Posted by a p bloom on Wednesday, November 17, 2004 at 11:19AM :
There was discussion lower down on the page about using a winch on a PW and whether the winches on a restored truck are actually supposed to be used, or are just big ornaments.
Back in 1978, when I drove my first (restored) PW from Albany NY to Long Island, I used Route 9 (I seem to recall) instead of the major highways, due to the slowness of the truck. Somewhere in Rockland County, I got stopped at a roadblock due to an accident. The driver of an old car had run down the side of a large gully, and had landed upright at the bottom, about 300 feet from the road. A 2-wheel drive wrecker had gone halfway down the gulley, hooked onto the car, and had become unable to ascend the hill back to the road.
A State Trooper was admiring my truck, and winch, with what I thought was a bit too much attention. He finally asked "Does that winch work?" I said "Probably, but I don't know for sure, since I just bought the truck two hours ago." He asked if I would try to help the wrecker driver, since the traffic jam was getting worse. I winched the wrecker back up the hill, and then the driver went to get a bigger wrecker. I went on my way.
Six hours later, I was cruising along the final leg of my journey, and was about 3 miles from home, when I was stopped in a traffic jam along a beach in Sag Harbor. A car had spun out, and landed on its side on the beach which ran along the road. The cop at the scene, who had been waiting a while for a 4-wheel drive wrecker to arrive, walked over to me and said "Does that winch work?" This time I said "Sure!" I winched the car over onto its wheels, and then dragged it off the beach, and went home with my new toy.
apb
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