So anyway, I call any successful recovery one that doesn't involve the police. So this one was successful. It's great to deal with someone that cares about surplus. He's a strong young man, has a great knowledge of our hobby, is highly respected by anyone that has worked with him and will go the extra mile to help anyone out. Ohhh, and Gimpyrobb was there too.
One of the highlights of the recovery is when Gimp asked to forklift diver to lower the forks 8 inches. He dropped it 3 inches and Gimp says "OK...That's good".
So this all started when I picked the MRAP axles up at Columbus. No rain all day until they lifted up the first axle....and all **** let loose. He put one axle on the front of the trailer and she went down quite a bit. Put the second one on the front and I said holy cow. So I had him put the other 3 axles on the back of the trailer. Still had some tongue weight but what a load it was on the trailer. As soon as he loaded the last axle, the rain stopped.
Had to get over to Creekside to get 2 Onan engines and a tent....so I thought. Met Gimp over there and they started bringing out stuff...lots of it. I put the 2 Onans on the front of the trailer and put my tent in the back of the truck. Gimp loaded(stuffed) 5 tents in the back of his truck which left 2 tents,a convection oven and plate warmer for Ziggy. I had room in the middle of the trailer so the tents went there. Put the convection oven and warmer in the back of the truck. After strapping stuff down and a brief nutrient absorption, we were off in our separate ways.
Truck and trailer drove just fine but I knew that I was pressing my luck with the trailer tires.One had a really bad shifted belt. The heat was not our friend either. And wouldn't you know it, about 10 miles north of Columbus, the bad tire blows. Got it to an exit ramp but the tire got caught on the axle and stopped the wheel from turning and ruined the wheel. Changed the tire out with the spare,which was a pretty weathered bias ply so I knew I wasn't getting far with it. Got about 15 miles down the road and it let go. I was about a half mile from the Marengo exit so I pulled the spare off and 3-wheeled it to the truck stop. Unhooked the trailer and went back 2 exits to get a new tire. On the way back, a northbound semi truck hit the back of a car and went into the median. Traffic was backed up about 10 miles. After I got the new tire, I headed back north hoping the the mess would be cleaned up.After about an hour wait, I got back to the trailer. Put that tire on and put it in the wind. Ron Smith called while I was driving to see how I was doing and the third tire blows, luckily again at an exit. So I decided to call it a night and parked the trailer out back of a Walmart. Ran the 140 miles home to recoup for tomorrows rescue. Got in at about midnight.
So after a good nights rest, I prepared for the recovery of the recovery. I unloaded the truck and found anything that I could use to move items from the trailer to the truck including winches,pry bars, support bars and blocking...oh,and the wife. Ron found a wheel and some tires so we headed to his place. Ron will do anything that he can to help someone out. He's a great friend to have. After mounting up a couple of tires,we headed for the trailer. And this is where everything makes a big turn. The road that the Walmart is on....is POSSUM RUN ROAD. It is between southern Ohio and northern New York so....you make your own conclusions. After installing a tire on the trailer,we re-positioned it for the "transfer". Long story short,and after about 2 hours of work, we managed to get both onan engines and a tent in the back of the truck.Then we moved one axle up to the middle of the trailer. We strapped everything down and put it in the wind again. Being that it was 9 pm and fairly cool,we made it the 140 miles without a problem. Now to go out and unload it all...fun fun.
