Bear T
Tacoma free since '93
- Location
- Boulder, mt
So I'm sure thanks to Meat, a lot of you may have heard the story, So I'll put out some details on my 26 hour trip to Moab last week.
It started off great, left about 2:00pm on Weds, We had an ol' fashion convoy. I was driving the Motorhome, two truck with rigs on trailors, and my buddy driving a tow truck we rented hauling 3 rigs.
With the tow truck being a commercial vehicle, and over weight, we decided to take the long away around to bypass the port of entry. Went through Nephi to Salina to jump on I-70. Was a little slow, but made it to I-70 by 4:30 and that includes fuel stops.
Now the fun part begins.
About 10 miles up I-70, the tow truck begins to overheat. We let it cool down, and top off the water. Another 5 miles, repeat, another 5 miles, repeat, another 3 miles, repeat.
(This is the part where I tell you that the tow truck is a 90's model chev 3500, with a 454 converted to diesel)
Finally, after about an 3 hours of this, I unload my dads Bronco to lighten the load, and send the two trucks and my wife in the motorhome on ahead to moab.
Unfortunately, lightening the load didn't help, by this time we realized that the tow truck has a blow head gasket, figured it out after I had dumped about 40 gallons of water into the radiator in 30 miles.
The truck was getting low on fuel, and we were out of water, So we piled in the bronco and drove the 50 miles into Green River to restock. ( A side note, do not buy a gas can in Green River, $30. )
It was about 1:00am by the time we got there so I called a real tow truck to see how much to have our stuff hauled to town, $600-$700. Screw that idea.
We got back to the truck about 2:00am, and guess what, the batteries were dead. So after trying to jump it for about a half hour with no success, we unloaded the explorer and left the tow truck and my rig on the side of the freeway. We rolled into moab at 4:00am.
Next morning, left my sisters about 8:00ish, got out to the truck and realized I forgot the keys to my rig so I couldn't unload it and lighten things up. Hooked a strap up to my brothers 04 Dodge Cummins and was surprised it was able to tow everything up the hills faster. So things are going smooth, trucks going up the hills fine, and we are getting closer to Moab. Woo Hoo.
Except for the 10 miles of 6% grades, down hill. We stop, check the brakes, everythings good, but they got a little hot right as we got back to the level ground. By a little hot, I mean they melted the abs wires, and melted the valve stems out of both front tires. Yep, 2 flats.
No biggie, we'll just put on the spares. Right. Nothing else has been going right, why would we be able to just throw on a couple spare tires and be on our way.
Luckily my buddy brought the cordless impacts, because none of the lug wrenches on the truck fit. Next, to jack it up, oh wait, none of the jacks work either. finally, we were able to get a 1930's bottle jack to work, and with the help of blocks, we finally get it up. Put the spare on, lower the jack, and yeah, the spare has about 4lbs of air in it.
So, we unhook the trailer to get the weight off the truck and steal one of the duals and put it on the front, and put one of the trailor spares on the other side. So now the truck will roll, but no brakes.
Thanks to Meat, he gets a hold of Tim Rassmussen who comes out with his Dodge and hooks on to the trailer and we leave the tow truck on the side of the freeway. We finally get to go to moab.
Just to recap, left Pleasant Grove at 2:00pm wednesday afternoon, finally arrive at Moab for good at 4:30pm thursday afternoon.
Thanks to Meat for making calls, Tim for rescuing us, and Nick (schaferNsons) for going with me to help rescue my rig. Big thanks to my little brother for being a great brother.
It started off great, left about 2:00pm on Weds, We had an ol' fashion convoy. I was driving the Motorhome, two truck with rigs on trailors, and my buddy driving a tow truck we rented hauling 3 rigs.
With the tow truck being a commercial vehicle, and over weight, we decided to take the long away around to bypass the port of entry. Went through Nephi to Salina to jump on I-70. Was a little slow, but made it to I-70 by 4:30 and that includes fuel stops.
Now the fun part begins.
About 10 miles up I-70, the tow truck begins to overheat. We let it cool down, and top off the water. Another 5 miles, repeat, another 5 miles, repeat, another 3 miles, repeat.
(This is the part where I tell you that the tow truck is a 90's model chev 3500, with a 454 converted to diesel)
Finally, after about an 3 hours of this, I unload my dads Bronco to lighten the load, and send the two trucks and my wife in the motorhome on ahead to moab.
Unfortunately, lightening the load didn't help, by this time we realized that the tow truck has a blow head gasket, figured it out after I had dumped about 40 gallons of water into the radiator in 30 miles.
The truck was getting low on fuel, and we were out of water, So we piled in the bronco and drove the 50 miles into Green River to restock. ( A side note, do not buy a gas can in Green River, $30. )
It was about 1:00am by the time we got there so I called a real tow truck to see how much to have our stuff hauled to town, $600-$700. Screw that idea.
We got back to the truck about 2:00am, and guess what, the batteries were dead. So after trying to jump it for about a half hour with no success, we unloaded the explorer and left the tow truck and my rig on the side of the freeway. We rolled into moab at 4:00am.
Next morning, left my sisters about 8:00ish, got out to the truck and realized I forgot the keys to my rig so I couldn't unload it and lighten things up. Hooked a strap up to my brothers 04 Dodge Cummins and was surprised it was able to tow everything up the hills faster. So things are going smooth, trucks going up the hills fine, and we are getting closer to Moab. Woo Hoo.
Except for the 10 miles of 6% grades, down hill. We stop, check the brakes, everythings good, but they got a little hot right as we got back to the level ground. By a little hot, I mean they melted the abs wires, and melted the valve stems out of both front tires. Yep, 2 flats.
No biggie, we'll just put on the spares. Right. Nothing else has been going right, why would we be able to just throw on a couple spare tires and be on our way.
Luckily my buddy brought the cordless impacts, because none of the lug wrenches on the truck fit. Next, to jack it up, oh wait, none of the jacks work either. finally, we were able to get a 1930's bottle jack to work, and with the help of blocks, we finally get it up. Put the spare on, lower the jack, and yeah, the spare has about 4lbs of air in it.
So, we unhook the trailer to get the weight off the truck and steal one of the duals and put it on the front, and put one of the trailor spares on the other side. So now the truck will roll, but no brakes.
Thanks to Meat, he gets a hold of Tim Rassmussen who comes out with his Dodge and hooks on to the trailer and we leave the tow truck on the side of the freeway. We finally get to go to moab.
Just to recap, left Pleasant Grove at 2:00pm wednesday afternoon, finally arrive at Moab for good at 4:30pm thursday afternoon.
Thanks to Meat for making calls, Tim for rescuing us, and Nick (schaferNsons) for going with me to help rescue my rig. Big thanks to my little brother for being a great brother.
