Your most Memorable tow when YOU broke down

The First year for VW rabbits.
I was running an SCCA regional Road Rally near Rochester Minnesota. It was mostly gravel roads. My 1 week old new VW rabbit caught fire under the hood ( front bonnet for you Englishmen ) coming into a timing control.
The fire was put put and I was towed behind an Opel Rally on a tow strap for a 100 plus miles doing well over the speed limit in the rain on back country roads with no wipers. Even I was scared shitless let alone my poor navigator.
The VW had the wrong alternator installed at the factory and burnt the entire wiring harness up under the hood.

Second VW rabbit same year model only diesel powered blew an engine at an Autocross on ice in Mankato Minnesota the following Febuary.
Drove it to the dealer hammering and took a bus back to Minneapolis Mn.

I have not ownerd a VW since but up till that time had owned 5 of them.
I guess VW died with the Rabbit.

 

Towed my cousin from Telegraph/West Chicago Roads in Redford to Novi with a chain. He exploded the 4 speed in his '69 R/T at about three in the morning (1970)and I towed him with my uncle's 6 cylinder Ford F100 after I removed what was left of the driveshaft and secured what was left of the transmission. Broke the extension housing off the back of that New Process transmission.

Or tried to anyway.

Despite him being a professional driver, gas tankers & semis, he could not drive the towed vehicle worth a damn. So we switched, I was being towed. At least we got there and didn't destroy either vehicle.

 

Mine aren't exactly tow, but I've got two break down moments that really stand out.

First one was when I was about 18, driving my '64 Chevy Biscayne 4door daily driver home from a buddy's house one night about 2am. It was the base model, pea green w/pea green interior, 235 six cylinder, and 3 on the tree. Well, the gas gauge never worked the whole time I owned it, so I always kept a gas can in the trunk, and my trusty 20" bicycle. Sure enough, about 2 miles from home, I run out of gas......directly across the street from two cops sitting on the side of the road talking to each other. So, I get out my bike and my gas can, and start riding to the house. I get about 300 yards down the road and one of the cops comes rolling to a stop next to me asking me what's going on. I look at him, look at the gas can, look back at my car sitting on the side of the road, and tell him I ran out of gas......no shit, huh ?! He asks me for my driver's license, runs me for warrants, hands my license back and says "be careful", and DRIVES THE FUCK OFF !! I had to ride my bike home, get in my dad's truck, go to the only gas station that was open at 3am, by this time, go back to the car with the gas can, put the gas in it, drive back to the house and drop the truck off, then ride my bike back to the car because I didn't have anyone else with me to drive both vehicles back. That was a longgggggg night !

Second one was going home from work one night about 5 months ago, driving my '65 Buick Riviera. I hit some traffic coming home and glance at the gauges to find the water temp going up. Shit ! The water pump was leaking at the shaft, so I pull over, take my empty water jug out of the car and run through the grass across the service road to a Dodge dealership. I go to their restroom and fill my water jug up, fill the car up, and call my buddy Robert (A 31 MO FO). He said "come to the house and you can drive the coupe to the show tomorrow". Pistons N Paint was the next day. So I get in his Model A coupe, go home and change clothes to take the wife out to eat dinner. We are about an 1/8th of a mile from the restaurant we were going to eat at when the car just dies completely going down the service road. I coast it into a UHaul storage facility and start diagnosing the problem. Turns out the mechanical fuel pump took a dump, so I call Robert to see if he has another fuel pump. He doesn't but makes his way down to where we were at anyway to see if he can help. Another buddy of mine just happens to be driving by and stops. Well, Robert and my wife jump in his truck and run down to the closest Auto Zone. It's dead on 10pm and they walk in before the guy could lock the doors. They go to the counter and tell the guy they need a mechanical fuel pump for a SBC, to which the guy replies, without even looking in the computer, "nope, we don't have any. We would have to order it." When I heard that I was PISSED ! I call Reed (X--GASSER) and he has a fuel pump ! He makes his way over to where we're broke down and we start swapping the pumps out. I am screwing the last bolt in and tightening the fuel lines back up when this dingy little bald-headed guy wearing a wife beater and flannel pajama pants comes out and says "what's the problem ?! You're on private property and you need to leave !" So we have some words back and forth and he tries to threaten to call the cops. More words go back and forth and we tell him to just go call the cops then. By this time I'm done and fire up the car. He goes back inside to call the cops and we all burn the fuck out of the parking lot, making some noise with open headers. Fuck that guy ! Ha ha ! That night kinda sucked, but it was funny in the end because of all my buddies that showed up to help. Thanks guys !

-Aaron

 

My 49 Buick with a dynaflow trans quit running so I had my wife tow me home with our pickup and a tow strap. A few blocks into the tow we stopped at a red light and I realized the motor was running. I forgot and left the car in gear and it actually bump started. One other time my dad mounted a big heavy tow hitch on the crappy front bumper of a 1970 VW squareback. He was towing me in a 3/4 ton Ford with a big camper shell so he couldn't see me. He rounded a corner and tore the hitch right out of the bumper and never knew it. I was left stranded in the street while he drove off.

 

I had a bad luck 36 Buick that I bought in high school 1976 , parents said no to parking it at the house til I got rid of another car so it sat at a farmers place for a couple of months. Had my buddy Rick tow me with a chain, figured the brakes still worked. They did for a while til we got to a hill that went down over some tracks and then had a stop sign at the bottom. About half way down I started gaining on him so I opened the door, stood on the running board and started screaming at him to run the stop sign. I looked up to the left to see the local cop who hated me standing there at a phone booth staring at me. Rick finally heard me and took a hard left, I went straight, chain snapped after almost making me roll and I rode the Buick through the stop sign just missing some poor mom in a Pacer. I rolled to the stop and the cop rolled up laughing his ass off, I was scared shitless and got a little pissed. He said "you should have seen the look on your face, that's the funniest thing I've ever seen" and he just kept laughing. Rick pulls up and is laughing too so I guess I must have looked rather funny riding a running board screaming like a girl to run the sign. Cop didn't give me a ticket and actually got along with him a lot better after that. I towed the Buick to a swap meet (with a tow bar) and sold it. I was delivering it for the guy and the tow bar came unhooked on one side and ended up going through the grille while turning a corner. I had to refund $100. I still like Buicks but always use a trailer when towing.

 

1986 We were racing the Olympus World Rally in Washington. Our Service van, a 1 ton Dodge with a roof rack with 30 mounted rally tires on top was at the side of the road for a remote service. After fueling the car and changing tires, the van started to head out, only problem was it was on the side of a road with a lot of fall off to the berm and it was slippery mud. As soon as it started to move it slipped further sideways and felt like it was going to roll over. A couple of locals pulled up in a 64 Chevy 1/2 ton with a little tiny flatbed on it. It looked bizare and sounded really weird, like it was missing some cylinders and had no exhaust. They volunteered a tow. It pulled that pig of a van back on the hwy. As we were unhooking the rope I asked them what it had for a motor. They opened the hood, and there was a 2.3 liter Pinto motor with a granny low 4 speed behind it! Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it, especially the way it pulled that overloaded Dodge up the embankment.

 

Broke down at carlsbad raceway.. Didn't have much cash back then but I had a triple A card. They would only tow you for free for the first 7 miles, and I didn't have enough cash to pay the rest of the way. I would call up AAA. Have them tow me 7 miles, drop me off and do it again. it was around 25 miles or so from my house to carlsbad. This time around it turned out that the tow truck that grabbed me snipped the call from AAA, when I told him to drop me off after 7 miles because I couldn't afford to pay for a tow over that amount he said fuck it and took me the whole way for free!

 

In 1974 (en route to the NSRA Street Rod Nats in St. Paul, MN) a rear axle "failed" @ ~65 MPH ...

 

You want a VINTAGE towing story???

Saga of the 34 chev Coupe
[Back about 1964, during my last year of highschool, everybody knew that I was a “motorhead”, into old cars and hotrods. I met an older fellow who told me that when he was a teenager, he had a “nice ’34 Chev coupe” but that he had blown the engine up.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
I asked him what had become of the car, and he told me that it was still setting in the backyard of his mothers house, in Beachburg, Ontario, not too far from Pembroke. I asked him if he wanted to sell it, and how much money. His answer was “twenty dollars and two packs of Players cigarettes.
I bought the car sight unseen, and enlisted the help of my two cousins, Rob Martin and John Storring to travel with me to Beachburg, about 125 miles from where we lived in Bancroft, Ontario and tow the car home.
We drove up one weekend to assess what I had bought, and were thrilled to find that although the engine was seized up and the windshield busted out, the body was absolutely cherry, and the tires would hold air when we pumped them up. The brakes didn’t work, but by keeping the car in gear and letting out the clutch pedal the seized up engine would function as a brake, of sorts.
My daily driver was a 1952 Chev car, and since I was poorer than dirt and didn’t have a proper tow bar, I made up a six foot long tow bar out of a 2 x 10 oak plank and some logging chains.
Saturday morning bright and early we were off in my old Chev, to bring home my new car. We were equipped with tire pumps, tow chains, a variety of jacks, a twenty foot roll of haywire, and my oak tow bar.
Now you fellow readers probably don’t know the area I am talking about up in the Ottawa valley, but going up through Barrys Bay and Wilno, there are some of the biggest damn hills that you have ever seen, short of the Rocky Mountains.
We arrived in Beachburg and pumped up the coupe tires again, and chained the oak plank to the front bumper of the coupe, and the back bumper of my venerable 52 Chev. After examining our tow bar set-up, and not really trusting it, I volunteered John and Rob to ride in the coupe just in case anything went wrong with our tow bar, thinking that at least if it broke they would be able to steer the coupe to a stop.
We left Beachburg in high spirits, (which were equally matched by Mrs. Dougherty to “Get that danged old car out of my back yard!!”, and headed south.
I was driving along about 60 miles an hour, and from what I could see in my rear view mirror, John and Rob seemed to be doing okay. I seen that they were both shouting something, but nothing looked wrong, so I assumed they must be shouting with exuberance to be on such a great adventure. (I didn’t find out untill later that they were both terrified, and without any windshield in the old coupe they were finding it difficult to both breath and to see.)
We came down out of those high hills with the old coupe weaving from side to side behind me and started through downtown Barrys Bay. Which, athough it was a small town had the usual crop of loggers and farmers in from the country to do their Saturday grocery shopping---that little town was crowded as Hell!!!
We were doing great untill we got right into the middle of town and had to make a ninety degree left turn at the only red light ---and I was lucky---I caught the green light, so I didn’t slow down too much. Just as I was turning, you guessed it—the oak tow bar suddenly “went south” and the two boys were on their own in the coupe. By that time they had burned the clutch out, trying to use it as a brake to slow me down on some of those same big hills I mentioned earlier, so they were suddenly turned loose in a car going about 35 miles an hour, with no brakes and no horn, in the middle of a very busy town.
I did an immediate” turn and follow” manouver and chased them though town honking my horn, with John and Rob hanging their heads out the window and screaming at people to get out of their way, that they couldn’t stop.
I think the Baby Jesus musta been on board that day, cause those two boys missed all the townfolks, family cars, and pickup trucks, and rode the car to a stop at the side of the road on the far side of Barrys Bay.
And when I caught up to them, Oh, man, were they ugly!!! That was it!! They didn’t care if that damned old car sat by the road untill it rotted, they weren’t going to ride another damn foot in it. And despite all my cajoling and whining, they didn’t. We left it right there on the side of the road and drove home, about 50 miles to Bancroft.
Next day, I called another cousin, Johny Reid, and with his 65 Parisienne and a REAL towbar we went up and towed the car home with no farther problems.
The car turned out to be a Master series coupe, with one of those horrible knee action front suspensions in it. A neighbour of mine, Fred Ralliston had a bit of a wrecking yard, and I was able to buy the complete front end out of a 51 Chev pickup, axle, springs, shackles, hangers, the whole works for twenty dollars, and it bolted right into the old coupe frame!!! I pulled out the frozen engine and again, basically bolted in a 261 cubic inch chev engine and transmission (can’t even remember what that engine was out of now----that’s 44 years ago.)
Sadly, I was young and stupid, and had no money to finish things properly, so eventually the car was sold to somebody from one of Ontarios southern cities, and I never seen it again.
I have been wanting to write this great story down for the last fourty years, and this cold, wet, miserable March morning has given me the opportunity. Hope you enjoyed it.
Brian Rupnow---March 2009

 

I was driving my Datsun Pickup across Wyoming in the summer of 1984 and the water pump started leaking a lot. Found a rest stop and refilled it with water. That lasted about five miles. Then we stopped at a place that had everything. It was a camp ground, post office, store, gas station, and garage. I thought I was saved until the guy told me that he don't work on fer'in(sp) trucks. Got towed into Laramie WY by a very cool tow truck driver. He cut me a break on the towing because I was a poor USAF airman at the time. He dropped us off at a hotel called the Thunderbird Lodge because it was the closes place by the Datsun dealer. I bought a new water pump in the morning and replaced it in the hotel parking lot. I did not have money to get it fixed after paying the tow. It was funny because the hotel manager was yelling at me the whole time I was working on my truck.

Moral of the story make sure your driving an American made car if your planning on breaking down in the middle on nowhere Wyoming.

 

no doubt it was hauling this 1954 Buick Century on a tow dolly on I - 94 near the Montana border in North Dakota on a tow dolly



this also was the Last Time i used a tow dolly

got to Jamestown gassed up and ate headed down the ramp on to I - 94 all or a sudden the 54 Buick was all over the place must of been going 15 or 20 the car almost flipped scared the hell out of me, still does

got on the shoulder checked under the car found that the panhard bar broke in half, stress cracked there was a crease in the tube

up till that time i was running at highway speed got off the interstate found a plant that was open on Sunday ask them if they had a saw to cut a piece if inch re-bar i found the guys they save my ass

slid the re-bar in the broken tube wired it taped it & used a come a long to tighten it, took the test drive it worked and off i went

25 hours & lots of adventure, moral of the story i use a trailer now

 

Not my own tow, and not quite a hot-rod thing, but, I'm sure some of you may like this. A friend of mine grew up around the oilfields, spent most of his professional career working in them, been collecting equipment for years. Well, years ago he had bought a bulldozer cheap, only problem was he was on the Western slope and the bulldozer was on the front range. So, he hopped in his light-spec F5 ford that he had rigged a gin pole and fifth wheel onto, hooked a small gooseneck to it. Hydraulic brakes on the truck and vacuum brakes on the trailer. He gets the truck out there no problem and loads up the bulldozer. Keep in mind this bulldozer weighs 40,000lbs. alone, with the truck and trailer he was grossing well over 55,000lbs. Somehow he managed to pull that dozer over the Rockies some 200-odd miles on vacuum and hydraulic brakes, digging deep into his engine and gears making his way up the pass and then holding on for dear life and hoping his brakes don't go out coming down them (this was long before the convenience of the shorter passes on I-70). He always says one thing about doing that, "Dumbest thing I ever did!" I wish I could say the dumbest vehicular exercise I ever did didn't involve a crash.

As far as my own most memorable tow in my very limited driving career, it was pulling a '66 Mustang on original drum-brakes through rush hour traffic behind my Uncles C10. Nothing wild, but, keep in mind I was about 16.5 at the time, not something most city-kids would want to try. Made it there okay, and the brakes never got terribly hot.

 

Early '60s...Phil Brown and I picked up 110 gallons of nitromethane from Wilcap and driving it back on the Harbor Freeway in a '41 ford deuce and a half....then tick, tick, tick and a rod went through the pan...left the truck and 110 gals of nitro on the offramp in Watts, then came back with a Ford pickup and a logging chain, hooked up, agreed that I would be the brakes, and back on the freeway we went.

Of course anyone with any brains would have gone slowly, but we were doing around 60 when the Santa Monica offramp came up, and Brown signaled me to brake...then and only then did we realize that they were vaccuum-assisted brakes, no motor, almost no brakes...so Brown began to brake and I had no choice but to pass him, chained together on a one-lane offramp, I waved to him, he waved back, and then we saw the cop......who never figured the nitro (or we would have probably would up in jail), but got at least two full tickets out of the deal.

 

Driving my very OT race truck home from Second Creek Raceway in Denver to San Diego. Most miserable drive of my life. It involved 4 seperate tow trucks, multiple stops and roadside repairs. It should have been an 18 hour trip turned into a 46 hour trip. The most memorable part was when we had the flat tire in the middle of nowhere Utah, and couldnt put the "spare" race tire on because with the bed loaded the race tires would lock up on the bodywork. So about 3 am get the flat, call up AAA, and the driver shows up. all I gotta say is wow! His name tag on his uniform said Muskrat, and his mullet was something that would have made Billy Ray Cyrus slap his momma! He was a nice guy.... a little off, but instead of making me wai till the shop opened several hours later, he swapped out that tire for me at 3 in the morning, allowing me to continue on my way!

 

1964. I and my brand new bride was on our way to McGuire AFB NJ in my '55 Chevy hot rod and in Winchester VA threw a rod out of the side if the block. I called my buddy at the base and he came to Winchester and, with a cargo strap, towed that old Chevy all the way to the base, 225 miles. It never ran again as long as I owned it. I towed it with a tow bar all the way to Florida when I got discharged. I had a piece of angle iron bolted with 4 bolts to the back bumper of my '55 Pontiac. Geeze, those were the day...

 

This story is about 25 years old, but always brings a smile to my face. My work car broke down and I was towing it home with a 45' log chain. I had the ex steering the car and after about seven miles, I stopped to make sure all was good in the towed car. Five minutes later we took off again. The road we were on was very twisty and sloped off about fifteen feet to the outside of the curve. As I drove the truck around the curve I see the towed car pulling off the road. I quickly look to the passenger side mirror and see the car, still attached to the chain, it has slid almost to the bottom of the slope and is now sliding sideways as I continued to pull it across the wet grass. Inside the car, much to my amusment, is the ex waving her hands wildy and yelling for me to stop.
It seems that she had turned the key to lock when we stopped, then forgot to unlock it when we started. Once rolling, panic set in and she never thought to just unlock the steering. The car simply drove straight off the road and slid along until I noticed it. It was a good day for me. Hmm, there that smile is again. :>)

 

In 1972 one night when my 40 Ford conked out at the bottom of the New River Tunnel in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. One kind soul towed me out of the tunnel while hundreds of others passed me by.

 

Well, since this thread resurfaced, here it goes. Late 60's..I & three other jackasses break through a crust of snow down to the frame in a '62 Valiant in a back trail in the Pocono mountains at night. I & Stanley walk for miles until we come to a small house where the people invite us in & we call a tow truck from the nearest town that had a tow truck. Tow truck comes & we make it back to the car. The tow truck gets stuck with us in tow & he had to call one of those super tow trucks (like the ones that pull the tanks out in the army), who pulls us all out. We finally make it home at 4:00 in the morning. Our folks were pissed & Stanley got some frostbite because the A-hole was wearing sneakers.

 

We were returning from Montose, CO, from a street autocross, back to colorado springs with a car club. OT cars, mine a VW rabbit (won my class, BTW). An injection problem left me only 2 to 3 cylinders. At the base of Monarch pass, I knew the car just didn't have the power to go over the top, so my friend agreed to tow me with his RX7. I was to provide as much grunt as I could, with whatever cylinders were running. With a short tow strap, and no headlights because I was so close, we hit the bottom going like hell because neither of us had much power. My wife hung her head out the window to tell me which way the road was going to turn since I was so close I couldn't see. We got a great rythym going in the turns, neither of us lifting a bit. I almost rear ended him when he had to go to 2nd gear. Made it to the top OK, un hooked my car and rolled all the way down the pass and through the next town, Salida, before starting the engine again.

 

Having an alternator seizing up at the dump sucked. My dad and I were there for almost an hour in that nasty ass place waiting for my grandpa to come save us.

 

Summer 1970... a buddy and I are riding in my beater VW micro-bus to Kaiserslautern from Bitburg, West Germany, when the old multi-window started running so easy and FAST we just couldn't believe it. Then it siezed, of course. Racer's curse. Then we got a tow from two GIs in a 3/4T truck. Some time down the road, the truck driver unexpectedly pulls up to a house and says wants to stop to see his wife for a few minutes and, get this, he asks us if we will guard his PRISONER while he is inside his house! When we got back to K-town we all got busted by the MPs for the illegal tow and poor headwork by the guy escorting the prisioner, but my buddy and I got off easy. Gary

 

5 pages and hardly any pics....
Here's mine;

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=468436

 

Cool story,your wife is a keeper.You did keep her didn't ya? Towing with a 4 speed is challenging.My wife would of said call a tow truck,LOL.