727 Towed in Park

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trevorcrum

trevorcrum

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Hello All, Recently I had to tow my 74 duster with 3 speed 727 trans. When it broke down, It wouldn't roll, started fine, but couldn't get it into D. My assumption was it was stuck in Park. After looking at the shift cable (B&M) it was obvious that the headers had melted away the red sheathing and the cable was now non-functional. AAA took it away on a flatbed as towed/skidded it up onto the bed. When they "dropped" it off he used a rather aggressive technique of using the car's weight to slowly slide it down the ramp onto the parking lot with a series of short up and down thrusts on angle. Although this pissed me off, I didn't have any other way to pull it off. As soon as it landed, it now suddenly seemed to roll. Also, now it won't turn over. I'll get it up on some jack stands soon and manually push the linkage into park but does if it's already in park what happened ?? I have never tried to start it in N so perhaps it just found it's way into N and there is an interlock ? Thanks in advance.
 
Did they put plastic wedges (called skates ) under the tires before pulling it onto the rollback?
 
Why not just pull the driveshaft first, sheesh. It probably, with all of the screwing around, migrated into R as it is next to P. They car will roll when not running in any gear other than P.
 
Not the tow truck driver's fault. Whoever ran the shifter cable was ultimately at fault here, plus, as Dave said, the drive shaft could have been pulled with a jack and ONE tool.
 
it may have messed up your neutral safety switch, a quick way to check is take the wire off the starter relay going to NSS, and run a wire from starter relay to ground, be sure when you try to start it that you have your foot on the brake, because it will start in any gear
 
RustyRatRod said:
Not the tow truck driver's fault. Whoever ran the shifter cable was ultimately at fault here, plus, as Dave said, the drive shaft could have been pulled with a jack and ONE tool.
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I have to disagree. When you pay somebody for a service [move my car from point A to point B], you don't expect them to harm your car. My friend owned a wrecker service and he carried a spray bottle of tire lube in the truck. And he had both a flat bed and a boom wrecker. A boom wrecker would simply lift the rear of the car, and then he put a steering wheel lock on it, and drive it where you wanted it. Done.

Rusty, there are many videos on U Tube about triaxle wreckers going on road calls. Interesting and entertaining stuff.
 
pt70 said:
I have to disagree. When you pay somebody for a service [move my car from point A to point B], you don't expect them to harm your car.
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I'll have to disagree with this. He didn't do the hiring. He's a AAA member. AAA did the hiring. And in that I case I absolutely 100% expect them to damage my car. LOL
That's why I would watch them closely and drop my own driveshaft if necessary. I would expect the tow truck driver to take the path of least resistance and just drag it. JMO
 
moparmandan said:
I'll have to disagree with this. He didn't do the hiring. He's a AAA member. AAA did the hiring. And in that I case I absolutely 100% expect them to damage my car. LOL
That's why I would watch them closely and drop my own driveshaft if necessary. I would expect the tow truck driver to take the path of least resistance and just drag it. JMO
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Hopefully the melted cable finally let loose and it's not in park any longer. Ya, the tow truck driver could have done different but he towed a broken car and unloaded it in one piece. Kinda.
 
moparmandan said:
I'll have to disagree with this. He didn't do the hiring. He's a AAA member. AAA did the hiring. And in that I case I absolutely 100% expect them to damage my car. LOL
That's why I would watch them closely and drop my own driveshaft if necessary. I would expect the tow truck driver to take the path of least resistance and just drag it. JMO
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That was my whole point. HE should have dropped the drive shaft. The driver gets paid nothing to do that. He did exactly what any driver would have and what hundreds of drivers have done I've seen before. That car sustained zero damage from what he did.
 
Finally got it lifted and removed the cable. It had migrated into N. New cable in. Any suggestions on heat wrap for this so it does't happen again ??
 
trevorcrum said:
Finally got it lifted and removed the cable. It had migrated into N. New cable in. Any suggestions on heat wrap for this so it does't happen again ??
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Hell yeah! Glad it wasn't hurt anymore than that! Some plug wire wrap would work for that. Although, routing it away from the header would be best.
 
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