Road Trip Stories

[jb1016]

Originally Posted by andyh1956

we never had the nerve to tell him that the previous year we had welded the diff gears together to give the old stude better traction!
andy

This is a great thread! I also liked "we have a foot of gas"

[andyh1956]

ok since no one else has ever had anything happen to the while operating a motor vehicle i will post another one. i got a line on an old jeep junked out up in vancleave ms & went to see about it. ole boy that had it said he had a '49 chevy p/u up there also & they were in the woods next to his corn field. i was trading a .22 rifle & he said i could have either one i wanted. so the following week johnny, mike & me went up to get the jeep. no trailer, just a chain & johnny's dad's '69 datsun. never thought about flat tires on the jeep or anything. we got up there & jeep was in a thicket. tied onto it & pulled it out & right away saw it was missing the r/f spring. we had a saw so i cut down a persimmon tree & got a block outta that so it would just fit tween the frame & axle. no flats so we're good to go. started home & by now it's late in the afternoon & shadows getting long. no lights or anything so we better hurry. start down a long hill & bout the time that we come up on the gang of mail boxes on our right where that bunch of cajuns live down in the hollar the right side tire & axle decides to un-a$$ from the axle housing & runs out & decapitates all those mail box posts, not unlike the way burt Reynolds took out all those mailboxes when he passing jerry reed in that trans am (you sum *****!) the jeep hits the ground, I've got mail boxes in my lap & those cajuns are on their porches trying to see whats going on up on the hill, it's bout dark now. what to do? mike found the axle & threw it in the back of the jeep. we noticed that both vehicles had bumpers so we pulled the datsun around & backed up to the rear of the jeep, picked the jeep up & set the jeep bumper on the datsun bumper & tied them together. i sat in the jeep & steered it while being towed backwards to the house in the dark. just another day in the life of some mississippi teenagers!
andy

[GOPAPA]

Originally Posted by andyh1956

ok since no one else has ever had anything happen to the while operating a motor vehicle i will post another one. i got a line on an old jeep junked out up in vancleave ms & went to see about it. ole boy that had it said he had a '49 chevy p/u up there also & they were in the woods next to his corn field. i was trading a .22 rifle & he said i could have either one i wanted. so the following week johnny, mike & me went up to get the jeep. no trailer, just a chain & johnny's dad's '69 datsun. never thought about flat tires on the jeep or anything. we got up there & jeep was in a thicket. tied onto it & pulled it out & right away saw it was missing the r/f spring. we had a saw so i cut down a persimmon tree & got a block outta that so it would just fit tween the frame & axle. no flats so we're good to go. started home & by now it's late in the afternoon & shadows getting long. no lights or anything so we better hurry. start down a long hill & bout the time that we come up on the gang of mail boxes on our right where that bunch of cajuns live down in the hollar the right side tire & axle decides to un-a$$ from the axle housing & runs out & decapitates all those mail box posts, not unlike the way burt Reynolds took out all those mailboxes when he passing jerry reed in that trans am (you sum *****!) the jeep hits the ground, I've got mail boxes in my lap & those cajuns are on their porches trying to see whats going on up on the hill, it's bout dark now. what to do? mike found the axle & threw it in the back of the jeep. we noticed that both vehicles had bumpers so we pulled the datsun around & backed up to the rear of the jeep, picked the jeep up & set the jeep bumper on the datsun bumper & tied them together. i sat in the jeep & steered it while being towed backwards to the house in the dark. just another day in the life of some mississippi teenagers!
andy

Another good story Andy ,,keep em comming as,, I for one like these kinds of stories.. By the way Andy ,,Are you by chance "Andy Griffith" from Mayberry ?

[xs-style]

A week or two ago I went and helped a buddy pick up a vw sandrail. He had a two bar, but it wouldnt fit the front end, as apparently this thing had a giha front end as opposed to a bugs. Anyhow, we got the idea to attach this tow bar to the rear rails of the truck. We spent the next hour swapping off driving this thing backwards trying to keep behind his silverado going back to his house.

[andyh1956]

mayberry mississippi? naw, can't be me. mayberry was in north carolina!
andy

[andyh1956]

just saw a post on the '60-'66 forum about a chevy ambulance for sale & reminded me of my ambulance. my daughter was taking us to old downtown yazoo city to show us where they filmed the woolworth scene in bro where art thou? & i saw an old caddy at the funeral home. we stopped on the way back & it was a '67 superior ambulance. i bought it the next week for $700. solid no dent body, no cracked glass & after we cleaned the tank it ran perfect! 52k miles. there was about two feet of space between the grille & radiator so that's where they put the sireen. it was 20" long & would knock squirrels outta the trees! what do you do with an ambulance? i had big idea to go trick r treat in it. my buds wife made us up some half a$$ clan suits. then we tied some old sneakers to our knees so we would kneel down when we were on the porches of my other buddys house's begging for candy so we would look like kids holding our bags up over our heads. after getting the haul we would stand up & walk off! man whatta time we had that night! we would leave out each house burning rubber & sireen wailing! eating candy & drinking beer, what fun! my son wanted to 4wd it with a dually axle in rear but i didn't want to waste time on it since we had so many other things to do. it went baton rouge where a guy delivers seafood in it. i heard he painted flippers & charlie tunas all over it. yech!
andy

[Dunenutt]

You guys are cracking me up! I can relate to most of the stories.

Looking back, its a miracle that me and my buddies made it. There was about 10 years of one huge road trip story. I am not sure where to begin...

[oldblue1968chevy]

that story was great andy!! ^ I cant believe you didnt get caught?!

[GOPAPA]

I bought a 53 Chev off the lot for $150 back in 19??,,well ,,it was a long time ago.. and I found out right away that the front tires didnt last very long .

The car was so out of line that the tire would squeel while driving down the highway ,espessially on slick tar pavement. People on the sidewalks in town would hear me comming and turn heads to see what the squeel was.. So you see ,,I did have a car that would turn heads ,,LOL..

I had a girl friend some 40 miles away in another town and when I went to see her ,,I would wear out one front tire right down to the chords on the either inner side or out ,,I dont remember for sure as it was a long time ago.. the other one wasnt so bad ,,but it did wear .

So rather than go get another tire from the junk yard every time one wore down to the chords ,, I got the idea to just trade one of the rear tires for a front tire and that way get more miles out of the front ones.



What caused the tires to wear out quickly was the guy before me who bought the Chevy brand new never Greased it at all.. EVER

To add to the story : about 10 years before I owned the 53 Chevy a kid sold me a bicycle for $20 and the front end was bad (the combs were worn out) and the bolt that held the seat fastened had the threads stripped ..

So guess what ? He seen my sale sign in the car and ask what I wanted for it and I said $150 .. He bought it and later told me that he had to change both front A-frames and spindles ..

I said to him "John ,,,remember that bike you sold me when we were kids and the front end was bad ?" he smiled and said "yes I do "

[andyh1956]

oh when folks saw the ambulance they knew who it was. i live in a place that you can do whatever your big enough to do & get away with. i took that caddy to the big equipment sale in philadelphia ms to sell it & i wasn't there when it sold but they said they drove it through the sale several times blowing the sireen before they auctioned it! everybody there had a good laugh with it!
andy

[jb1016]

Originally Posted by andyh1956

i had big idea to go trick r treat in it. my buds wife made us up some half a$$ clan suits.

Man...I hope you meant "clown suits."

[andyh1956]

sorry jb, but spelling is correct!
andy

[screwballl]

I have had all sorts of crazy trips, but most of them I cannot talk about without legal consequences.

One of the best more recent trips was 7 years ago my wife, daughter (my oldest, but was only daughter at the time) and I borrowed her parents 2001 Nissan Frontier (2WD) for family road trip from North FL to western SD in mid February. We hit snow after a few hours in northern Alabama so we stopped and pulled over on some remote exit. We had fun tossing snow around and it was the first snow I had seen and driven in for almost 3 years at that point (which is a long time growing up in western SD).
Of course when we were ready to go I stomped on it and was all over the road, wife is freaking out, my daughter was just saying WEEEEE!!!... I played it off like something was wrong with the truck which the wife accepted and we were on our way.

Then the snow stopped and was clear and dry driving from North of Nashville all the way into western Iowa where they had some light snow in the parking lots. After getting some food and playing in the snow a little more, I ripped around the snow covered parking lot some more, this time my wife was on to me and knew I was playing, and she actually enjoyed it a little.

After that was a fairly uneventful 2 weeks until 2 days before we left, a big storm came in and dumped snow for 3 days straight. The night it came through we were in Rapid City with friends playing pool and enjoying time with friends we had not seen in several years (daughter was with my parents). The original forecast said 3-6" around Rapid City over the next few days. Well it merged with a nasty front coming down from Canada and just shut down the area for a few days.

When we went into the pool hall around 7PM, it was light snow and mostly melting when it hit the pavement, by the time we left around 11PM it was close to a foot deep on the roads and deeper on the grass and side areas.

So here we go in this little 2WD Nissan truck driving through this snow, around 30 miles away from my parents house, doing maybe 20-30 mph at the fastest. With the stop lights in town and a little playing, took me just shy of 2 hours for that 30 miles to get home, when it normally takes 20-30 minutes. Well of course we get a few houses down from my parents and all of a sudden I crank the wheel towards a side road and gas it sliding and whipping the rear end around for at least a circle and a half. I swear her hand imprints are still embedded in that dash to this day it scared her so bad... but after a few more slides and circles she started having loads of fun.

Of course we got stuck in and around the house for 3 days due to all the snow, couldn't drive anywhere. This pic was around the time we left my parents at 6:30 to go to the pool hall. My parents are slightly higher elevation so the snow was sticking there but not in town.

[andyh1956]

well this story really ain't got anything to do with a road trip but we been a stretching the envelope here anyway. this story was related to me by my son when he was in college several years ago. he was to go skiing with his buds at a fairly new lake up in eupora ms. he & steve got there early & they had a small boat so they decided to fish some before the rest of the gang got there. they hadn't got started good when a convoy of vehicles pulls into the landing. up front was a brand new caddy escalade pulling a new malibu skier. it had a roll bar with every type of ski, knee board, wake board & even surf board tied to it. windows tinted purple on the escalade & all the boys with it had purple sunglasses. they threw the boat in the water & everybody piled in. the boat was sitting there going rumpity rumpity rump- jeff said was the best sounding boat he ever heard. then here comes this skinny kid wearing his skis in the gravel, purple sunglasses & a blow up rubber duck thing around his middle. he waddles out onto the dock & jeff notices they have the ski rope coiled at the end. the boy picks up the handle of the rope & the boat captain yells "are ya ready ski king?" ski king yells back "let it happin capin!" well capin lets the hammer fall on that malibu & jeff says it didn't go 20 ft untill it was plained off. the rope is payin out zing, zing, zing. now ski king ain't xactly at the end of the dock, factly he's a good 10 ft from the end. when the slack come outa that rope it jerks ski king up & outta his skis, not in unlike wiley coyote fashion. he hits the end of the dock with his chin, bounces off the dock & splats the water like a big bull frog. he's bobbing around in that duck upside down when his buds come around to rescue him. they flip him rightside up & try to pull him into the boat but he starts screamin & they discover he done pulled both shoulders outta socket. so the dismount the boat & drag him by his heels up onto the bank & one of the boys loads him up into the back of a yugo & slams the hatch on him & hauls him off to who knows where. the rest of the gang picks the skis up off the dock & goes skiing. jeff decided they would go ski somewheres else. this was back before picture phones so the is no pictorial history of the event. where's that dang cam corder when you need it?
let it hapin capin!
andy

[dan42]

O.K. - When I was 16 I bought a '55 first series for $200 - had the original motor and 3-speed in it. The body was fairly straight (not that I cared then) but the floor had some issues - and on the passenger side there was about a 2" rust hole in the middle, where you would put one leg on either side. It was fine until it started raining, and when the puddles started forming, you had to worry about the driver running through anything over and inch deep, because water would shoot up through that hole like a pressure washer, right at your crotch. There was this neighbor girl, her name was Linda, that was always bugging me for a ride to school (she was a year younger than me, she didn't drive) and she was really cute, but she already had a boyfriend, and was just using me as a taxi. But she didn't know about the hole. One morning she showed up as usual for a ride to school and I noticed she had tight white pants on. And it had rained a lot the night before. Soooo, as we drove to school, there was a spot on the road where the water was probably 6" deep that hadn't completely drained off the side of the road. I got her up to 40-45 mph and didn't completely swerve to avoid the puddle. Even I was suprised when this blast of muddy green water shot up and almost gave her an enema. It looked like she crapped herself really bad. Man, she was pissed, and she made me take her back home so she could change, but she never bothered me for another ride in that truck again.

[andyh1956]

dan42, i'm sure you coulda layed one of yer playboy mags over the hole in the floor for that girl, who knows, she might own a humongous good payin company by now & give you a job! but now look! a high school buddy of mine used to ice beer down in the pass side rear floorboard of his '56. we were cruzin one night & he said hand him a beer. when i turned around i found the floor had rusted out & the floor, ice & beer were gone!
andy

[dan42]

Originally Posted by andyh1956

dan42, i'm sure you coulda layed one of yer playboy mags over the hole in the floor for that girl, who knows, she might own a humongous good payin company by now & give you a job! but now look! a high school buddy of mine used to ice beer down in the pass side rear floorboard of his '56. we were cruzin one night & he said hand him a beer. when i turned around i found the floor had rusted out & the floor, ice & beer were gone!
andy

That's a very sad story about losing all that beer. But she's married/divorced and living in the mountains above Sacramento somewhere, near as I can tell. She really was a knockout, but time has not been graceful to her, I fear. That truck had some epic stories. One year in the fall we raided a pumpkin patch and filled that old girl 'till the springs bottomed out, and proceeded to annihilate mailboxes with the flying pumpkins at 40 mph. We were stupid enough to do it in our own neighborhood to boot - but no one could prove anything and the guys involved kept pretty quite about it. One time my best buddy and I took it out into the hills above the Camarillo area, and I went down this dirt road to see how fast I could go, until I got to the bottom, where someone had put a foot and a half deep ditch (for drainage, I guess). We went over it full bore and skidded to a halt - the tie rod was u-shaped, the tires were pointing in different directions, and I had to use a BFH to bash it back to where I could get it home. I finally killed it by running into a light standard that was surrounded with a three foot diameter of cement 4 feet high in the Safeway parking lot. My neighbor bought it from me and rebuilt it, drove it for years. I often wonder what happened to that old girl.

[treveiger]

Well i have a good go cart story does that count lol.

Well when I was younger I always wanted to get into motors and love go carts so I was always looking around for one and finally found one I liked and contacted the guy and bought it from him. He told me the motor was junk which I didnt care because I had racing motor I got for free from a guy that was renting out the other half of our shop and disappeared (started printing his own money so the FBI wanted him) and so all the gocart stuff was mine. So anyway I put the motor in and found out the belt was kinda loose which was ok because the motor needed to be throttled to get it to start and would barely stay running(the guy built the motor for the circle track for those gocarts that do like 80 ) so you had to constantly keep reviving it so it wouldnt shut off. Well once I looked it over I found the breaks were shot so instead of fixing them I just removed them and figured I'd stop a different way if had to. How I would start this thing is I would shove a screw driver in the gas peddle and start it and jump on before it took off because the loose belt which worked great until I bought a new belt for it and tried to start it like I always did with the screw driver in the gas peddle but this time when I went to start it the thing turned over right away and instantly went to full throttle and was burning out as i tried to hold it back but finally let go and went screaming out of the garage and sideswiped the back of my step mothers van the turned and jumped this pile of dirt in our front yard we were going to use for land scaping and then busted through the farmers fence(he already didn't like us) and went ripping into his 4ft high corn feild and all I could do is sit there and watch this go cart go driving through this corn field like the truck did on twister. Finally after a quarter mile the thing took a hard left right into his fence and shut off the gocart so I ran down there quick with the quad hooked it up and drug it home into the barn were i didn't touch it for well over a year. Then I called my father up and asked what was the stupidest thing he ever did.
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[andyh1956]

holy crap batman! i had a neighbor that his kid rented one of those high powered printers about 20 years ago. he was making $20 bills, good ones. the kid bought a pretty new chevy truck & was payin the notes with his $20 bills, heck, he was payin the RENT on the printer with them! now that's thinkin outside the box!
andy

[treveiger]

O ya this guy was paying all his employees under the table an my brother always liked that his bills were new(looking back on it now we were pretty stupid not seeing the signs) and after the fbi showed up an told us what happened we all were in awww lol.

Thinking outside the box is what put him in the box.
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[BlazinC5]

Back in the 93-95 era, while I was in highschool I got my first rig. A 79 ford F-150 W/300 I6 & Granny low 4 speed. What can I say, this 16/yr old didn't care it was a 500 buck truck with extra engine in the back. Just needed some love... As soon as I got it running, I pretty much put her to work.
I found making money on the side just having a truck was great entertainment. I got to drive on other peoples dime and Mom & Dad didn't care where I went as long as I was making money. Mostly I hauled lil old ladies used furniture or appliances to their grand kids in college. Stuff like that. I would take a friend or two along for the ride all the time. I one time managed to arrange a trip with a few different people and made one big round robin of the things. I got my truck loaded the night before along with the usual provitions, a case of mountain dew, bags of chips and other snacks, and a crap load of CD's for the Sony Discman. My buddy and I were off across the state at 4am. It went well throughout the day making around 650 miles total. Even passed my dad going the other way in his 92 peterbuilt coming back over Snowqualmie Pass. We of course had to check in with him over the CB and give him crap bout driving a fuel tanker cause the 425 Cat in that thing was thirsty.. Getting close to home at about 8pm, my buddy fell asleep and I saw a Semi being towed backwards on the freeway....
I couldn't resist..
I got right up on the front end of that Semi, jabbed the brakes hard and quick, started swerving back and forth screaming. The look on his face when he woke up was pricless as you could imagine. Especially how he looked flopping around in his seatbelt like a fish out of water. And of course I paid for it with bruise on my shoulder from a punch by him as he screamingly asked "What the hell is wrong with you"????.... The pain didn't matter at that point cause I was lauphing so hard.
A few minutes later after we settled down, I herd him chuckling, so I look over and he says, "I guess it was pretty funny". And now we both have a great road trip story neither of us will forget. Hell I even made almost $300 after expences. Ahhhhh, the good old days.

[andyh1956]

hahahaha- that's pretty cool! did you have to clean up the pass side of the seat when you got home?
andy

[BlazinC5]

Originally Posted by andyh1956

hahahaha- that's pretty cool! did you have to clean up the pass side of the seat when you got home?
andy

Not that time, Another road trip not to long after that, with the same buddy lead us to a college party where he drank to much... On our way home, he was like. "dude, I feel funny.",, So I told him if he was gunna get sick to say somthing and i would pull over. not, but maybe a minute later and no warning, he hurles all over the floorboard... We took the back roads all the way home with the windows open. And then washed the truck floor out at a friends shop. That poor truck stank of beer for about a week. The hard part was keeping my parents from inspecting my truck that week.

[samuellg1977]

Not even a street vehicle - But pretty hairy. About ten years ago, I was on a field maneuver at NTC (National Training Center) Ft. Irwin, CA. Middle of nowhere on a tank trail riding in an M88 Recovery vehicle, we suddenly lost forward momentum and the engine revved up. The driver let off the throttle as we jerked to a stop. After a quick look around the hull, we found that the transmission cooler had blown the gasket out. My team was the only recovery asset in the box for that rotation, so there was no one to call for a tow. I, (being the ride-along mechanic) was told "Ok, Hotel... Get 'er goin." The only tools we had on board were the Basic Issue Items (BII) in the cargo box (a few hand tools). We used the boom and stinger cable to pull the deck-plate (1200lbs) and remove the cooler head and gasket from the transmission. I busted out an MRE (meal-ready-to-eat) and used that cardboard and the peanut butter from the packet as a gasket and sealant. We drove that 60-ton beast back to the motor-pool and parked her back online. 6+ miles with only peanut butter and cardboard! It is a crappy picture, but that is me sitting on the blade of that same vehicle during the rotation. Ah, the memories!!!

[66redw/white]

all i got to say is.... awesome mustache