Another irritating story from the old days

[67Dart273]

I swear to whoever I can swear to this is true so far as memory 'members

Many of you know I was stationed at NAS Miramar, our shop and one of the shop trucks at left. The black '64 and the limelight '70 are mine

Just recently I ran across the phone no. of one of the guys I worked with, and we talked quite awhile.

We had two nearly identical 63? Chev pickups for our shop use. One of them would get jammed in gear, between 1st and 2nd "3 on the tree" and jam in I guess 2nd gear

One day we were coming back to the shop from the RADAR trailer over across both runways, so we called the tower for clearance:

"Miramar Tower, Ground Electronics 61, permission to cross 24 left, 24 right, at Queen 6?"

"Miramar 61, cleared to cross 24 left, 24 right.............(pause)...........MIRAMAR 61 EXPEDITE EXPEDITE!!" (aircraft in the pattern coming to final)

My friend Dave (guy I just found) was driving, wound it up and mashed it towards 2nd gear AND BROKE THE SHIFT LEVER RIGHT OFF about an inch from the column collar!!!!

So we "nursed" the thing to the shop. This was either a holiday or weekend, there was just the two of us. "Oh Lordy what will we do, we will lose stripes, bla bla bla.............."

Then I lit up.........."LISTEN WHICH TRUCK IS THIS can we get it STUCK IN GEAR??"

Well it was the OTHER truck..........so we went out, found a pin punch, fiddled around with the other truck until we got it stuck in gear, THEN DROVE THE PINS OUT and SWAPPED THE SHIFT LEVERS!!!!

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!!!

 

[pishta]

Adapt, improvise, overcome....

 

[RustyRatRod]

That's a goodun.

 

[67Dart273]

Adapt, improvise, overcome....

...........Or Lie like Hell!!......... LOL

 

[famous bob]

...........Or Lie like Hell!!......... LOL

Way too much trying to speed shift that 3 on the tree !! They would all do that if abused enough.

 

[Unconventional]

My mother had a Nash Metropolitan. For whatever reason she just loved that little thing. It used to get stuck between 1st and second, she had an old tire iron behind the driver's seat and had no qualms about crawling on the ground with that tire iron to line everything back up. BTW 8 people of various sizes will fit in a Metropolitan, been there, done that. Dad bought a spare Metro for parts. For years I tried to talk them out of the parts car so I could try and stuff a 430 Lincoln motor we had in the yard in it. No luck.

 

[JeffisOld]

When I was stationed in Tustin, CA there was a guy worked at the hobby shop had a BBC in a light blue '72 Chevette back seat. The thing had a sunroof too and the guy used to look like Rat Fink running around town.

Had to be hot as hell on Southern California!

 

[dibbons]

As a teen, I used to "power" shift a 1950's Ford wheel tractor which had a hand throttle. I would just ram the shift lever straight down without using the clutch (I think that would have been second gear to fourth gear). Of course, this was when Dad was not around. The gear ratios were so close together, I did not think it was possible to damage the transmission.

One time my Dad and I were riding on the inner fenders, and my cousin (my age) was driving. As we headed away from the house on a ranch road, he tried this "no clutch" shifting I had showed him. The fool got his *** chewed by his Uncle (my Dad).

 

[famous bob]

As a teen, I used to "power" shift a 1950's Ford wheel tractor which had a hand throttle. I would just ram the shift lever straight down without using the clutch (I think that would have been second gear to fourth gear). Of course, this was when Dad was not around. The gear ratios were so close together, I did not think it was possible to damage the transmission.

One time my Dad and I were riding on the inner fenders, and my cousin (my age) was driving. As we headed away from the house on a ranch road, he tried this "no clutch" shifting I had showed him. The fool got his *** chewed by his Uncle (my Dad).

View attachment 1715188016

We know how good the little ford tractors were, and pretty fast in road gear for a tractor. One of my friends came over one summer day, (about20? miles), to my house. My dad was at work, no one else around. We ended up racing , I was on a super C farmall. He tried the 4 speed thing, I took off in third and shifted once to hi gear, and waxed his a--. He said I cheated . I knew the super C wouldn`t outrun his 8 or 9 n , whatever it was !

 

[dibbons]

Re: 1950's Ford wheel tractor. I was already in high gear (4th) and my little brother ran after me and was going to catch up. I throttled down for a moment, he had to slow down to stop from running into the back of the tractor (almost tripped). Then back to full throttle and took off again, he gave up and I got away.

 

[67Dart273]

I know some of you have seen photos of our old Farmall "Regular."

The thing is a monster. I used to scoot up and wrap my thighs around the wheel to keep it under control. You hit a ditch, etc it could tear the wheel away

Dad had installed a starter, electrics, DIY hyraulics and a NICE snow blade.

My Gramps and Gramma lived literally on top of the hill above the local cemetary. One winter they got snowed in bad, I was out of school. Dad told me to go up and see if I could plow them out

All done, I was heading down the pretty steep "cemetery hill." I decided I was in the wrong gear and tried to shift, and got the thing OUT of gear. I was getting ready to jump!!!! Finally got my wits and lowered the blade. It was so slick and icy that didn't help "much" but it turned out to be enough!!!

Not evident here, this is fairly steep. This hill was always "the big thing" in a snowy winter to get to "grampa and Gramma's" house.

 

[66fyssh]

I can see your buddy's face as that shift lever broke going across the runway!!

I remember one time me and another guy were doing PMI's on Runway Surveillance Units. There was one towards each end of the runway. They were used by instructor pilots to keep an eye on student pilots taking off and landing.

We got clearance to drive down the center of the runway from one to the other. No broken shift levers but fun stuff!!!!

 

[famous bob]

I can see your buddy's face as that shift lever broke going across the runway!!

I remember one time me and another guy were doing PMI's on Runway Surveillance Units. There was one towards each end of the runway. They were used by instructor pilots to keep an eye on student pilots taking off and landing.

We got clearance to drive down the center of the runway from one to the other. No broken shift levers but fun stuff!!!!

Any of u guys ever run a piece of bailing wire to the governor linkage, so u could open her up. I used to , then take it of so dad wouldn`t find it. Then it started throwing oil out of the top of the trans., around the shifter . He caught on, because it never had come out on him.