O/T: Truck & van rentals

[Joe Michaels]

Greg:

A good 25 years ago, several of us got together to buy the contents of a deceased toolmaker's garage shop. We had gone down to the shop initially with pickup trucks and tools. That first trip was to unwire the machine tools, remove all the small tooling and smaller machines, and to move the Bridgeports and larger machines to where we could load them into a larger truck. We rented a box truck with a lift gate from Ryder (since absorbed by one of the bigger firms). We got a nasty surprise when we went to use the lift gate. When the lift gate control lever was put in the 'lower' position, the gate took it literally and dropped like a pile driver. This was without any load on it. We were OK to load the Bridgeports and other machine tools as the lift gate did fine in the "raise' direction. Every time we lowered that lift gate, it came slamming down in very nearly free-fall mode.

We got the machine tools loaded and headed upstate to our homes to offload. We worked out a system: Two men stood on the lift gate alongside each machine tool to steady it as best they could. The lift gate was lowered by nudging the lever so the gate descended in a series of small jerky moves. In hindsight, we should have done a little sleuthing to see if there was a needle valve or similar flow control device in the hydraulics for the lift gate cylinders. But, we had our eyes on the prize and lots to do in one day, so none of us thought about tinkering with Ryder's hydraulics.

Well over 45 years ago, I rented a U Haul box truck to move my personal effects plus my motorcycle and some shop equipment. The move was from Wheatland, Wyoming to Marquette, Michigan. One way rental, with my car ( a 1975 Saab 99 with stick shift) on flat tow behind the U Haul truck. We rented a tow bar from U Haul.

Right off the bat, the truck was dead on arrival at the rental agent in Wheatland, Wyoming. Repairs took a few days, but it was the only show in town so we delayed the run to Marquette, MI. U Haul sent a mechanic up from Cheyenne to work on the truck, and we were none too confident in it. as it crapped out after his first efforts. He had to come back and mess with it some more. We sat around Wheatland and stewed, wanting to load up and get on the road. The U Haul truck was a box truck with dual rear wheels and four speed manual transmission. No A/C, no radio, a saggy bench seat and a governor on the engine. We already had a bit of a hardon for U Haul, so it was no holds barred as far as what we did to make the move happen.

I drilled some holes in the floor of the cargo box, and we put forged steel eye bolts with bearing plates in those holes. This let us really bind down the motorcycle and shop equipment. As for the tow bar, it was a POS that did not make up to the Saab's front bumper. Not to worry. I took a piece of 3" channel and made a new flat front bumper for the Saab, with clip angles and hinge bolts. I then welded ears to the U Haul tow bar and threw the clamping hardware into the truck's cargo box. Meanwhile, my buddy who was a mechanic and somewhat larcenous by nature had defeated U Haul's governor. Off we went, pedal to the metal, highballing as best we could in the U Haul truck. We had that truck running about as fast as was safe for the road conditions, and when road conditions were good, we ran it as fast as the engine would take it. It was a noisy cab. We had food and canned beverages in the cab, and the cab soon got pretty messy. The truck cab stank of cigar smoke, since my buddy smoke those cigars that look like ropes or dried dogshit. I don't smoke and the cigar smoke was brutal, so we ran with the windows down most of the time we were rolling.

We were two nights out getting from Wyoming to the UP. Once arrived there, my old neighbors had a machine and fab shop. We ground off the welds I'd run on the tow bar for the temporary 'ears', and hit it with some rattle can paint that approximated U Haul's color. Took the eyebolts out of the cargo bay floor and put some duct tape over the holes. Contract said the truck box had to be broom clean or something like it. We met that requirement. Got to the U Haul agent in Marquette, and the guy told me to toss the tow bar in some corner pile of stuff, never looking at it. As for the governor being non functional and the holes in the truck cargo box floor, we never said a word and never heard anything from U Haul.

A few years back, I helped our son move from Minneapolis, MN to Albany, NY to start law school. Our son had rented a U Haul truck. Quite a step up from that move from Wyoming all those years earlier. This U Haul truck was downright comfortable, with good seats, air conditioning and an automatic transmission. I do not think it had a governor on it since it kept up with traffic doing 70 mph +. It was a one way rental. As things worked out, our son had reserved a storage unit from U Haul in Albany until he got situated in an apartment near Albany Law. U Haul had it all, even selling him one of their padlocks for their storage unit.

 

[Greg Menke]

Big fan of defeating the governor on that old wreck. Along those lines I keep a few drills in my small "business trip" toolbag. Works great for drilling out the low-flow devices in hotel showers, and the small set of hex drivers help remove the stops from sliding windows.

I had great luck twice with Penske fullsize box trucks- when I got my bridgeport I had a forklift handy to move it into my backyard man that was high living, the 2nd one was with a liftgate to pick up my 14" ATW down from Philadelphia- moving that machine was a good bit more work but the liftgate was perfect.

On a trip last summer my yamaha r6 started dumping oil thru an exhaust valve seal, maybe the guide was dead also- in Keene NH 500 odd miles from home. Not a single truck available anywhere around, uhaul or other, of the two car rental companies in town one had just gone out of business the other never answered the phone. I ended up giving the bike to a motorsports shop and worked out transport home- it felt like a betrayal of everything to do it but longer rides on the bike were just too much work on balance, so letting it go seemed the right move. Got another bike since but thats another story.

 

[Joe Michaels]

Greg:

You are a man after my own heart with your 'bag of tricks'. Can't keep us old-timers in line with modern mega-business and their cost saving maneuvers. Reminds me of the inception of GPS on company vehicles. I was just about to retire when we got the word that corporate was having all fleet vehicles, including the ones at the upstate power plants, fitted with GPS tracking devices. These would monitor not only a vehicle's position and time it was in any location, but road speed. The system was configured to work thru software such that if a vehicle were driven at more than 70 mph, it would set off a chain of events. This chain of events was to culminate in discipline for the person to whom the vehicle was assigned (or whomever else happened to be driving it if a party of people were using it). At the powerplant, we decided this was the corporate gestapo at work, called it just so much more chickens--t, and did not take the GPS idea at all well. I got a bright idea to f--k up the GPS transponders (or whatever they're called). I suggested the fleet mechanics identify the GPS 'boxes' on the vehicles and plant a very strong magnet on the GPS box or immediately adjacent to it (such as fastened to the vehicle's steel body section or whatever the GPS was mounted on). We had plenty of magnetic dial indicator bases, and plenty of heavier magnetic devices such as were used for lifting steel plate. I figured a very strong magnetic field would totally scramble the GPS signal. We all had a laugh over it, but no one dared try it. I could not stomach the idea of the corporate gestapo tracking our every move. Stop for lunch at the wrong time or too far off the beaten track on a personal errand or just simply drive on an interstate keeping up with traffic doing north of 70 mph and your a-- was in a bight. I am very glad I retired when I did, as corporate really cranked down on the screws with policies, oversight into everything short of the men's room stalls, and took all engineering work (which was what I enjoyed doing) away from the upstate power plants.

Your motorcycle story reminds me of a college classmate of mine and his own tale. It was about 1968 or 69, and that summer, my classmate rode his motorcycle from Queens, NY to Southern California. The bike, as far as I remember, was some Honda twin cylinder machine, maybe a 350 or 450. It was not 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance'. Out in California, the Honda engine broke its timing chain and some other internal damage occurred. My classmate was stuck. No money to pay for repairs, and not wanting to abandon the motorcycle and find his way home by bus. He found an ad in a local newspaper for someone looking for a driver to deliver their car to the East Coast (I forget just where on the east coast). The ad offered to pay road expenses and maybe a small salary on top, figuring someone needing to get to the east coast would apply for the job. My classmate took the ad and contacted the car owner. He was hired for the job. As soon as he had the money and the car, he headed to U-Haul and rented a clamp-on trailer hitch (when cars still had bumpers you could do this with), and a trailer. He put his motorcycle on the U Haul trailer and highballed for Queens. Offloaded the bike, returned the U-Haul trailer and hitch and delivered the car with the owner none the wiser.

My own daily rider (at least in 'riding season') is a 1978 BMW R 100/7. I bought that motorcycle new in Marquette, MI and have been riding and maintaining and repairing it ever since. It has an unleaded cylinder head conversion (done by Bud Provin, whom Jim Rozen will remember), over 100 K on the motorcycle at this point. I've made a number of service tools for the "Airhead" series of BMW motorcycles. I also have the sister to that R 100/7, built within 300 VIN's of my original one. This one was a rat when we got it. We overhauled and restored it, and it went to Omaha to a very good friend. Unfortunately, her life spiraled out of control due to bipolar illness, and the bike came back to me. My son now rides it when he's home. I can't imagine ever leaving or losing my old BMW motorcycle. It's been with me going on 45 years. Longer than my marriage ( 40 +), longer than my employment with the NY Power Authority (32 years).

In keeping with this thread, an antique machine tool story comes to mind. A good 30 years ago, a buddy of mine was offered a 16" Hendey shaper for use on our railroad. At the time, my buddy had an International Harvester dump truck, maybe a "Transtar" with gasoline V-8 engine. It was an ex highway plow truck, so had a Howe-Coleman 4 x 4 conversion on it (a weird setup in its own right). My buddy set out from Big Indian, NY in our Catskills, headed to Connecticut to bring home the Hendey shaper. He got there OK, shaper was loaded and bound onto the dump truck bed, and he started home. He did not get far. Somewhere in Connecticut, the V-8 engine in the Cornbinder gave up with a massive internal failure (maybe ate a valve or holed a piston as it was an overworked and overtired engine). The truck had to be towed, and wound up on the lot of a Subaru dealer. Not wanting to lose the truck and the shaper, my buddy got someone to come get him and drive him back home. He got hold of another Cornbinder V8 engine and someone to haul him and the engine to Connecticut. He then made some kind of deal with the Subaru dealer's shop. I do not remember if they let him work in their shop off-hours, or did the engine swap. Either way, he then drove off the Subaru dealer's lot with the damaged engine plus the shaper now on the bed of his dump truck. He had one or two more breakdowns on the way home, and it took several weeks to finally make home port. The Hendey shaper wound up spending a good number of years stuffed into a wooden railroad baggage car with plenty more junk piled onto it. Eventually, the shaper was pulled out by another bro of mine, and he puts it to good use in his automotive repair/restoration shop. The old Cornbinder truck was put out to pasture some years ago. It was sitting up on a mountain, surrounded by stripped out I-H Scouts which had that same V8 and at least one old Cornbinder schoolbus, also an engine donor. My buddy finally decided the old Cornbinder could not continue to be his dumptruck as he was getting tired of swapping engines in it. He replaced it with about a 1963 Mack U model, a diesel with 5 speed main and 4 speed auxiliary transmission. The old Bulldog has stood up to whatever my buddy needed it to do. With the various state DOT's and troopers all gunning for older heavy trucks, the wanderings of my buddy (who is now 81) and his old Mack are very much limited. We used to go after machine tools with the old Mack, taking back roads and avoiding DOT heavy truck checkpoints, but those days are long past.

 

[Greg Menke]

At 56 I have a few more years in the current racket. My folks have a lot more "professional management" now also. Its a bit crazy; they accept engineering risk as a matter of course- do some math, figure the cost vs benefit and pick your poison- which is fine. OTOH exactly no IT risk is accepted anywhere eg even the screensaver timeout is controlled as a matter of security policy and no negotiation. Somehow, efficiency or relevance is of no concern in IT- its all about checking boxes and CYA. Consequently, project development time and cost multiplies because IT systems are never as robust as they seem and unless your project has a large budget for full-time IT support then you're entirely out of luck, or you have to go rogue. I used to go rogue as a matter of course in the interest of getting things done and making stuff work but these days most of the time its not worth the effort.

Ugh.. I'm glad I'm not starting a career in it and having to live that stuff.

But anyway, talking about motorcycles and machines is way more fun. A friend of mine has a '92 Honda Nighthawk that we've been un-ratting over the last few years; it was a sorry piece of junk but now quiet, reliable, good brakes & suspension... its a nice ride. The float valves are still giving me trouble, not sealing properly at random times, and needs a new chain and sprockets; so I'll have another weekend with it soon once he gets the tarp off.

 

[jim rozen]

Guess I've been lucky - never had to trailer a bike home. I picked up one in PA in my long-bed toyota pickup, and my '59 R50 came from vermont, in the back of Lloyd Provin's pickup. That's Bud's dad. I paid him the grand total of one hundred dollars to deliver it from vermont to peekskill. My wife thought he was nuts to do it for so little, even then. Every other bike came home with me riding it upon purchase.

 

[Greg Menke]

I've done a number of motorcycle rescues with my pickup, and had one of mine rescued after I wrecked it.. Enough times that I bought some ramps and a winch to help with loading and unloading. My R6 came home with me in the pickup, unloaded with a shop crane. It is easier to load/unload off a trailer, but I prefer the truck- not much liking to tow stuff behind me.

 

[SIP6A]

Proving once again the lowest price isn't the best value.

 

[magneticanomaly]

This thread is wandering enough that these stories will not be too out-of-place.
In 1975 I wanted to come home for Christmas from college in Ohio to New Jersey. Wanted to do it cheap. Rented a U-haul cargo van, and found four or five other students willing to pay for a ride East.

Unbolted the barrier that was supposed to keep the cargo from squashing the driver, but the steerage passengers had no seats.

And it started to snow. That van was the scariest thing I have ever driven in the snow, and crosswinds. Probably did not exceed 30 MPH for the first half of the trip.
One of my passengers turned out to be smoking something she should not have been, so she got a tongue-lashing and I sweated a little more.

Halfway through Pennsylvania the weather cleared (and got colder), so I sped up, a little too much. Of course, I got stopped by a cop. Thank God he was cold, or lazy, and did not object when I got out and walked back to his cruiser to take my medicine. Nor did he walk up to inspect the van, and cargo. Whether I even got a ticket, I do not remember, but I did get home without a detour to the hoosegow.

Two years later, my father and I responded to a "Machine Shop Equipment For Sale" ad, and bought a Royersford Excelsior 21" drill, a US Machine Tool #1 Hand mill, a bench shear, a bench punch, a huge leg-vise, boxes full of morse-taper drills, and other stuff.

He had a Volvo 122 sedan, but I had a 1962 Peugeot 403 station wagon, (60 hp 4-cylinder engine).
Did I mention that the machine shop was on the second floor?

We lowered the drill, and the mill, through a trap-door, with a little Maasdam Power-pull (that I still have and used today to load a round hay-bale on a trailer), coaxed them (one at a time) into the back of the station wagon, and waddled very slowly the thirty miles home (two trips)

 

[DDoug]

This thread is wandering enough that these stories will not be too out-of-place.
In 1975 I wanted to come home for Christmas from college in Ohio to New Jersey. Wanted to do it cheap. Rented a U-haul cargo van, and found four or five other students willing to pay for a ride East.

Unbolted the barrier that was supposed to keep the cargo from squashing the driver, but the steerage passengers had no seats.

And it started to snow. That van was the scariest thing I have ever driven in the snow, and crosswinds. Probably did not exceed 30 MPH for the first half of the trip.
One of my passengers turned out to be smoking something she should not have been, so she got a tongue-lashing and I sweated a little more.

Halfway through Pennsylvania the weather cleared (and got colder), so I sped up, a little too much. Of course, I got stopped by a cop. Thank God he was cold, or lazy, and did not object when I got out and walked back to his cruiser to take my medicine. Nor did he walk up to inspect the van, and cargo. Whether I even got a ticket, I do not remember, but I did get home without a detour to the hoosegow.

The lesson here is:
You should have dropped the price for the passengers, to get more people in the van, thereby having more weight, better traction and control in the snow & ice.....

 

[Joe Michaels]

Magnetic Anomlay:

Your story of the van and the journey home has me chuckling and remembering a few similar things. In our community, for many year, there was a recreational activity of "Tubing the Esopus". The Esopus being a creek with a Native American name. Tubing referred to using a truck innner tube to float down the creek during summer days. One very successful tube rental firm known as "Town Tinker" had been renting tubes and transporting tubers to the 'put in point, and picking them up for transport back after tubing downstream. Several wannabes tried to emulate this business. Town Tinker was using secondhand schoolbusses, meeting DOT standards, sometimes relying on the Catskill Mountain Railroad to return the tubers to point of origin, and playing by the rules in that regard. The wannabes tried to get under the radar by using smaller vans to transport tubers. Town Tinker used truck inner tubes with plywood seats in the tubes, so tubers had an easier time of floating downstream. The wannabes used any old truck inner tube they could get hold of.

The ultimate in low-rent tube rental operations happened at an automobile repair garage at the foot of my road. The owner (since deceased) was a Haitian immigrant who was actually trained in a trade school as a heavy equipment mechanic. However, he brought the third-world way of doing things with him to his repair garage business in the Catskills. One particularly hot summer, this garage owner decided he'd go in the tube rental business. He had some beater of an old van, no seats in it, and the interior was covered in grunge from transporting as well as storing used car parts. The old van was pulled out of the guy's boneyard and the accumulation of old car parts was cleared out. He threw a set of license plates on the van (probably off a recent wreck in his boneyard). Some stripped V-8 engine blocks were placed in the van to serve as seats. An assortment of used truck inner tubes, all of which sported patches, was then tied to the roof and rear of the van with rope. The garage owner put a truck inner tube on a wood utility pole along the road with a sloppily painted sign having only an arrow and 'rent' on it. People showed up to rent tubes from this guy. He began cramming as many people as he could into his van. At one point, a somewhat overweight girl was last in line to get into the van. The garage owner literally had his shoulder against her butt, hollering in his Creole accent: "Get in 'dere baby !". Needless to say, the garage owner's foray into tube rental and transportation was extremely short lived. I think local law enforcement shut him down when they saw a crowd of people piling out of his van at the 'put in point' where tubers debarked to enter the creek. It was as if he had transported a common means of transport in third world countries to the Catskills of NY State.

I am also reminded of some of the vans used as mass transit in third world countries. In order to cram as many people as possible into these vans, the steering wheels are removed. The driver uses a pair of Vise Grips on the steering shaft and sits as close to the dashboard as possible. Since people pay fares, the more that can be crammed into a van, the better, at least in terms of the bottom line. When I worked in Ecuador in the late 1970's, I remember seeing these locally built combination vehicles. These were based on either old US school busses, or on old US single rear axle trucks. The school busses often were re-fitted with a two speed rear axle for heavier load capacity, and a sturdy rack/platform was built on the roof as well as cantilevered off the rear of the bus body. The busses were crammed with people, livestock, and goods. Stuff was lashed to the roof platform as well as the rear platform, and people sometimes rode on the roof as well.
The busses were usually brush-painted and sported the name of the cooperative that owned them. Goats, chickens, pigs, sacks of produce, goods to and from market all were carried along with the people. The old trucks were modified with a home-made stretched cab. A couple of rows of school bus seats were mounted abaft the front seats. These were used for passengers. The truck body was a stake rack with a tarp to cover it in bad weather. These rigs carried passengers as well as cargo. I remember looking at these vehicles up close and seeing tires worn down to the cords, and all sorts of scabby welds adding reinforcement to the frames (or repairing cracks with 'fishplates' welded on). A few years later, I was working for the NY Power Authority, assigned to a hydroelectric project at Kensico Dam in Valhalla, NY. Due to some goings on with a contractor, I had occasion to get over to a large junkyard in Elmsford, NY. I was allowed to wander the junkyard, and found a crew of South Americans cutting up old US trucks and school busses. They had a lineup of parts in the form of axles, two speed rear axles, springs, engines and more. Having learned a little Spanish on the jobs in South America, I was able to communicate with the South Americans in the junkyard. Sure enough, the parts they were cutting out of junked commercial vehicles were headed to South America. Likely these were going to wind up in those old school busses and truck conversions. I give the South Americans a lot of credit for making things work on next to no budget, doing what they had to do to get through life. For them, it was not a 'race to the bottom', but a race for survival. There is good reason we have vehicle inspection laws in the USA, but we live in a country where we thankfully, can afford to maintain minimum standards of safety for vehicles and other things.

Your story of the "home for Christmas' run with the rented van sounds like it was not quite as crowded or as crazy as what the local garage owner or the third world van operators pulled.

 

[DDoug]

^^^ Sounds allot like this van driver:

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[john.k]

The first truck I ever hired was Red Truck Rentals ....."we come to you".......when it turned up ,it was a 1930s Chev ,and the motor clonked away as the splash Chevs did.....top speed was 30 mph ,but it did the job ...straight crash gearbox ...but at $10 a day ,I hired it many times until I got my own truck.