Originally Posted by
hobo finds
alloy2 you should write a book!
Where would I start,
Born and raised in British Colombia, after marrying an upper valley girl we had moved to Edmonton to distance ourselves from family and which I had considered at the time unfavorable politics, these moves eventually ended up laying the ground work that saved my bacon during the recession of the 80's.
Still in BC just before the recession took hold of the economy I had purchased a truck cab and chassis that I had installed a flat deck onto, the truck was then painted company colors of an outfit I had singed onto to haul freight, my license plates covered an area from Vancouver to Hope BC. The plates covered a 150 mile area in any direction from the registered place of business.
Stupid rule, I choose to use a friends address from Chilliwhack which gave me further operational coverage to the east of Hope ans still giving me all of Vancouver and the North Shore.
The truck freshly painted in Country Freight Lines colors sure did look pretty but the company was experiencing a loss in freight leaving me without work, after three months of this pack our things up and made another move to Edmonton.
My thoughts were that I could put the truck to work by signing up with one of the many hot shot services which would had had me delivering stuff to the oil drilling rigs, that recession I had left behind me was like a wild fire cresting the tree tops had followed me from the west coast, the effects now reaching the oil fields of Alberta, no one was taking on new owner operators.
Nick who I had met from another time living in Edmonton when another buddy and I were involved in a large scrap deal we had secured at the Fiberglass of Canada insulation plant, from this deal is how I had met Nick when we sold him loads of steel trusses and I beams.Perhaps another time I'll write about my first business dealings with Nick that lead into a life long friendship.
Nick and I are like two peas in a pod, anyhow he made sure that I had work to do at the wrecking yard,then one day this gravel box arrives on a fire damaged truck from an insurance auction sale. Nick like a father starts with suttle hints that my truck would make a nice gravel truck. The conversion, installing the PTO, wet kit and box took about three days to completer.
Because of my previous residency I was able to obtain an X plate for the truck this plate gave me full provincial coverage allowing me to work anywhere, fist week after the truck had been converted I found work in a small northern Alberta town which bordered BC,
As you may have gathered by now I had never owned or operated a gravel truck, the job was pretty simple we would get a load of road base from the pit located about 20 miles distant, once in front of a box spreader with the back tires against rollers snub the brakes just enough that the truck wont roll ahead of the spreader box attached to a cat that would push ahead as the gravel unloaded from truck into the spreader. Nice easy job/
I had the misfortune of making the last load before we would reach the BC border where our work ended, the spreader already on its way to a new job site the foreman waiting on that last truck to arrive. to which he would instruct the driver to do a spread. I told him that I had never done a spread, he showed me how to set the chains then instructed me to back up then gain speed forward to about 30 mph then on the drop of his hand trip the gate.
Well that part went well until I noticed in the mirror not a speck of gravel had departed, so I back up, opps left the PTO in gear all the time I'm backing up the box is raising higher and higher, when I reached to where the foreman was standing I put the brakes on. The load gave way breaking the spreader chains, what we have is a nice big pile of gravel at the foreman's feet, he takes his hard hat off and tosses it onto the ground. It's all I can do to keep from laughing when in keeping a straight face told him see I told ya.
Don't know what the fascination is that woman have in truckers, her name was Wanda a nice looking blond who captured my heart, empty truck heading to the pit for a new load I'm full out at 76 and a half miles per hour when a u-joint goes, to avoid doing a bunch of unnecessary damage to the drive-line I spiked the brakes locking everything up. When the truck came to rest no damage to the drive line and one embarrassed woman who had peed her pants.
Break up, the northern job is completed I'm not asked to accompany the crew to the new site, Wanda heads west and I'm heading back to the city to where I'll be dispatched by another company to a new job in the south. Same type of job road base then paving, I hate paving you sit in line waiting on the other trucks to off load into the paver. Same deal the paving machine has rollers that you back into then apply just enough brake pressure to keep from rolling ahead of the paver.
The upside to paving is that your using half the fuel but your ton miles pay goes onto a hand bag, hauling base I was averaging $800.00 a day using a couple hundred in fuel, asphalt $400.00 day with half the fuel. Fabulous outfit to work for payed out every two weeks which is unheard of for contractors.
Truck had a small diesel coupled to a 5 and 4 transmission pair, normally that gives you 20 forward gears with 4 reverse. On some transmission combinations like what I had in my truck you can split and **** giving you a half gear in between.
These transmission 5 and 4;s on the axillary transmission you can install whats called a power tower to run large winches that will pull mega tons, to use the winch the auxiliary remains in neutral winch speeds from the main transmission power the winch.
Below is a power tower sitting atop an auxiliary transmission.
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