|
yeah those hills will get ya, just change the conditions slightly. One of those situations where you stop, things get real interesting, or stuck quickly. One saturday morning I was making a crushed stone delivery, for the excavation company I worked for back then, 10 ton on a 1980 F-800, 371 gas with hydraulic brakes, too much for that little truck, and dummy me did not realize that the truck would not handle the load in 2nd gear, I had driven and spent a lot of time in single axles, 5spd with 2spd rears were no stranger to me, the hill was too steep and I could not downshift in time, was a long hill, but the one section at the top, which I had never seen before was too much. Well out goes the brakes, no vacuum, before you could say boo, or restart the engine, I was rolling backwards, great !!!, well I got er back in gear just a tad too late and looking at the end of the road which was a tee to a longer hill (field) I let out the clutch, was still trying not to roll the truck over into the ditch, it should have just stood up and flipped over backwards, instead it came up a little hard and I let off the clutch, still broke either the ring gear or pinion, was not in a panic the whole time, but I'd have not screwed up the rear if I had just used the ditch in the first place, but I thought I'd end up on my side. Still rolling backwards I had no choice but to go into the ditch, and she was tipped but not turned over as I feared would happen. You get no time to make decisions, had I panicked, I'd have been at the very bottom which was a long ways down, this was in the western Berkshire mountains. Owner understood, kind of a fluke, ruined my day, back to the yard for the lowboy and a dozer, get the truck out, dumped off, load dozer, come back and load truck, needless to say the owners father who was a super nice guy whom I learned a lot from, repaired the rear. I should have just taken the tandem, more power and better gears for hills, even with 1/2 load, but I never saw the place where I was delivering, so it was a surprise. We did get a really nice little single axle IH with a DT466 and a 10 speed fuller, that was a really good truck, plenty of power and gears. The backing down a hill is the worst, I was delivering roof trusses on a 42' flatbed trailer and the owner wanted then trusses up to the top, like a dummy I gave it a shot, no problem, except when backing out, the ice was a real problem, forced the trailer against a tree, can't go forward, got a free ride to town, with an old dog in the car, I mean old, awful smelling,eyelids sagging, flea infested, returned in a tow rig, they used a couple of blocks and winched the trailer over, and I got some fleas to take home, 2 days later I'm gutting my room, send everything to the laundrymat, itching, stupid low paying job, cost me 100 bucks to rid myself of fleas. There's 2 bad days LOL, good to hear you got it out, those hills will get ya everytime.
|
