Finally passed off my green blazer to "imiceman44" yesterday. It was a deal we'd been working out for months. How fitting to end that era with another adventure....
I had been storing the old '73 Blazer at the church I attend. It was visible from the freeway, but the church is on a hill and not visible from anywhere else. It's been there for 8 months. I showed up yesterday to pick up the Blazer and put it on a trailer to bring it about 30 miles west to meet iceman. Someone had stolen my passenger front tire and my engine crane.
Now, that sucked, but honestly, I knew that storing it in such a visible place had risks and I accepted those risks. I called up a fellow Reno CK5er who I know drives by the place daily, and he said he noticed last Monday that the wheel was missing.
The thieves also attempted to steal all the other three tires, but were only using the tools I'd left there - a busted floor jack (little one) and my lug wrench. Well, they pulled the other lug nuts, but didn't block the front axle when they went to remove the front tire and got the jack stuck under the axle. Since the floor jack is so screwed up, they couldn't get it back out from under the axle. Suckers!
Fortunately, I had a spare, so I put that on there... but it was flat. To get it up onto the trailer, courtesy of "alexsdad," I installed the front driveshaft, but not the rear because I didn't have a proper u-joint. There's no brakes hooked up on it, and the hydro clutch wasn't properly bled, so to get it moved, I just put it in low range to go slow and shut it off in gear to stop.
Though it was a full 'vert, I had a half cab topper sitting on it. I intended to take that off before we started driving, because I'm going to use it for a little project. But, of course, we forgot. Got about a half mile down the road to the fuel station to get air for the flat spare and realized that the topper wasn't connected by anything!
I'd even removed the pins on the back of the bedsides back in the day, so the thing was literally just sitting there. We eased it back to the church to remove the topper, and all was good.
Got on the freeway, and a couple miles down the road one of the trailer tires blew out (it's a double axle, 4 wheel trailer.) Pull over and some fellow, likely on some illicit drugs, says he can help. So I walk about a 1/4 mile to his place to grab his spare that he says will probably fit. Wrong one, and a very uncomfortable experience! So I call a buddy, he comes picks me up and we go to the tire store to get a replacement.
Go to put the new tire on and realize that the axles must have shifted under the trailer somehow because there's 1/16th" clearance on the drivers side between the fenders and the tires and 1.5" clearance on the passenger.
To get going again, we pulled and bashed the fender back for enough clearance.
Iceman was waiting at a trucker's pull-off with his big rig for me up the mountain. We show up and I decide to pull the truck off the trailer with just the starter - meaning the engine wouldn't turn on - while the truck was in gear so that everything would remain very slow and under control. So, I bump the starter to push me back and as soon as my rear wheels started going down the ramp I let go of the starter thinking that the engine compression would keep me going very slowly down.
Now, I had put the 1/2 ton axles into this truck from my '90, and didn't really think about how auto hubs function like a ratchet where they disengage in reverse. So, the front axle disengaged and I went flying in reverse a good 20' and slammed into the front of Iceman's tractor. My seat wasn't bolted down, so I got thrown backwards... and nearly shat myself. My rear framehorn hit his license plate right in the middle and cut it in half. His bumper took a good hit and it fairly beat up now. But, thanks to the stock height of this truck, it kept the frame horn out of his radiator.
Major adrenaline rush to be in an uncontrollable vehicle. Felt terrible about hitting his rig, but the damage was pretty minor. Probably was going about 10 MPH when I hit his truck.
I haven't chatted with him today, so I suspect everything went well with getting his new parts truck home thereafter.
Took me about an hour to come down off the adrenaline from that crash though.
How fitting an adventurous end was for that chapter of my truck-story.
I had been storing the old '73 Blazer at the church I attend. It was visible from the freeway, but the church is on a hill and not visible from anywhere else. It's been there for 8 months. I showed up yesterday to pick up the Blazer and put it on a trailer to bring it about 30 miles west to meet iceman. Someone had stolen my passenger front tire and my engine crane.
Now, that sucked, but honestly, I knew that storing it in such a visible place had risks and I accepted those risks. I called up a fellow Reno CK5er who I know drives by the place daily, and he said he noticed last Monday that the wheel was missing.The thieves also attempted to steal all the other three tires, but were only using the tools I'd left there - a busted floor jack (little one) and my lug wrench. Well, they pulled the other lug nuts, but didn't block the front axle when they went to remove the front tire and got the jack stuck under the axle. Since the floor jack is so screwed up, they couldn't get it back out from under the axle. Suckers!
Fortunately, I had a spare, so I put that on there... but it was flat.
To get it up onto the trailer, courtesy of "alexsdad," I installed the front driveshaft, but not the rear because I didn't have a proper u-joint. There's no brakes hooked up on it, and the hydro clutch wasn't properly bled, so to get it moved, I just put it in low range to go slow and shut it off in gear to stop.Though it was a full 'vert, I had a half cab topper sitting on it. I intended to take that off before we started driving, because I'm going to use it for a little project. But, of course, we forgot. Got about a half mile down the road to the fuel station to get air for the flat spare and realized that the topper wasn't connected by anything!
I'd even removed the pins on the back of the bedsides back in the day, so the thing was literally just sitting there. We eased it back to the church to remove the topper, and all was good.Got on the freeway, and a couple miles down the road one of the trailer tires blew out (it's a double axle, 4 wheel trailer.) Pull over and some fellow, likely on some illicit drugs, says he can help. So I walk about a 1/4 mile to his place to grab his spare that he says will probably fit. Wrong one, and a very uncomfortable experience!
So I call a buddy, he comes picks me up and we go to the tire store to get a replacement.Go to put the new tire on and realize that the axles must have shifted under the trailer somehow because there's 1/16th" clearance on the drivers side between the fenders and the tires and 1.5" clearance on the passenger.
To get going again, we pulled and bashed the fender back for enough clearance. Iceman was waiting at a trucker's pull-off with his big rig for me up the mountain. We show up and I decide to pull the truck off the trailer with just the starter - meaning the engine wouldn't turn on - while the truck was in gear so that everything would remain very slow and under control. So, I bump the starter to push me back and as soon as my rear wheels started going down the ramp I let go of the starter thinking that the engine compression would keep me going very slowly down.
Now, I had put the 1/2 ton axles into this truck from my '90, and didn't really think about how auto hubs function like a ratchet where they disengage in reverse. So, the front axle disengaged and I went flying in reverse a good 20' and slammed into the front of Iceman's tractor.
My seat wasn't bolted down, so I got thrown backwards... and nearly shat myself. My rear framehorn hit his license plate right in the middle and cut it in half. His bumper took a good hit and it fairly beat up now. But, thanks to the stock height of this truck, it kept the frame horn out of his radiator. Major adrenaline rush to be in an uncontrollable vehicle. Felt terrible about hitting his rig, but the damage was pretty minor. Probably was going about 10 MPH when I hit his truck.
I haven't chatted with him today, so I suspect everything went well with getting his new parts truck home thereafter.
Took me about an hour to come down off the adrenaline from that crash though.
How fitting an adventurous end was for that chapter of my truck-story.
Oh well... 
