Your most Memorable tow when YOU broke down

Mine was in 1974. I was driving my 56 F100 on Orchard Lake Rd near Telegraph (Pontiac Mi) and it just quit. Called my wife & said come and tow me home.

All she had was a 1968 VW or a 1959 Custom Vette. So she guessed correctly. Had a bunch of Looks with a Vette pulling a PU on a chain & a nice looking gal driving the Vette. (4spd none the less)

She towed me from Pontiac to Rochester approx 18 miles with no incidents.

What are yours?

Movin/on

 

Mine was on the south coast of NSW, on my way back from Sydney to base in Nowra. Passing through Kiama the gear box started to make odd sounds, on taking off from some lights............BANG, followed by horrid grinding sounds.
I called up my buddy who was in the transport section of my unit (Army Parachute School) he said no worries he was on his way to rescue me.
Turned up in an Army Land Rover complete with radio and pintle mount for a .50. Got a lot of looks towing all the way from Kiama to Nowra.

Best rescue I did was for a mate that drove for a funeral directors. Got a call at about 3am,
'Dude you gotta help me, just broke down and have two body's in the van'
He was near Fitzroy Reservoir a good 40km from Nowra, I took my O/T XD Falcon 351 Clevo 490hp top loader 4 speed, it was a quick blast there through Kangaroo Valley one of the tightest and twisting mountain pass there is. As far as know it still stands as the quickest blast through the valley of anyone we know.
The tow back was tough, I was in the towee vehicle. The valley was that steep that I began to run out of brakes, almost tagged my Falcon a few times but we had to get the bodies back no matter what. We made it but I never want to do that again.
Doc.

 

ask Badbob.....he's had many tows

 

Back in the days of Auburn kit cars. We had one. The brakes went, zero, nothing. Managed to get it stopped in a shopping center somehwere between Utica, MI and Square Lk Rd. Woulda been a 3-4 hr ordeal to go back to Allen Park and get the trailer. Since there were 4 of us we had the pickup following, no towbar. Easy fix. Towed the pickup with the Auburn. Lashed a tow strap between em and the the truck was the brakes for the Auburn. It takes a good amount of trust and experience to pull something like that off. All was well and a new master cyl was in order.

 

In high school I drove a '91 Camaro with a 350 swapped in. It was beat to shit and I was constantly fixing it. I was going to meet up with some friends at a mall and maybe go out afterwards. I told my mom I was going out and she said I should take the truck as I would not have any problems. I wanted to take the Camaro though so I took that instead (should have listened to my mom). This was in Dubai where it gets verry hot. Mind you this was also in the summer so it is extremely hot. I got to the mall okay but while trying to find a place to park I overheated it so bad I blew a hole in the lower radiator hose. It was pissing fluid out everywhere. I coasted it to a parking place and also managed to hit a big cement piller and beat up the front bumper and quarter panel. I got it parked and went up to meet my friends. Once I met up with them I began calling tow truck companies on my phone and most of them didn't speak english. I finally got one to come about 3 hours later. Me and my friend rode to my house which was a 45 minute drive and then took my parents truck back to town for a night out. So to all you youngsters out there listen to your moms!

 

Back in the seventies when I lived in San Diego the generator went completely dead in my '57 Chevy. I had to try to make it from my sister's house in Mira Mesa back home to Clairemont on just the battery.

Everything was fine until I was almost there when just using the turn signal was making the engine miss fire. I was running out of juice fast.

I had been staying in the right lane in case it died and as I approached home I needed to get over in the left lane to make my turn. No way. The traffic was solid and I couldn't get over. So I turned onto the street to the right and as I was swinging around to go back across the intersection it died and that was that.

I was less than half a mile from home and if I just could've gotten across that busy intersection, it was downhill enough to roll home from there.

A cop came along and asked if I needed help and I said; "Yea, if you can stop traffic long enough for me to push my car across the intersection, I'll be home." He said he could only do that in an emergency and I reminded him that this was an emergency for me! He wasn't buying that.

Anyway, I ended up having to call a tow truck when all I needed was about a 50 yard tow!

 

When my motorcycle broke down coming home from a bike rally, another bike pulled me about a hundred miles with the rope that was holding my sleeping bag on. There was only about three feet between us but we ran 70 mph anyway. After a few miles you just relax and say WTF, you have to die from something!!!!

 

We'd been hunting goats near Olary, and had packed up to go home. As we entered Highway 32 from off of the dirt, a back wheel came off and flew past us on our '67 VW beetle.
I don't recall how, but my old man arranged a tow truck to come up from Adelaide. In the meantime it was Sunday arvo in Yunta- roadhouse radio, lonely desert wind- 'till the driver pulls up some hours later in an old International.
I was about 12, my brother 10. A deal was struck- $10 each to ride in the back. We jumped at it.
18:00; away. Non- stop ribbon of blacktop thru 'till 02:00 - never faster than a 30 mph yaw. Two cold kids in shock absorption, talking or bored, and casting eyes over the indigo chill of the vast undulations of 1974 South Australia night. Magic.

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=171933&highlight=thank+you+doc

This was a MOST memorable adventure. We owe a debt of gratitude to many folks for helping us get this resolved, especially Doc.

 

In the mid 90's I had gotten a call that one of several vehicles(this was a 64 VW micro-bus) stolen from me were recovered about 200 miles away in Southern VA. Supposedly it was intact and the crook sold it to someone who just had it serviced by a shop. They weren't volunteering to haul it to me and times were a bit tight so I had a friend drive me there planning to drive it home.
It was a bit like finding an old friend since this vw had been stolen over a year earlier. Everything seemed in order so we headed home slowly. We made it within 20 minutes of home (on route 70)before it was pitch dark. I pulled the headlight switch and everything rapidly went to hell as it grounded out and started an electrical fire. We coasted over the next hill trying to get enough room on the shoulder to stop and smoldered past State Police.
At least the officer was helpful and had an extinguisher. He did say he had to call in a tow. Amazingly that made it worse. I was already freaking out about a tow bill when the tow truck showed up. Apparently all dispatch heard was a "bus" on route 70 so they sent a quad axle motorcoach hauler to tow my little VW. It looked like a piece of bait hanging from a fish hook.
The good news was we weren't far from home and the driver didn't have the heart to charge us for the 5 remaining miles. The bad news was we found out the fuel tank leaked badly when lifted on such an extreme angle. The worse news involved said extreme angle inducing muffler/bumper scrapes on pavement mixing with said fuel leak. VW flambeau on a fish-hook going down a highway.

 

In myounger days I was towing a 64 GMC stepside for a buddy using my 66 Chevelle and a long chain. On a steep hill with a stop sign/T intersection at the bottom I noticed my buddy frantically waving and the truck going side to side gaining on me.Seems he not only lost the brakes but something broke in the steering linkage. Since we were gaining speed and getting close to the bottom of the hill I had no choice but to turn in front of the now beside me truck. The truck pushed me right up to the stop sign but not through! The chain wrapped up around a wheel on the truck and bent the linkage so bad that one wheel was straight ahead and the other was toed in to the limit.Car wasn,t hurt too bad and I dragged the truck the rest of the way home with the right front wheel turned in howling all of the way.On another occasion I was towing a 70 Acadian to the junkyard near dark when I had to stop on the highway for traffic before I could turn left onto a side road. When I finally turned the chain fell off and left my Acadian and my buddy sitting out on the highway in the near dark with no lights or power to move itself. What did I see coming next was a tractor trailer!!! The rig saw the car at the last minute and went around the car on the shoulder. Never towed with just a chain again....

 

Mine was seeing Big Ken having to tow his truck home from our first Texas Thaw... 2nd was having my ol hot rod truck towed on my wat to the prom...had to finish the night in Dad's car

 

i was out hauling down a backroad somewhere with my dad about 20 miles from home in my pickup. at the time i had a 350 in it, with stock original alternator brackets, so they werent strong at all. all of a sudden we hear a loud snap/bang, and look back. we didnt see anything fall off, so i just kept driving thinking it was ok. well i got to a stop sign and i happened to glance down at the gauges. temperature needle was PEGGED, battery gauge was down all the way, "HOLY SHIT!!" so i drove just a little bit more till i got to a parking lot where i could keep it till we could get a ride.

the place happened to be a gym. we were under the hood about 10 minutes then a big heavy guy walks out, comes over to the truck, sees the alternator dangling by the wire down by the fuel pump and asks if we need a ride somewhere. turns out he's a gearhead as well, and he was headed the same way we were. so we get in the guy's car and we get on the highway, and he freaking turned into mario andretti! haha we were swerving in an out of traffic at 80-90 the whole way home. i was freaking out. (but i'm not a good backseat driver anyways)

so after that fiasco we hooked the trailer up to my parents truck and got my truck home.

 

In 1980. I had just bought a 36 Ford beater P/U with a 8BA and a 39 trans. for 1500 bucks to use as a daily driver. One Sunday I drove it down to Winchester Va to the Apple blossom festival car show and flea market. That's what I bought it for.

I then headed to Charlottesville Va. I'm tooling on down rte 81 doing about 55-60 just enjoying the sounds of the old flat motor in the spring air all the cares of the world are forgotten as I was cruising along when right in front of the Walker muffler plant it just quit like I turned the key off. I knew exactly what it was before I could coast to the shoulder of the road. It lost a timing chain. (it was my first flathead. I didn't know it had gears and no chain but I was correct about the diagnosis)

I had just left my buddy after he continued on back to Maryland after I took my detour south to surprise my new girlfriend that was bowling in a tournament down there. I had to wait until he got home before I could get a hold of him. He had just gotten home from a two hour round trip to a flea market and he said sure, loaded up his trailer and headed back south about 2 hours one way to pickup me up in my dead P/U. The greatest part of this hobby is the generous friends that we come to know. I'm sure he knows that I would do the same for him.

I sat in the diner and read the Sunday Washington post from cover to cover. That was the weekend of the failed U.S. rescue attempt of the hostages in Iran that crashed in the dessert. I had time to read all the details of what went wrong.

After about 3 hours they pulled up (he brought a mutual buddy) and we pushed it up on the trailer and drove back home with the poor 36 embarrassingly sitting on the trailer. (Old farm trucks don't like to be towed on trailers.) I took a lot of good natured ribbing on the ride home.

I ordered an aluminum timing gear to replace the busted fiber gear and it was back on the road before the next weekend.

All of the many trips to shows and flea markets seem to blend together over the years. The trips that have problems always stand out with all the details of the trip. You remember them. The rest just fade away.

Sorry if this was too long winded but I enjoy recalling and repeating the ordeal. A definite memorable trip to me.

 

I took my 34 Ford pro street pick-up to Ocean City Md on a roll back (200 miles away) on the return trip the clutch started giving out and it was up hill the last 6 miles. 1/2 mile from the house it would go no farther so a friend of mine towed it home with his half ton Ford and stopped in my gravel driveway. Since the clutch was out I could not unload the 34 and jacking up the roll back wasn't happening either. I laid on a piece of plywood and used my floor jack and a friend and I pulled the tranny and put in a new clutch. NO FUN AT ALL.

 

100 miles towin a 32 3 window with 40 chev chopped and lookin mean from north iowa in to the twin citys now the catch up hwy 35 with a 1/4 in yellow ski rope about 60 feet long made to a block from my house in st paul......thanks brad.....what a trip!!!!!! I,ll never forget it

 

Well, My daily driver expired about 30 miles from home, I caught a ride home to grab the ole shortbed pickup and borrow a buddys car trailer to recover it. My mother was visiting us and I guess she thought it would be interesting to spend some time with me in my hour of need. Anyway, I was'nt too bright about tongue weight and 5000 lb buicks being towed. When the trailer started to sway one way and the truck the other ,I figured my mom would have a cow, but seeing as she didnt know what kind of danger her idiot son had put them both in she blissfully carried on about garden club or something, meanwhile I'm trying not to shout every expletive I know,had a death grip on the wheel, and remain calm enough to slow this careening mess down enough to regain control. We made it home and I never let on how close we came to wrecking.

 

Back in the 80's I had a '75 Chevy 1/2-ton short box and my brother had a '66 Chevy 1/2-ton long box, both 350/TH350 combos. We were helping one of our sisters move about 400 miles, and half way to our destination his truck first ran rough, and then quit running.

After some quick trouble-shooting that didn't fix anything we decided to tow his truck behind my truck. For the next couple hundred miles my mileage decreased about 1 mpg. His of course did not use any gas at all.

Turned out his needed points but we saved at least one tank of gas pulling his truck instead of driving it! My sister was paying for fuel so she came out okay.

 

Quite a few years ago we had to change a number of billboards on interstate 90. My helper and I had been working our way across South Dakota for a week. He cut his leg open on a barbed wire fence and I had to take him to the emergency room to get stitches. Still had some daylight so I went out on my own to get one more before we headed home. I had a diesel suburban with a trailer and I had to access a sign on a hill. It was next to impossible to get to it from the other side of the fence, so I thought I would drive through the ditch. I started down the ditch and saw water' so I gassed it! I'm stuck, pull it in 4 wheel it just sinks and won't move back or forth. I said a few choice words, didn't help!
So I get out and start walking back to the motel about 10 miles away. I didn't get more then 100 yards and a old guy and his granddaughter can along with an old 55 chev 3/4 ton wrecker. "Ya need some help"? I said, "she’s stuck pretty good". He said, "we'll give it a try". That old chevy squatted and spun the tires and inched that tank out of the ditch. I asked what i owed him, he said, "10 bucks". He and the granddaughter were going to Chamberlain for French fries. I gave the twenty five bucks I had in my wallet and thanked him for help. I must have left a trail of mud a 1/4 mile long.

 

When I was younger, I had a 351W powered 85 Mustang. I was out "playing with the nitrous" late one night, and grenaded the rear end. I call my buddy to tow me home, once he got there I realized he was not happy, and in a hurry to get back home. We get the chain hooked up, and he tows me home at about 70 mph. The next day I pull the rear cover off and one of the first things I pulled out of the mess was a c-clip for the axle

 

When my wife and I were younger her grandmother had a 62 Pontiac in her barn. I wanted that thing bad. Blue on blue 389 auto trans 2 door post. After 3 years of lawn mowing an all out ass kissing she let me take it out on a friday nite. About a block down the road I cleared the planter of plastic flowers from the back window and tossed um in the trunk.
Later that nite I was doin a little cruzing and she heated up and wouldn't restart. So I got a ride back to my 73 Chev truck and the plan was to tow it back to her house with a strap. Well it's about ten miles of town from were it stalled to were it lived in the barn and its now 3 am. And my wife has never towed a car like this but she is a farm girl and I figure she can handle it. we make it threw town fine and we are on the home strech. I get er up to 35 or so and I'm keepin an eye on the car in the rear view. She starts flashing the head lights. so I pull it over to the side and slow down( a little to fast) the brakes were a bit hot on the old Pontiac from the in town tow.
Well bammo. She remodels the front end of the PONTIAC! I'm crappin my pants Runn around to see whats left of the grill and hood. Can't find a thing! Look it over real good, and nothing? Lookin real hard I spy the trailer ball shaped dent in the V emblem in the center of the grill. Hit the key and it fires up! Never got to borrow that one again.

 

Back when I was still in highschool with my first car.

Was driving with some friends I hung out with, and did a neautral drop with my 74 chevelle. Well drop is the right word, because thats what the driveshaft did, , and is now pounding everything underneath, and I begin rolling backwards down the hill I was on. Walk back to my friends place to have his old man tow us with his truck and a chain. Let my friend do the driving when he was towing us. He stopped later down the road (can't remember the reason) and comes back to the drivers door. My friend quickly puts out his cigarette, and smoke rolls out the window when he rolls it down to see what his dad wants.
We finally get towed back. We had tried to pull one over on his old man, and I said, don't know what happened, the driveshaft just fell off. He says ahh ha, you were trying to make fancy little marks on the road, weren't you. I bet he knew his kid was smoking too.
Ended up being a $300 lesson for a new driveshaft and balancing. My pops (RIP) ended breaking down and paying for it to get fixed for me, but wasn't too happy with me.

Another memorable one was also when I was young and dumb. A coworker convinced me to go out to watch a band at a club, about half an hour away. I didn't want to go, because I wasn't feeling so hot, but he talked me into it. Of course he says, I don't have plates on the car, so you have to drive. Once down there, start having fun, and I am feeling better and the drinks are going down well. Well wasn't real familar with all the streets. Stopped a little long at a light, and a cop starts following me for awhile. Just trying to get back to the highway, thinking then maybe he will continue on his way. Mistakenly get into the left turn lane farther down the road, so have to take a left. Pulls me over and busts me with an owi. I am pulled over right in front of a towing place. Call up later to get my car out, and tells me 75 bucks for the tow. I could have pushed the dang thing into the driveway and into the fence. I bitched enough about the fact they only had to pull it from right outside the building into the yard, and they dropped the price a little, but not much.

 

Set the stage; Anyone familiar with the tidal flow through the Narrows(Narrows bridge, Tacoma Washington), might appreciate this. It was forty something years ago, two stupid kids in a small row boat just playing around in Gig Harbor, broke an oar-lock. We just happened to be there when high tide started ebbing.

Luck was on our side. A man in a longboat with a 40 hp outboard tossed us a line and towed us back to the warf.
I remember the tow, because it was fun. Not knowing yet our precarious predicimate, the ride back to the warf was a joyride. Strong current being plyed by our little boat, swinging back and forth through the wake of that powerful outboard.
His words of caution almost scared me shitless. His rant went something like this;
"If I hadn't spotted you stupid kids, and second of all, if I hadn't felt sorry for you, that pissy little row boat would be busted up by now and you would be trying to swim in the rocks along side the Narrows channel. It's not likely that you would have survived."

 

I have been there, The current under the Narrows is no joke. My dad had a 63 Tollycraft that loved to break there ALOT! I still don't mess with boats man.

 

My 49' F1 was a mess with wires, none of the guages worked, except for the aftermarket volt & temp. well i thought i had a pretty foolproof way to figure out how much gas i had, undo the cap and shake the cab. (I know, dont say it), well one day i did run out, and dad's truck was down, all we had was his 79' Coup DeVille that he would even try to move it with, 3 miles home all you saw was a cadillac pushing a old ford truck at about 30. fun times.

 

Yeah I broke down, but I still got home in style.

 

at about 16 or 17 me and a buddy decided we were going to build a dirt track hobby car, mind you this was when you took a stock car and did a few mods and ran it. so we went to another town close and bought a 67 chevy II 4dr. all we have is my fathers truck and a chain,so we proceed to pull it home about 25 miles. it is in a hilly area and were tooling along about 40 and i'm day dreamin about racin and what ever when i notice a car passing, so i pay attention to what i'm doing and i slow down a bit when i notice the vehicle isn't passing me and i look out and my buddys driving right beside me in the car i'm towing and without thinking i hit the brakes of course he comes on up a bit beside me and realizes what i had done so he hits his and slows and gets back behind me, thank god, no other shennanigans on the way home though.

 

I'de say about 20yrs ago- I lost a starter in an early nova.=crappy headers too close. Anyways,didn't have the ol' 3A card then,and had to call Pop. Had to get towed back 40mi to home. No biggee....except we had to go over a windy(?) mountain road. No prob as I was the brake man. Pop's in his 65 C-10,4spd. needless to say,we made it home ok,except my nice nova front bumper looked like the front of a late 60's 'vette....it had a nice "V" in it as I had a brain fart or something..It stuck out like a foot or so. Pop was not pleased......

 

G'day,

Back in the early 80's I picked up a rust free really straight Chevy Vega. Had to tow it 80 miles up to the shop and only had 1 trust worthy vehicle. So here I am driving a 72 Corvette towing a 75 vega with my brother in it. We were approximately half way there when we drove through Grafton ND. A 70's Porsche comes up along side of me and wants to race. I look in the rear view and my brother is waving his hands to go for it so....we both kicked the Porche's ass.

 

'68 or so a friend lost the clutch in his '64 Mustang and asked me to tow him home from work. We had a big rope for a tow strap. Right in the middle of a major intersection the rope came loose leaving him stranded blocking all traffic. I back up and he hurridly threw the rope around the crossmember and retied it. Not only did he go around the crossmember, he went over the lower radiator hose. Tore the whole bottom out of the radiator. Expensive clutch job.