slick4591
Well-known member
http://youtu.be/N8D3tjhSMg4
[youtube]N8D3tjhSMg4[/youtube]
[youtube]N8D3tjhSMg4[/youtube]
Hope you had a better day than this guy
- Thread starter slick4591
- Start date
greybeard
Well-known member
I went with 4 drilling rigs and a shop full of equipment one time from our home base in La to a little play in central Texas back in the early 80s. We used a local trucking company to move everything around from one drill site to another. I had the shop and took care of the rigs.
After about a year, we got 4 daylight workover rigs and we then needed a truck and float on a daily basis so the main office sent us an old Autocar (OLD autocar!) over on the next load. I was out in the field when it got to my shop, and left word for the driver to unload it off the dropdeck and park it up next to the shop out of the way till I got back. Our yard was on a long slope with the building on top of the hill with a new 8' chainlink security fence all around the yard. I drove up about an hour after that crew left & just in time to see that old Autocar start rolling down the hill. Jumped out of my pickup, ran over and stepped up on the fueltank step, and got in. Tried to start it but the battery was dead--no air, steering was too hard to turn it, and I had to just ride it down, thru the new fence and off into a farm pond. Climbed out, waded ashore and called the old trucking foreman back in La, and told him what happened. I'll never forget the words that came over that phone.
"Oh--they didn't tell ya Neg?--Dat old thang don't got no spring brakes on it--we never need 'em over here on the flatland so we plled 'em off. The air bleeds off pretty quick on that old thing. Dey was 'sposed to chock the wheels, just go ahead and get it pulled out, wet won't hurt that old thing--and Neg--don't you let Bob go nowhere in it without that float hooked on--you make sure he knows." (he called everybody Neg)
I thought "Great, the back lights don't work either so it has to have a trailer on to get by the highway patrol.
Bob was our driver, an onery old cuss and the only guy we had there with a cdl. Got another truck from the local place, waded back out to hook up the winch line and sure enough, I saw a set of 6"x6" chocks held together with a piece of rope hanging on the chain rack. Coonass engineering.
I told Bob what old Burah had said and everything went fine for awhile--maybe 6 months or so. Bob was happy with the truck and tho it looked like crap that old Autocar would flat fly once you got thru the gears. I stayed busy keeping all the drilling rigs running and was rarely in the shop except to keep up my paperwork and hand out checks. One day, we were low on diesel in our yard tank, and told Bob he needed to run his truck up to the station and get diesel instead of trying to fill out of our yard tank. He told me he couldn't. I said Why not?
"Cause the float has 2 flats on it, they won't be here till tomorrow to fix 'em and that truck don't have any brakes without the float hooked up because it has air leaks all behind the seat. That's why Burah said we had to always have the float on it". None--no brakes at all?
"Well, it will slow down some--without the float, but it won't stop".
!!!*&%$#
I went out, finally got all the crap Bob hauled around with him out of the way, pulled the cover off and you never saw such a balled up mass of patched up, taped up rotten brittle air line in your life. I asked Bob how long he'd been driving it like that and he said, "from the first day it got here--it ain't never had no brakes--I thought you knew".
"How the he77 would I know if you don't tell me. I been in that cab one time since it got here and went swimming then--you tell me about every other little thing wrong with it why the he77 wouldn't you tell me it don't have no brakes?!?"
"well, I done been all over Texas and ain't had now wreck yet.." :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:
I called the main office, told 'em the truck was down hard and we would need to hire out the workover field work till I got it back up running. Didin't mention what was wrong with it.
I drained about 2 gallons of ugly oily, rusty water out of the air tank, had a heart to heart talk with Bob about 'his"truck and we got started on it. I had to replace every line, every shuttle and isolation valve on it from the compressor back to the wheels. I found it had brand new drums on it but everything else was trashed. Changed all the diaphrams and seals, I never did put spring brakes on it tho. Bob would come in the yard and just nose the bumper up against a telephone pole in the yard and shut it down. Now, it would stop almost as good as it would go. I could always tell that Autocar was coming down the road at night from the front headlights shaking back and forth.
Bob called me at home about 2 months later right before dark one Sunday night and said he was broke down on the side of the road about 50 miles away. Said he was at a marina near the lake bridge and for me to pick him up there cause he wasn't going towalk back down to the truck thru all those mosquitos.
He had twisted the rear driveshaft almost off on the truck and to bring all the U-joints I had from the workover rigs in case one might fit. I loaded up in my pickup and took off. The shaft was wrecked, bent all to heck, but we couldn't leave the truck and loaded trailer sitting there and no way we would have found a tow that time of day way out there.
We got under there and the bolt heads were all messed up, so I beat the front joint off and pulled that half out of the slipjoint. Had the same problem with the bolts on the back going into the rear diffrential, and the skeeters were eating us alive down in that river bottom. Bob crawled out, came back from my truck with a roll of wire and said "Get your tools loaded--we'll be out of here in 10 minutes." I did, and looked back under there--he had wraped about 10 wraps of wire up thru the frame and held the shaft up pretty straight. "I'll take it easy and it won't wobble around and hurt anything". I'm thinking "Bob--Autocar--Easy". This won't end well. I knew the rear wheels were going to back rotate that shaft thru the axels and diffrential. :hide: :hide: :help: :help:
We didn't get 2 miles down the road, I was doing 80 to keep up with Bob, and I saw a little belch of black(er) smoke come out of those dual pipes and some sparks from underneath--and saw 'something' go flying across the other highway lane and into the road ditch. I knew what it was. I called Bob on the CB and said "Bob--I believe that shaft came loose, got hung up and just went flyin away--maybe I better go back and get it"
"Nah--, I saw it--highway dept will find it next time they mow the ditches--heh heh heh". He never left off the throttle. When we got back to the shop I asked him why he didn't drive a little slower. "That cab was full of mosquitos and I had to blow 'em out of there--they were eatin my face plumb up". :lol2: :lol2:
All I could think about was what would have happened if there had been an oncoming car in that other lane when that drive shaft went sailing across the highway.
I worked on a lot of trucks in years after that, but never forgot Bob and that old Autocar.
After I and the equipment all moved back to La a couple years later, ol Burah came to me and said he had to have the governor rebuilt on that Autocar and they found 2 or 3 nickels behind the high speed spring. I just smiled and thought "Bob--you sneaky old sob... :D :D
After about a year, we got 4 daylight workover rigs and we then needed a truck and float on a daily basis so the main office sent us an old Autocar (OLD autocar!) over on the next load. I was out in the field when it got to my shop, and left word for the driver to unload it off the dropdeck and park it up next to the shop out of the way till I got back. Our yard was on a long slope with the building on top of the hill with a new 8' chainlink security fence all around the yard. I drove up about an hour after that crew left & just in time to see that old Autocar start rolling down the hill. Jumped out of my pickup, ran over and stepped up on the fueltank step, and got in. Tried to start it but the battery was dead--no air, steering was too hard to turn it, and I had to just ride it down, thru the new fence and off into a farm pond. Climbed out, waded ashore and called the old trucking foreman back in La, and told him what happened. I'll never forget the words that came over that phone.
"Oh--they didn't tell ya Neg?--Dat old thang don't got no spring brakes on it--we never need 'em over here on the flatland so we plled 'em off. The air bleeds off pretty quick on that old thing. Dey was 'sposed to chock the wheels, just go ahead and get it pulled out, wet won't hurt that old thing--and Neg--don't you let Bob go nowhere in it without that float hooked on--you make sure he knows." (he called everybody Neg)
I thought "Great, the back lights don't work either so it has to have a trailer on to get by the highway patrol.
Bob was our driver, an onery old cuss and the only guy we had there with a cdl. Got another truck from the local place, waded back out to hook up the winch line and sure enough, I saw a set of 6"x6" chocks held together with a piece of rope hanging on the chain rack. Coonass engineering.
I told Bob what old Burah had said and everything went fine for awhile--maybe 6 months or so. Bob was happy with the truck and tho it looked like crap that old Autocar would flat fly once you got thru the gears. I stayed busy keeping all the drilling rigs running and was rarely in the shop except to keep up my paperwork and hand out checks. One day, we were low on diesel in our yard tank, and told Bob he needed to run his truck up to the station and get diesel instead of trying to fill out of our yard tank. He told me he couldn't. I said Why not?
"Cause the float has 2 flats on it, they won't be here till tomorrow to fix 'em and that truck don't have any brakes without the float hooked up because it has air leaks all behind the seat. That's why Burah said we had to always have the float on it". None--no brakes at all?
"Well, it will slow down some--without the float, but it won't stop".
!!!*&%$#
I went out, finally got all the crap Bob hauled around with him out of the way, pulled the cover off and you never saw such a balled up mass of patched up, taped up rotten brittle air line in your life. I asked Bob how long he'd been driving it like that and he said, "from the first day it got here--it ain't never had no brakes--I thought you knew".
"How the he77 would I know if you don't tell me. I been in that cab one time since it got here and went swimming then--you tell me about every other little thing wrong with it why the he77 wouldn't you tell me it don't have no brakes?!?"
"well, I done been all over Texas and ain't had now wreck yet.." :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:
I called the main office, told 'em the truck was down hard and we would need to hire out the workover field work till I got it back up running. Didin't mention what was wrong with it.
I drained about 2 gallons of ugly oily, rusty water out of the air tank, had a heart to heart talk with Bob about 'his"truck and we got started on it. I had to replace every line, every shuttle and isolation valve on it from the compressor back to the wheels. I found it had brand new drums on it but everything else was trashed. Changed all the diaphrams and seals, I never did put spring brakes on it tho. Bob would come in the yard and just nose the bumper up against a telephone pole in the yard and shut it down. Now, it would stop almost as good as it would go. I could always tell that Autocar was coming down the road at night from the front headlights shaking back and forth.
Bob called me at home about 2 months later right before dark one Sunday night and said he was broke down on the side of the road about 50 miles away. Said he was at a marina near the lake bridge and for me to pick him up there cause he wasn't going towalk back down to the truck thru all those mosquitos.
He had twisted the rear driveshaft almost off on the truck and to bring all the U-joints I had from the workover rigs in case one might fit. I loaded up in my pickup and took off. The shaft was wrecked, bent all to heck, but we couldn't leave the truck and loaded trailer sitting there and no way we would have found a tow that time of day way out there.
We got under there and the bolt heads were all messed up, so I beat the front joint off and pulled that half out of the slipjoint. Had the same problem with the bolts on the back going into the rear diffrential, and the skeeters were eating us alive down in that river bottom. Bob crawled out, came back from my truck with a roll of wire and said "Get your tools loaded--we'll be out of here in 10 minutes." I did, and looked back under there--he had wraped about 10 wraps of wire up thru the frame and held the shaft up pretty straight. "I'll take it easy and it won't wobble around and hurt anything". I'm thinking "Bob--Autocar--Easy". This won't end well. I knew the rear wheels were going to back rotate that shaft thru the axels and diffrential. :hide: :hide: :help: :help:
We didn't get 2 miles down the road, I was doing 80 to keep up with Bob, and I saw a little belch of black(er) smoke come out of those dual pipes and some sparks from underneath--and saw 'something' go flying across the other highway lane and into the road ditch. I knew what it was. I called Bob on the CB and said "Bob--I believe that shaft came loose, got hung up and just went flyin away--maybe I better go back and get it"
"Nah--, I saw it--highway dept will find it next time they mow the ditches--heh heh heh". He never left off the throttle. When we got back to the shop I asked him why he didn't drive a little slower. "That cab was full of mosquitos and I had to blow 'em out of there--they were eatin my face plumb up". :lol2: :lol2:
All I could think about was what would have happened if there had been an oncoming car in that other lane when that drive shaft went sailing across the highway.
I worked on a lot of trucks in years after that, but never forgot Bob and that old Autocar.
After I and the equipment all moved back to La a couple years later, ol Burah came to me and said he had to have the governor rebuilt on that Autocar and they found 2 or 3 nickels behind the high speed spring. I just smiled and thought "Bob--you sneaky old sob... :D :D
melking
Well-known member
Great story. We had a similar man in our construction company. His name was Benny but just about eveything else was the same as Bob.
