he still worked at FedEx when I quit dad's shop after graduating college and moving to Detroit.

Thanks for this thread as it made me think of fun times working at dad's shop years ago. Man, how time flies. Seems like yesterday.

[El Jay]

Originally Posted by DirtyLarry

Well, here is a tow story. Maybe not a very good one but it is a story. My dad owned a shop back from when I was a born though my 20’s and we had the FedEx account for service, maintenance and towing. Back around 1994 or 95, when I was on winter break from college we got a call from the FedEx terminal that the guy that ran the mountain route southwest of Pueblo was stuck in the snow on a ranch up above Westcliffe. The FedEx delivery vans at the time were just little Ford Econoline E250s. Not thinking anything more of it being these guys get stuck all the time, I jumped in the wrecker (1978 K20 with a slide in wrecker unit) and headed on the 1.5 hr trip to this ranch.

When I finally found this van, which took a while as it wasn’t where they said it was but about 2 miles further up the trail, it quickly became apparent that the driver didn’t tell the FedEx terminal in Pueblo the entire story as to HOW he was stuck or where. I was expecting to find the van buried in the snow or something, not lying on its side about ready to roll onto its roof in a creek bed. Mind you, I was by myself with nobody to help extract and upright this stupid van.

At first I wasn’t sure really want to do as this looked like a two man job. The FedEx driver never could be found (only later to find that he got a ride to the town below and didn’t tell anybody where he was at). We had no cell phones in those days which wouldn’t have helped anyway being the business band radio in the wrecker wouldn’t even reach back to the shop.

So there I was freezing my butt off scratching my head wonder what I was going to do, and there was no way to upright the van in the creek so I decided latched onto it and slide it out up out of the creek and drag it up the trail probably about 30 or 40 yards on its side like a sled to the biggest clearing I could find, which is where this picture was taken. The 427 big block in the wrecker and the winch got beat on simultaneously while I yanked and pulled the van out of the creek bed as it was a pretty steep drop off to the water. Once I got it to the clearing I couldn’t get the wrecker next to it to get a clean pull so I had to a snatch block to a tree nearby. The first winch point to the van (pictured) didn’t work out very well as the van just slid rather than roll over onto its wheels. I end up digging a hole under the van to wrap the winch cable over the top of the van and down to the bottom of the frame. I used a 4x4 piece of lumber from (that was always in the back of the wrecker) to prevent the cable from cutting into the roof. That worked great and the van rolled right onto its wheels but not without blowing the right rear tire of the bead first! Agh! What sucked was the front tire was already flat from when the driver crashed it.

So I picked up the rear of the van with the wrecker and changed the rear tire then dropped it, turned the wrecker around and picked it up from the front, dropped the drive shaft, plugged the transmission output shaft, hung the tow lights on and headed back to the shop.

My dad was pissed when I developed the picture and showed him rescue. He was just mad that I didn’t go down into the town below and call him for back up. I think he was just jealous he wasn’t there to play too

Too bad cameras were so terrible back then. This is the only picture that turned out and it even is pretty bad.

I don't know if the driver got reprimanded or not but he still worked at FedEx when I quit dad's shop after graduating college and moving to Detroit.

Thanks for this thread as it made me think of fun times working at dad's shop years ago. Man, how time flies. Seems like yesterday.

What a tale!!!!!!
That was great.

[redneckwheelman2]

that had to suck but it doesnt look hurt cept that back panel

[caminokid]

Well lets talk about the time my dad had a bright Idea to tow a 53 Chrysler home with me in the 53.

He thought as he always did that a 20 foot chain and me behind the wheel of many vehicles being towed.....this was one of those days it shouldnt have been done.

My dad had 79 Dodge power wagon with a built 440 under the hood. we are out on a deserted country road till someone showed up and decided to pass us and my dad decided not to let them pass.I was 16 at the time. he was up to 70 when I seen him slam on the brakes. I slammed on the brakes..they held for about a second then the pedal went to the floor. I swerved to the right of my dad and seen the railroad track. One of those up the hill and drop off on the otherside type crossings. I did a dukes of hazzard jump and landed nose first. Wiped out the suspension and crinkled up the nose of the car. Good size knot on my head. Bounced my head off the steering wheel. Behind me when i got out of the car was the broken chain. The chain broke after I was air borne. We were going north and the truck was facing south. I had yanked the truck completely around. The chain was in one of the rear spring shackles and ripped it right out of the frame. Wildest ride i ever had with a car that wasnt running.

[70rs/ss]

Awesome story man!

[72BlckButy]

70rs/ss... what caused the accident?

[88JRFAN]

70 RS/SS, that is why i don't like hauling anything like that with a bumper hitch trailer. Gooseneck trailer's are the best one's to have.

[special-K]

Great thread idea there redneck.That Suburban catastrophe is the first I recall of 70rs/ss.That sure hurts my feelings and I didn`t even know the Suburban.And Larry,I remeber seeing that picture.I guess you didn`t tell the whole story before.I`m one that loves to sit and listen to stories.I don`t have time for alot of other things.

[70rs/ss]

Originally Posted by 72BlckButy

70rs/ss... what caused the accident?

Originally Posted by 88JRFAN

70 RS/SS, that is why i don't like hauling anything like that with a bumper hitch trailer. Gooseneck trailer's are the best one's to have.

Originally Posted by special-K

Great thread idea there redneck.That Suburban catastrophe is the first I recall of 70rs/ss.That sure hurts my feelings and I didn`t even know the Suburban.

Well, best I can figure I had just a touch too much weight at the rear of the burb (full tank of gas for when I got it home!) anyways the tail wagged the dog, and the tail almost won! To this day i am a firm believer in that GOD himself had a hand in keeping me from killing myself, as the indestructable Bulldor hitch didn't break nor did the ball, but somehow that hitch popped off the ball and prevented me and my family from getting involved in that rollover, it just popped off and rolled down that embankment free and clear of me and the family as well as the freeway!


I'd second the gooseneck, but a good bumper pull with the correct weight distribution is OK as well, I pulled a Sub all the way to NC from AZ with that very trailer and never had so much as a wiggle the whole way there or back loaded with a BBC powered 67 truck.

-K- it hurts looking at those picts and it was almost 4 years ago that it happened! It is still around, i don't own it anymore, I might get the frame back to make my 71 a 4X4 but I am scared the frame is bent, even though the boddy doesn't "look" bad, the rear axle snapped into two pieces at the pumpkin and I am all but positive the frame is twisted if not junk.

[88JRFAN]

I hear ya on the weight distribution. The only problem i have ever had with a bumper hitch trailer was stock trailer. Pulled it a couple times, it swayed on me once. Loaded and empty, i think it had something to do with the bias ply tires on it.