That's pretty good, Paul. It reminds me of an old ex-refuse truck my
neighbor owned some 25 years ago. It was a White 2000 series cab-over with
(I think) a side valve 4 cylinder? He got it sans crusher and we built a
wooden flatbed for it and used the thing to haul logs and lumber. It was
already ancient, of course. He probably traded a mule or a milk cow for it,
I don't know for sure.
At the time, we were building, moving, and/or restoring log houses in the
Ozarks of Arkansas and Missouri. He always parked it on a hill -- something
we have a lot of in these quarters -- as it hadn't even the semblance of a
starter motor.
One day we were up in the Boxley Valley of the Buffalo River in NW Arkansas
on our way to a little yellow pine timber sale that we had contracted with
the local Forest Service office when we stopped on the only flat stretch of
road in that compartment, and, naturally, killed the engine. Shoot, I
thought, I hadn't brought anything to read and I knew it would be a long
time before anyone or anything with enough gumption to pull-start us would
come down that deserted road.
That was when my friend, John, dug around in our gang box and produced a
length of worn, braided Goldline rope. We had a leaking, rickety bottle jack
designed, I suppose, to lift the corners of Volkswagens with punctures. We
placed the untrustworthy-looking jack under the differential housing and
coaxed the axle skyward, barely. John plocked the gearbox into top and
wrapped the rope around one of the tandem rear tires (tyres, tars). Then the
pair of us, each weighing about ten-stone apiece in those days, attached
ourselves to the free end of the line and commenced to running down the road
with it. By the time we reached the end of the rope the old engine had
coughed to life and was chugging right along, swaying precariously on the
little jack. We threw it out of gear, dropped the jack, and continued on
without further incident, the first and only time I've seen that particular
procedure employed.
I carry a nylon cargo sling in the MG though, and I've always wondered if I
might find myself wrapping a rear wheel with it sometime.
Regards,
David F. Darby
Interior Highlands, Missouri (USA)
http://www.mgb.bc.ca/mgz/
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