The dust has settled on the Great Trailer Recovery of October. It took 2 days and cost one wheel bearing on a tow vehicle, a ’78 Ford F150. The other tow vehicle, a ’69 Bronco veteran from the Ft. Riley to Denver trip, is having sympathy and is threatening to throw its left rear wheel bearing. The Bronco does that every 2 year, whether I need it to or not. Tomorrow they will both be up on blocks getting an ‘S’ service.
Three of the 4 trailers are tucked in tight in storage and the 4th is still looking for a home. The storage yard doesn’t have enough room.
The pickup time expired on Tuesday for the M101A1 with no wheels, but they agreed to extend it to Thursday. On Wednesday the EUC for the group of 3 M105s came through. On a call to Arizona they promised to invoice them immediately so we made up plans for a Thursday recovery. Our thinking was that we would put the 101 in the bed of the non-towable M105 and one of the towable 105s on the back. I would tow the 4th trailer behind the Bronco.
While on Interstate 25 on the way to Colorado Springs, I called Arizona to check on the invoice and found out that they had lost my credit card info and hadn’t done it yet. It stands to reason; they lost my driver’s license and proof of residence on the EUCs, why not the invoice info too. I got the service rep on the phone who, by now, recognized my voice, and explained the situation, putting emphasis on the scrap manager wanting the M101 out of his yard. He took the info down and promised to get it sorted out.
We arrived at Ft. Carson and my son didn’t have his driver’s license. They wouldn’t let him on post, so he and the dog went for a long walk in Colorado Springs. We got to GL and no invoices. Another call to Arizona, asked for my favorite service rep and got another promise that it would be fixed. Time went by, another call to Arizona and he told me he had good news, the invoices should be there. We went back into the GL office and were informed that their lunch hour had just started; come back in 50 minutes. At least we had gotten to the next step.
The invoices had arrived, so we went to load trailers. Number 1 is the M105 without the lunette that I was asking about. After loading it, it was obvious that our flatbed wasn’t going to take the weight of 2 M105s and an M101, so the plans changed.
Number 2 was the M101 in the scrap yard. We had to weigh through with one M105 on and weigh out with the M105 and M101 on. This was the complete load for the flatbed. We would have to leave a towable trailer behind and make another trip.
Back to the main yard with the Bronco. After untangling the trailers by lifting the one next to mine out with a forklift, we got it out in the middle of the yard and tried to hook it up to the Bronco. History repeated itself. In Ft. Riley I had to grind down the pintle eye on the back of the deuce I was picking up in order to tow the Bronco. At Ft. Carson the lunette would not go down between the ball and the back of the hook. Finally after judiciously applying a 3# hammer, it went down. ‘ Gonna be hell getting it unhooked. Adding trailer lights and we were ready for the first run.
In the outskirts of Colorado Springs we realized that the other vehicle was not following us anymore so we dug out our cell phone and found out that he had been trying to call us. He said that he had blown his clutch. We caught the next exit and went back. Just before we got back on I-25 we dropped the M105 at the side of the onramp. It was hell getting it unhooked!
We arrived at the side of the dead vehicle and learned that he already had help in the form of a Ford Powerstroke on its way from Denver. Good thing, I’m not sure what we would have done with the Bronco; the tongue weight alone would kill it. We went back around on the I-25 merry-go-round and picked up the M105. As we passed Carl at the side of the road we dropped of a 4x4 magazine for his reading pleasure and went on.
We unloaded our M105 in the storage yard and put up the sides, bows and top and met them as they came in with the flatbed with trailers 1 and 2. We unloaded them and they went back with the empty flatbed for the F150. It turned out to be a spun wheel bearing that let the axle loose.
The next day went pretty well. I ground a bit off of the pintle hook and this time the process went smoothly. By now my son, Conor, and I are getting pretty good and hooking up an M105. Early on we heard a noise from the back that we couldn’t identify. By the time we were going through Denver at rush hour we had pretty much decided that it was a wheel bearing (#5 for this Bronco in the past 10 years). Ball bearings on a back axle, One of Ford’s better ideas!!
We got trailer #4 assembled and tucked in with #3 and called it a day.
