At 04:48 PM 12/10/97 -0600, you wrote:
>For those of us who weren't here then, is there some appropriate way to
recognize Dan Hughes day?
>
So that Dan would know that we could empathize with him, we confessed to
bonehead things we did with/to cars. All though I think the 11th is actually
Dan Hughes day (auto responder answered all his e-mails with something along
the line of "I will be out of the office until Dec. 11th. Of course it
answered this to EVERY piece of mail, including itself when posted by the
list. It was an exponential cyber-storm).
So in honor of Dan Hughes day...my bonehead move of the year.
I had by children with me in the Land-Rover and they wanted to ride in it
over some 'rough stuff'. There is a field behind my mechanic's place. A safe
enough field by Land-Rover reckoning. He says, "Take 'em back there, just
look out for the tree stump."
It's raining and getting dark. I run up on the tree stump, which is half
rotted so that I drive the Rover up on it good. The girls think this great
fun indeed! I pull on the handbrake (tranny brake on Rovers) so that it
doesn't roll off as I get out to examine the situation.
Doesn't seem too dire. The stump is soft and rotten so no damage is done. I
get back in, engage 4w loooow. Mud and muck flies everywhere as the Rover
tries to dislodge itself, but we move not an inch. So, with great
embarrassment, I trod back to the shop. Lon (the mechanic) gets his huge
Ford pickup and drives back, connects it and the Rover by chain. Still we
don't budge AND the pickup is now stuck!
Lon goes back to shop and gets wrecker. Drives it back as far as he dares,
cables out to pick up, which is still hooked to Rover. Someone else gets in
pickup and tries to reverse as I reverse Rover and wrecker pulls the lot.
Finally the Rover trundles off the stump. I drive out of muck while
slinging it everywhere and something smells as if its burning and I'm afraid
I've ruined the clutch. Meanwhile, wrecker is stuck. Pickup is free but
can't pull wrecker alone.
It was about this time that I was suddenly no more than two inches high --
I had left the tranny/handbrake on the WHOLE time. Stoopid, stoopid,
stoopid. Sooo, I disengage handbrake, and the Rover proceeds to pull pickup,
which pulls wrecker, and FINALLY everthing is on solid ground again.
Lon is a good sport about it all, but whenever I ask him a diagnostic
question about any of my vehicles, the first words usually out of his mouth
are, "Is the handbrake off?"
Michael, New Bern, NC
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