Of firetrucks and deer

In Aug '04 I separated for the Navy and moved back to SD from Upstate NY. In my time in NY I had acquired a 1948 American LaFrance pumper intending on it replacing my '85 Dodge crew cab as a car hauler. As the summer passed, though, it became apparent that the truck wasn't going to be complete enough to drive home to SD under it's own power, so I was going to have to make a trip back out to NY to fetch it.

Now, the fetching of a firetruck is no easy task. You have to figure in it's 4 ton weight, massive size, and in my case weight imbalance front to rear because of the bed being already removed and it being a cabover. Also important is the fact that I didn't have a class A CDL, which would allow me to pull a trailer over 5 tons, nor a big truck and trailer combo of my own to really work with. I did have a truck, an '85 Dodge D350 Dually, but it's motor was tired, and on the last trip the outer dual had grenaded, taking the only good part of the all rust bed with it. The trailer I would have to make, and make light enough to squeak home under the 10k total weight limit.

As luck would have it, the city was busy condemning mobile homes left and right in an attempt at beautification. These condemned trailers ended-up at the city dump, where pretty much everything except the steel frames was buried in the land-fill. The steel frames could be had cheaply enough, though, if I went through the work of removing them from the trailers myself. Which is just what I did.

Armed with the steel from two trailer frames, a set of axles, my new plasma torch, and my old trust stick welder, I proceeded to build a 35' gooseneck trailer. The plasma torch proved invaluable, as did my Father, who was surprisingly a much steadier hand with the torch than I am. We spent the better part of a week cutting and welding, and though I was not happy with the final tongue set-up, Dad assured me it was good enough. We then yanked the bed off the truck, fabbed up a hitch and some fenders, and called it good. Last minute fixes included a new steering column, because the last one had been fried by someone improperly wiring up the trailer brakes to the left turn signal. Also last minute my Uncle decided to join me for the road trip, though not too familiar with a big trailer I was thankful for the help.

Now, if we had taken a trip in the way-back machine to look over my Uncle's track record with road trips, we might have decided it was best for him not to come, His history with breaking cars is apparently legendary. Live and learn, I guess.

The first 1/4 of the trip was pretty uneventful, making it to and through Chicago uneventfully. I took over driving just before we got into the brunt of the traffic and was planning on driving to mid-Ohio. I didn't quite make it, or rather, we stopped mid-Ohio, but not because I wanted to. Some silly deer decided to commit ritualistic frogger-style suicide that night, and do it with my truck. I plowed through it at 70 mph, tossing the deer 150 feet and the radiator through the water pump on the truck. As I fought the truck to the shoulder with the hood up my sleeping uncle was tossed onto the floor and very rudely woken up. Some deer are so rude, I tell you...
I called the Highway Patrol, my Uncle called AAA, and we had plenty of time to kill. After 10 minutes or so of waiting, I decided to break out the tools and see how bad the damage was. By the time the Highway Patrol got there I had the used the Hi-Lift to straighten out the header panel, and pulled out the rad and condenser. We were basically ready to bolt in the new parts when the tow truck got there, and he dropped us off at an Autozone.

This is where the road Karma that dominates my driving life took over. Who would have believed that any auto parts store would have a clutch fan, fan clutch, water pump, radiator, turn signal, and all the misc little parts all on hand, on any given day, for a 19 year old Dodge truck? No store should have all that stuff, but it did, because I needed it. All I had to do was spend $, which is how my life works. We hit the deer at 3:45am, and we were driving away, with a 2 hour nap and breakfast at Denny's, at 10:45am. Pretty good, I think. The truck was even uglier, but everything worked.

The rest of the trip out was fine, even loading was uneventful, then we got stuck pulling the trailer out of my friend's yard and the tongue on the trailer buckled. Dad's "good enough" has a bad track record too, come to think of it.

So now what? Trailer's got a 4 ton truck on it, and no tongue, and we're 1200 miles away from where we need to go. Called around, got ahold of a gas-powered welder, dug my sawzall out of storage, and while my Uncle cut off the old tongue I took the truck to get some scrap steel at the yard in Albany. When I got back I cut the new metal to length, welded it in, and after returning the welder we were ready to go again.

This time we made it all the way to the middle of Iowa before something happened, but it sure was a doozy when it did. Seems the lug bolts on the driver's side didn't think they needed to be there, so all 10, that's 5 on each wheel, fell out, and both wheels fell off just outside Iowa City. Now, what are the odds that the only auto parts store in town would be open on a Sun. and would have 10 lug studs for a mobile home? Doesn't matter, with my Karma they had just that many, and opened 10 minutes after I found them. Just took more $ is all.

Back on the road, got home just before dark. Total trip time, 4 days, total cost gas +about $900 in repairs, but the pic of the way we rolled back in is worth it all.