Pimp My Plow Truck (1268 hits)
Category: HumorRating: 1.58 on 45 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (View user info) at 2007-10-22 23:06:28 EDT
Without getting too technical, personal, or political, let's just say that I run my local street maintenance department. I have a few construction vehicles, trucks, and employees at my disposal. This is a part time gig that we all do in the evenings and on weekends.
A few weeks ago, I was out on a Saturday with two other guys patching up a dirt road that was washed out during a rainstorm. They were driving two trucks bringing in stone, and I was up in the loader spreading the stone out. As one truck left, another pulled in front of me to start dumping more stone, as we progressed down the road resurfacing it.
The truck in front of me started to put his box up, and I noticed a flash come from under his front wheel. That truck was our one with a gas powered engine.
I pulled out the parking brake on the loader and unsprung the retainer around the fire extinguisher in the cab. I threw the extinguisher out onto the ground and jumped down after it.
"Floor it!" I yelled to the driver, knowing from my childhood days in my grandfather's garage that feeding more fuel into a carburetor also feeds more air, thus sucking the fire back into the engine...sometimes.
I don't think that the driver even knew what was going on, but thankfully he stepped down on the accelerator. The flames temporarily retreated further up into the engine cavity. It's a good thing that he didn't freeze up or bail out of the truck, or we would have been on the front page of the local paper as laughingstocks...or worse yet, in the hospital admissions section.
I ran around the truck and unlatched the hood on the far side, and then ran back to undo the latch on the driver's side. By then, I was pretty pumped full of adrenaline, and the normally heavy fiberglass front section flew up with ease.
As the truck's engine cut out, I began to unload the contents of the fire extinguisher onto the engine. The driver jumped out with a surprised look on his face, realizing what is happening.
After a few minutes of spraying down the fire, the canister went empty. I went into the cab of the truck, and emptied the truck's extinguisher onto the engine for good measure.
The engine was cooked. All of the engine's hoses and wires were burnt away. There was an inch of white-yellow powder on everything.
"Now what?" my driver asked me.
"I'll put the dump body down, and you push it up the road, out of the way, with the loader." I answered. "We still have to spread out this last pile of stone. We don't need anybody hitting a 5 ton pile with their Saturn."
As soon as we finished up the road, it was time to do The March of Shame - pushing the disabled truck with a loader two miles back into town, down the main street, and back to our garage. I drove the truck, and the other guy pushed with the loader.
Elderly people on the street gave us slack-jawed stares as our sad little convoy rolled past. Fortunately, nothing on the exterior of the truck was melted or blackened, so they had no idea what was happening.
Little kids gave us the up and down fist in the air, requesting that we blow our horns. I turned the ignition on and obliged them with a friendly wave.
After what seemed like days, but what was in reality only like a half hour, we got the fried truck into the garage. We went back out to the dirt road site to finish the last truckload of stone. I followed the loader out in a pickup. We weren't going to get much done with only one truck hauling stone, so we called it a day.
----------
Later that afternoon, I had to call the other board members and explain our predicament with the truck. We met at the garage and surveyed the damage. Both of them wanted to sell the truck for scrap, and buy a new one.
Realizing that one of them owns a towing/repair/used car lot, and the other one has a brother who owns a truck dealership, I smelled a rat. I asked them to hold off on making a decision for two weeks, and let me try to fix the burnt mess. They agreed, but gave me the stipulation that I couldn't spend more than $500 on repairs.
The one snottily joked, "Let's see you fix this one, college-boy."
"Don't worry, I will." I said with a very fake cheer to my voice.
----------
I spent that Sunday cleaning down the engine, and stripping it down to the engine block.
Vapor canisters - gone.
EGR valve - plugged.
See ya, Mr. Smog Pump.
Cooked vacuum hoses and spark plug wires - tossed out.
Crusty black and powder covered carburetor - thrown into a bucket of mineral spirits.
Fuel pump and lines - removed and plugged.
Air cleaner - shelved.
----------
I took a vacation day from work the next day. After taking The Boy to school, I headed to the auto parts store.
There are different kinds of parts stores. There are ones that are family owned, with worn wood floors and fifty-odd years of dust on the tops of the shelves. Then there are the franchise stores with their bright plastic displays, circulars in the Sunday papers, and pyramids of antifreeze jugs in front of the store.
Neither of them could help me because the truck had an oddball engine. Never expect anyone to stock parts for a 20 year old Ford 370 C.I.
This left me only one option: high performance parts, baby.
I sat in my car with a pen and a napkin figuring out fuel to air ratios, guessing horsepowers, carrying the one, and projecting the hypotenuse of the hyperbolic trajectory of the arc on a Cartesian plane while solving for the mass moment of inertia of the chord. You know, technical stuff.
$320 later, I was walking out of the "Speed Shop" with an armload of car parts.
By Tuesday night, I had everything back together, tuned, and running strong. I figured that I still had a few bucks left in my budget, so I changed the oil, flushed the radiator, touched up the paint, greased the undercarriage and dump body, and still had money to spare.
I should have picked up a set of spinners for it.
User Reviews
Submitted by anunusualyetwittyname (user info) at 2008-06-14 12:35:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Glenn. (user info) at 2008-04-09 09:42:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I consider changing the oil filter on my EA Fairmont to be a considerable task so to you, sir, I tip my hat.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-04-04 08:38:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by robotfuel (user info) at 2007-10-31 19:32:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Excellent work. Kudos on the mechanical/writing skills.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2007-10-25 09:11:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
They don't call me Colonel Homer because I'm some dumb-ass army guy.
-- Homer Simpson
Colonel Homer
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2007-10-25 08:49:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Hehehehehe...the content of this post is of no surprise to me at all. Gotta love it!
Submitted by PayMeLater (user info) at 2007-10-25 02:43:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-23 17:02:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-10-23 17:01:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by rorrim (user info) at 2007-10-23 15:44:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-10-23 04:37:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:23:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I bow before your skill, sir. Well done.
Submitted by indoninja (user info) at 2007-10-23 15:43:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice work college boy.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2007-10-23 15:15:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You sir, are my hero.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-10-23 14:30:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Let's see...
Mud: Fire me an email if you want to do something. My address is with my name in my first few posts here.
scourge: The carb was the store's display model, meaning that it was hanging up on the wall behind the counter, and its factory settings had obviously been tampered with by parts counter monkeys. Because of that, I got a discount. Edelbrocks are easy to set up. 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 turn open to set the mixture, and the idle is just a screw turned to stop the spring from travelling fully closed.
Submitted by DudeThatsBOSH (user info) at 2007-10-23 14:27:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
scruggs started that fire
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2007-10-23 14:27:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-10-23 07:52:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Tractors plough fields. Trucks plow snow.
**********
Tractors can have a 5th wheel.
Submitted by triangle_man (user info) at 2007-10-23 12:51:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Bob,
Nice even breathin' set up there
looks like the intake manifold could have been beaded though.
pray for snow
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2007-10-23 11:33:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-10-23 10:37:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dayum! Great work. Too bad you couldn't have spent another couple of days on that thing cleaning it up. A bottle of de-greaser and a pressure washer and it would have been ready for a car show.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2007-10-23 10:22:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
awesome
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-10-23 10:19:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Your kung fu is good.
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2007-10-23 10:08:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
why waste a 650 double pumper on a gutted old 350?
just my two scents
Submitted by scourge (user info) at 2007-10-23 10:04:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
very nice.
though, if the carburetor is brand new i wonder how you were able to get it and everything else for $320? seems low. that or else the speed shop here is making a fucking killing off of people.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-10-23 09:11:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2007-10-23 06:02:00 CDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Too much inane detail and took me a while to work out you were talking about a plough truck. One of the more extreme - and frankly undeniable - examples of the dumbing down of the English language.
---------------------
Stupidity that defies words....
Well done good sir. 'Tis much more than I could've done. Did take me a minute to figure out how the fire started, though, since you didn't elaborate on that.
Submitted by MudWhistle (user info) at 2007-10-23 09:04:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
we doin uberconpocono again this year?
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-10-23 08:45:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
That first photo looks like it might have been altered or created.
you should totally get some of those neon lights to put under the truck and around the license plate.
Submitted by splitperson (user info) at 2007-10-23 08:37:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2007-10-23 08:03:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
FUCK. YES.
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-10-23 07:52:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2007-10-23 07:02:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Too much inane detail and took me a while to work out you were talking about a plough truck. One of the more extreme - and frankly undeniable - examples of the dumbing down of the English language.
------
Tractors plough fields. Trucks plow snow.
I'm sorry that I didn't write about girls or porn, which it seems all taht you're capable of doing, Mr. English professor.
Submitted by Nellypaal (user info) at 2007-10-23 07:02:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Too much inane detail and took me a while to work out you were talking about a plough truck. One of the more extreme - and frankly undeniable - examples of the dumbing down of the English language.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2007-10-23 06:11:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:35:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking cool.
Nicely done.
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-10-23 04:37:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:23:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I bow before your skill, sir. Well done.
Submitted by HotWillie (user info) at 2007-10-23 02:31:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2007-10-23 00:18:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
needs more cowbell
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2007-10-23 00:00:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
my hero!
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:56:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
FUCKDAMMIT!
Wrong 2.
Submitted by AsshOly (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:43:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
anything i cant do is worth a +2.
Submitted by ilikesteak (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:36:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
You is aware that it's half "filthy and outdated" and half "new crap about to become horribly filthy", right?
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:35:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Fucking cool.
Nicely done.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:25:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Giggle inducing title. I can also imagine a Redneck show called Pimp my Double-Wide or Pimp My Tractor.
"Today, folks, we,re visiting Bubba-Joe. Bubba here just bought a Double-Wide but would like to smarten' it up a bit. First thing we did was bring in a broke El Camino and put it up on some cinder blocks, painted of course with Dale Earnhart's number. Looks right smart, don't it?"
Submitted by Jack_McCallum (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:23:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I bow before your skill, sir. Well done.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:19:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I swapped out an alternator once and felt like a real man for three whole days. It was awesome. And it only took me about 18 hours to do it.
And of course I wanted the Phillies to win. You think I wanted the D'backs to play the Rockies?
Submitted by Sacrilicious (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:16:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Needs more "a hot tub in the back."
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:12:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
shoulda put glasspacks on that mutha...
you're my all-time favorite Uberer, btw.
Submitted by gravitas (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:11:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 edelbrock sticker on the plow truck
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-10-22 23:09:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
http://www.ubersite.com/m/112642