Found out they ARE for something!

[CARNAC]

RE: Re: RE: Found out they ARE for something!

Think I got it beat but at least I didn't have trouble. 2 weeks ago I had to go from MD to MA with my M1009 and M101A1. I had an intermediate stop where I dropped the trailer. When time came to continue the trip, I was hooking up and my friend who just returned from Iraq called. Bottom line, call it the phone interruption or CRS or the drug (legal drugs) I missed the point of closing the tow pintle. Luckily I was driving so slow the who trip due to bad fuel (vehicle sputtering and averaging about 40 mph) that I never realized it until I got to MA. So I drove around 300 miles. Because of my poor loading, I had enough weight on the tongue that it stayed on through all those bad bumps and stuff. Talk about stupid.

 

[Pawnshop]

I had that happen once on a WV Baja Bug I used to own, REALLY made me feel stupid. found myself looking around to see if anyone saw it happen, like tripping on a seam in the sidewalk.....

 

[jimm1009]

Found out they are for something.

There is a hole through every pintle hook for a cotter pin but I use a hardened clip used for clevis pins used on farm implements.
The pintle could come open too so the safety pin is a good thing to use too.

Jim

 

[Alredneck]

RE: Found out they are for something.

Let me guess Medlog no chains either eh! That woulda made a bad day worse!

 

[oifvet]

RE: Re: RE: Found out they ARE for something!

Wow! I had NO idea that driving @ 50 mph (or any speed for that matter) could lift a deuce hood!

I was in a 1970 Plymouth Fury I that the hood lifted on once. But that style hood has springs to help the hood raise and stay open. On a deuce, that thing is a bear to lift without springs.

You must've been driving into a head-wind!

 

[kendelrio]

RE: Re: RE: Found out they ARE for something!

THose are two of my biggest fears: Hood coming loose and trailer falling. Needless to say, I do a walkaround no matter how long I'm out of the truck. (Of course it doesn't do my nerves any good that I have friends who would think that would be the funniest thing they've ever seen!)

 

[CARNAC]

RE: Re: RE: Found out they ARE for something!

I was lucky, I did have the trailer chains done when the phone rang and interrupted me. The most amazing thing was the fact the trailer must have been so tongue heavy that it stayed on without bouncing off.

I wondered at one point why some guy passed me very slowly and honked at me. Guess his waving was actually pointing and say "Hey dumba$$, your trailer hitch isn't locked." And I just sat there like an idiot waving back thinking he was just being nice and waving at the "Army guy in the Army truck". DUUUUUHHHHHHH

 

[KaiserM109]

RE: Re: RE: Found out they ARE for something!

When my daughters marched in the Blue Knights Drum and Bugle Corpse we went to see them off for their West Coast tour. It was raining harder than I thought could happen in Colorado. The young guy in charge of vehicles pulled up their small trailer that they used to haul the scafolding used for the drum major's stand, but couldn't readily get it latched on the back of the director's motorhome. He ran for cover.

You guessed it. As the director was heading north on I-25 he remembered that he hadn't done a walk-around so he radioed the tractor pulling the instrument trailer and had him come along side and eyeball the latch. "Yup, it's standing up just like a d&%k in the morning." Very carefully they took the west bound exit to US-6. Just as they came out of the turn the trailer decided to part company with them, no chains either. To everyone's good fortune, it went out into the median and slid to a stop. A few more miles and they would have been on undivided 4 lane highway.

My dad always told me to either tighten a nut all the way or don't put it on. Doing a half a job can be really dangerous. It took me a few years and a few incidents like a burned up brand new alternator to really start taking it seriously.

Arlyn

PS as you might have seen from Steelandcanvas' posting about my kitchen trailer on its butt with its tongue pointing skyward, I don't always get it right, even at my advanced age.