RECOVERY FROM HELL....

[dm22630]

Ft Meade is about 100 miles from my house. 1.5 hours in good traffic. 3.5 hours today...ONE WAY!

I left almost 2 hours early & was almost too late to pick up my M1009. After hooking up a medium towbar IN THE RAIN, by myself....the real fun began.....

Had a sliiiiiiiight problem when I left the base. It was raining......and I got about 500 yards past the gate, going around a 30MPH right hand turn, and I kept turning, but the M1009 went straight. It pushed me about 25 feet sideways & spun me completely around in the wrong direction. I had to go down a ONE WAY road, going the wrong direction, BACK into a military base! The guards were not amused. They all came flying out of the guardhouse like hornets....then stopped traffic so I could turn around.

M1009 - 1 / F-150 - 0

Anyway, the side of my F150 is now smashed in. A chip of F150 paint is on the M1009 brushguard. No damage to the towbar I might add.

Also, the exit road I was on is 2 lanes wide, NO shoulder, & 8 inches of curb on both sides. My truck & M1009 danced in circles....and did NOT hit the curb.

The ride home was even better......5mph traffic.....rain......and worrying the entire time about a replay of what happened at the base, just at 70mph in traffic!

I see why people drink.

AND ---> Sorry no pics of this wonderful adventure.....rain + me + me taking pics while driving= bad news

 

[FMJ]

RE: RECOVERY FROM heck....

Weight in the bed....of the tow vehicle......will prevent......lol

Probably a Ford Chevy thing......

 

[M1075]

RE: RECOVERY FROM heck....

Sorry to hear about your troubles, but glad everyone is okay. As mentioned, it is important to have sufficient weight on the rear of the towing vehicle. I started a thread once about the limitations of using an M818 to tow other 5 tons, due to the same issue. Wreckers make the best tow vehicles!

 

[ARMYMAN30YearsPlus]

RE: RECOVERY FROM heck....

I commuted from DC to Parkville for almost four years any time it rained the trip home tripled in length. Fact was if it rained I had a friend with an apartment so he would let me crash there since we had to be in by 0600.

Glad you are OK. I have had my thrills with tow rigs in the rain and the part about being 180 out is something that happens in a flash. I also had a trailer push me all the way through an intersection red light when the trailer brakes failed.

 

[HeadWizard]

Very sorry to hear of your troubles at Meade. I can relate. I've driven those entry and exit roads - and the darn traffic circle. Last recovery there, I picked up 2 M35's and promptly stalled out (fuel tank crap problem) 6 times before I could get past the NSA (that's National Security Agency) building. They have NO SENSE OF HUMOR and it was everything I could do to not get impounded along with the trucks. They actually had a MD State Trooper stay with us through every stall out until I could get the trucks to the other side of the BW Parkway and out of their threat zone.

 

[BobM]

I guess I'd better be watching the weather reports! I am planning on flat towing my 1008 out of Ft Mead also. Of course it may be snowing before they get me the paperwork!
Glad you made it home safely. Enjoy your 1009!

 

[OLDCHEV4X4]

This Happened to me too one time. I was towing a 1969 C-10 with a 1972 Custom -10, and the first turn i came to, i got pushed sideways. That will make you pucker-up real quick.
No damage, just holding up traffic.
So my buddy got in the 69 and steered it for the 1.5 hr trip.

FMJ -> Probably a Ford Chevy thing...... Wink <-- funny LOL

 

[superburban]

I can relate. Sorry to hear about the battle damage to your Ford.

When I went to pick up my Superburban I did it with a short bed Chevy K10 with a car hauler trailer on it. You can do the math here. 1/2 ton, short bed gasser pickup with an empty bed and a trailer with a 3/4 ton diesel suburban made for a near death experience:

I bought the Superburban with a bad transmission for a few hundred dollars for the sole pupose of experimenting with alternate fuels. I was pretty gung-ho, so I didn't want to wait, once I found a guinea pig vehicle, so I hitched up the flatbed, called my buddy, Carson and said "Let's go!". Well, the wives wanted to come along too, but my truck was just a single-cab, so we, all four, smashed in and went. I never verified that the trailer brakes were working.
The K10 had plenty of power to move the whole rig, but the stopping took really long. We decided to avoid I15 and take back roads. As we started descending the hill in front of Camp Williams (to anyone familiar with the Salt Lake area), some bastard behind us started getting impatient, and started tailgating me. I had no intention of speeding up from the 30mph I was going. There was a lot of oncoming traffic, so I thought that I would pull over and let the antsy driver pass. When I hit the brakes, the trailer took over! It started pushing the rear end of the truck to the right. I let go of the brakes and cranked the steering wheel all the way to the right. We were doing a powerslide down a hill on a crowded highway in a 4wheel drive truck with a trailer loaded with a 6000 pound ballast on it, tires squeeling and smoking like crazy! The bastard tailgater got real far back, real fast!
Amazingly, the truck prevailed and snapped back in line, in front of the trailer, but by this time we were going about 40mph and gaining speed fast, with still a mile of downhill left. Every time I tried to brake, the trailer would break the back end of the truck free, but I needed to slow this train down! We got up to about 55mph and the trailer took over again. The back of the truck broke free completely, and started whipping from one side to the other. Through a series of very short and very tense experiments, I found that if I braked when the back of the truck was all the way to the side, it had a dampening effect on the harmonics of the whip! So, I would hit the brakes hard at the extreme right or extreme left, but would release completely in between. After about a half a mile, I finally got down slow enough for the truck to catch traction again. I pulled over to unclamp my butt cheeks from the seat and to apologize to everyone else for almost killing us all.

When I became aware of my more distant surroundings, I noticed that there were no other cars daring to get close to me! In the end, I crawled home at about 20 mph. Now, every time I hook up a trailer, I check the lights and the brakes before I even hit the road. Oh, yeah, and I got a K3500 and an F350 for the towing now. Now more of this 1/2 ton garbage for me.

 

[kendelrio]

Similar experience in my deuce. Was hauling a Ford F-850 w/loader on it, took the entrance to the highway a **little** too quickly. You've never had your booty clench like it does when a deuce gets a little sideways....

 

[89m1007]

i can relate the day i got my m882 it pushed me through an intersection


btw: my V2500 diesel suburban weighs 8200 on the scales