John0829
Platinum Member
Yep, chain and a pipe have towed a many ah car or truck.
Share Pics of People Hauling or Towing Something Wrong
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Jims1025R
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Okay, while were admitting towing, When my 1977 VW Rabbit wouldn't start in mid town Toronto, My mom drove down in her Dodge, and rope towed me 50 miles to my VW dealer for repairs. The tow included two major expressways. It was a cold winter day, and I did not think about the fact that I had no heat the whole way! Not caught, no problem, not entirely legal! But, it was 1979, rules were different then - I think!
groundcover
Veteran Member
Speakin of towing... when I was a kid in summer camp I would always hang around with the camp owner whenever he had a machine going , some things never change ! I Was showing the counselors that they had put the chain on the chainsaw backwards and before long I was running the saw and driving the truck around the camp . Imagine a 12 year old doing that at a summer camp today !
Well one night the owner needed to get the camps veg all family cruiser station wagon that wouldn't start to the repair garage. Some big old GM product, you know the ones from the '70s with the two acre hoods. Well he hooked it to the pickup with an old chain and being the cautious kind of guy that he was we waited till after dark so there would be less traffic and cops.
As a farm boy I had plenty of driving experience at 12 , but the power brakes and power steering on this five ton behemoth obviously weren't working as it wouldn't start ! As an added challenge I was instructed to only turn on the headlights when we were turning or as needed so as not to kill the battery ! I didn't know where we were going but that didn't much matter , I just had to follow the chain and not hit the truck !
Somehow we made it and at the time it did seam a little strange that out of the whole camp with all those adults to pick from I got to drive into town , in the dark , with no driver's license ! Camp was a hoot !
Well one night the owner needed to get the camps veg all family cruiser station wagon that wouldn't start to the repair garage. Some big old GM product, you know the ones from the '70s with the two acre hoods. Well he hooked it to the pickup with an old chain and being the cautious kind of guy that he was we waited till after dark so there would be less traffic and cops.
As a farm boy I had plenty of driving experience at 12 , but the power brakes and power steering on this five ton behemoth obviously weren't working as it wouldn't start ! As an added challenge I was instructed to only turn on the headlights when we were turning or as needed so as not to kill the battery ! I didn't know where we were going but that didn't much matter , I just had to follow the chain and not hit the truck !
Somehow we made it and at the time it did seam a little strange that out of the whole camp with all those adults to pick from I got to drive into town , in the dark , with no driver's license ! Camp was a hoot !
An acquaintance dragged his truck about 15 miles to a garage with a chain one night because the fuel pump was gone. They did the repair but the truck still wouldn't start. That's when they realized that the truck was out of gas.... 
Jim Shooz
Veteran Member
My worst towing experience was: tearing down the motorway one morning going out to help a mate shearing. My little Suzuki TS185 (2 stroke trail bike) seized. got the wife out to tow me home. Tow rope wrapped one turn around the handlebars and me hanging on to the end of the rope to let go if anything happened. Left hand steering.
Wife was not all that happy and wanted to get it over as she had other plans so wasn't wasting time. Cop pulls us over and gave her a ticket for excessive speed while towing a motorbike.To add insult to injury I took the car to take myself and daughter shearing and her big day out had to be cancelled.
Things were frosty for quite a while.
Wife was not all that happy and wanted to get it over as she had other plans so wasn't wasting time. Cop pulls us over and gave her a ticket for excessive speed while towing a motorbike.To add insult to injury I took the car to take myself and daughter shearing and her big day out had to be cancelled.
Things were frosty for quite a while.
Norm W
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The longest "Tow" was bringing a GMC 4104 bus (Think Grey Hound) in for repairs. The only thing we had with enough power was another bus. Ran an air line to the second bus for brakes and a heavy duty tow bar, the trip was mostly uneventful. The strange looks from some folks trying to pass 80' of "Bus" was priceless.
Slowpoke Slim
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Well If we're confessing to tows...
Back in '86 I was stationed in Alamogordo, NM and had a room mate that drove home to CA on leave that summer. On the way back from leave, his car died. It was drive train related, but I don't remember now if it was transmission or rear diff. I think it was transmission. Anyway, he called me and asked me to come and get him. I remember telling him to pull the drive shaft and put it in the back of his car (El Camino). Long story short, I used a tow strap to pull him from Picacho Peak, AZ where his car died, back to our house in Alamogordo. It was 388 miles (according to Google Maps now) and it was all interstate until we got to Las Cruces, NM.
The entire trip was uneventful. The "funny" part of the story was that we were almost home, and driving through town (Alamogordo) when a town cop pulled us over and gave us a hard time for towing that way. Scolding us on how unsafe it was. Didn't have the heart to tell her that we've pulled it that way all the way from the other side of Tucson, AZ. She let us go with a "warning" (lol) and we made it home.
It "worked", but I much prefer to haul cars on my car trailer now...
Back in '86 I was stationed in Alamogordo, NM and had a room mate that drove home to CA on leave that summer. On the way back from leave, his car died. It was drive train related, but I don't remember now if it was transmission or rear diff. I think it was transmission. Anyway, he called me and asked me to come and get him. I remember telling him to pull the drive shaft and put it in the back of his car (El Camino). Long story short, I used a tow strap to pull him from Picacho Peak, AZ where his car died, back to our house in Alamogordo. It was 388 miles (according to Google Maps now) and it was all interstate until we got to Las Cruces, NM.
The entire trip was uneventful. The "funny" part of the story was that we were almost home, and driving through town (Alamogordo) when a town cop pulled us over and gave us a hard time for towing that way. Scolding us on how unsafe it was. Didn't have the heart to tell her that we've pulled it that way all the way from the other side of Tucson, AZ. She let us go with a "warning" (lol) and we made it home.
It "worked", but I much prefer to haul cars on my car trailer now...
cqaigy2
Super Member
That's gotta be some sort of record for a tow. I've only towed maybe 10 or so.
I do remember one time, back in 70s, buddy and i were tooling around in his chevy 4WD and he thought he'd do a little off roading in some snow and drove off the main road down a short hill, into about 12-14" of snow. He was sliding around and such driving up and down small hills, when i notice behind us that a station wagon had followed us off the road and stopped 20' in. The reason he got 20' off the road, was because it was down hill, fairly steep and he'd been in the pickups tracks. Buddy drove back to the car and i hopped out to talk to the driver, kind of curious as to why the heck did he drive out into obviously deep snow. He said, well i saw you guys buzzing around and want to see what my station wagon would do. Well he wanted a tow, and all we had was a smallish come-along with less than 4' of cable. With the station wagon hooked up, you could just see the wind shield from inside the pick, so real close. I'm up on the main road watching for traffic and when clear i give the sign to go ahead and my Buddy hits the gas, hard, and they both launch up and out onto the road in a big cloud of snow. I almost fell down laughing so hard, especially seeing the expression on the guy in the station wagon. Man they made tough bumpers back then!
I do remember one time, back in 70s, buddy and i were tooling around in his chevy 4WD and he thought he'd do a little off roading in some snow and drove off the main road down a short hill, into about 12-14" of snow. He was sliding around and such driving up and down small hills, when i notice behind us that a station wagon had followed us off the road and stopped 20' in. The reason he got 20' off the road, was because it was down hill, fairly steep and he'd been in the pickups tracks. Buddy drove back to the car and i hopped out to talk to the driver, kind of curious as to why the heck did he drive out into obviously deep snow. He said, well i saw you guys buzzing around and want to see what my station wagon would do. Well he wanted a tow, and all we had was a smallish come-along with less than 4' of cable. With the station wagon hooked up, you could just see the wind shield from inside the pick, so real close. I'm up on the main road watching for traffic and when clear i give the sign to go ahead and my Buddy hits the gas, hard, and they both launch up and out onto the road in a big cloud of snow. I almost fell down laughing so hard, especially seeing the expression on the guy in the station wagon. Man they made tough bumpers back then!
I once towed a old 50' mobile home with a metal gable roof 15-20 miles on gravel backroads and a two track with my old GMC 1 ton 2wd dump truck. Aka "Dumper Doo" top speed of the bullet proof 350 was 10 mph in 1st gear going down small hill. Well on the two track part I was being pulled with a chain by a 3/4 ton. Split every rubber bushing in the rear springs, rear dif got so hot it was spitting out gear lube through the breather, but still managed to get where it needed to go. I was safe I put the strobe light on.. Definitely don't encourage this nor would I do it again.
What is the best way to tie down a truckload of monkeys? Would chains be best, or would straps be ok?
www.cnn.com
Bruce
All monkeys accounted for after trailer crashes in Pennsylvania | CNN
A collision between a dump truck and a trailer carrying about 100 monkeys on Friday scattered crates of live animals across a road in Montour County, Pennsylvania, and prompted a search for a “small number of monkeys,” the state police said.
www.cnn.com
Bruce