Posted by Marty [50.68.51.62] on Wednesday, December 04, 2013 at 14:23:43 :
When I was about 20 years old I was restoring a 61 W300. I had the body off & I had finished restoring the chassis here at the shipyard & I wanted to get it to my garage...which at the time I lived only a block from work & it was up hill to get there.
A friend of mine happened to be at the yard one afternoon & I decided it would be a great day to hook a chain to the chassis & pull her up to the house. I got the chassis chained to the back of my truck & then realized that my friend was going to have to ride the chassis up the hill & he was going to have to steer it somehow. Since the column was up at the house & still attached to the cab, I decided a little fabricating was in order. I had part of the coupling still attached to the steering box & so I fabricated a piece of round bar that would turn the coupling on the steering box end & I decided that I'd just weld another 12" long piece of round bar on the steering wheel end...like a "T"...you follow? I'll pull the truck up the hill & he can hold the fabricated shaft with the big "T" handle on the end...he kind of looked like he was water skiing or something :)
Anyway...off we go driving up the hill & when I get to the top of the shipyard driveway I need to take a sharp right hand corner & I'm putting my foot into it a little to show my pal Keith just how much power this old truck-O mine has :) I crank the wheel & hammer down & I just hear all this yelling going on. What the heck is going on back there? Well...as you can imagine..I look in the mirror & the "T" handle is spinning like a helicopter blade as the 300 is pulled around the corner.
I remember watching how fast Keith's hands were moving...impressive.
Anyway...severely bruised kneecaps & an angry helper was the end result.
Funny the silly things we can still remember 30 years later like they were yesterday yet I can't remember that salesman's name who just left the office :)
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