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Ever drive something like this?


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My dad started putting me in all kinds of rigs way back in my youth. He had me drive a 'line horse' back to our logging camp when I was about 14 which included taking it down a long steep grade on a one lane logging road. His instructions were to get it in a low enough gear that I wouldn't need the questionable brakes on the grade. A Line Horse is usually a wore out off highway log truck that had a set of old logging drums installed on it for winding up the used cables. The one I drove at that tender age had a 5 speed manual transmission with a 4 speed auxiliary Brownie. I was guessing at what I was supposed to be doing, but managed to get it home without wrecking and not killing myself. We would come up on equipment parked in the road and we needed to get by. "Get in there and start it up and move it." Yeah right. 

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When I was in HS got a job driving this beat up dump truck around a gravel pit moving various loads.   One day I was to drive it up to where they had been drilling holes getting ready to blast rock.  Well this junker of a truck didn't have a lot of power and I ran out of power going up the steep embankment and ended up rolling back into a big pile of crushed rock.  Boss was little upset and I later found out the back was loaded with dynamite and the blasting caps were in the glove box.  I decided to let him drive it up to the site after I found that out.  Overall I leaned a lot that summer about machinery and the boss was really a good guy.

 

 

Edited by pipedreams
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12 minutes ago, Swampfox762 said:

100 ft. Bucket trucks, line trucks, Dozers, Dump trucks,...never drove a Tractor-trailer rig.  Always wanted too though.  Never could back a trailer of any kind worth a crap.

Backing a trailer is fun but try backing a four wheel trailer where the  front axel wheels turn.  It's a head scratcher at first. 

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1 hour ago, pipedreams said:

Backing a trailer is fun but try backing a four wheel trailer where the  front axel wheels turn.  It's a head scratcher at first. 

Had a guy on our landing with a mule train log truck. His first day with the mule train. He had to pull forward for a log being put on the trailer. Then every time he tried to back up again it got worse. He'd pull forward and try again, getting further from the shovel (log loading Manitowoc). My dad on the yarder asked what was going on and I told him. Dad walks up and tries to talk the guy through the backing up process. It doesn't work, so he gets in the cab and backs it up. I mentioned that I didn't know dad had ever driven a mule train. Well he hadn't. That was his first time backing one up. He just knew what had to be done. My dad was like that.

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10 hours ago, Walt Longmire said:

But did you blow it up?

Almost.  I drove it faster than I should have since I was fascinated with shifting the two speed axle.  I drove it for less than thirty seconds. 

 

I drove a diesel locomotive one time.  When my son was around eight years old, he was super into trains, so we went to the Western Pacific Railroad Museum and got an hour of supervised driving time in their diesel locomotive.  One of the most enjoyable things I've ever done.

https://www.wplives.org/ral.html

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Never driven a loaded rig, but I did get my class A CDL.

Was also licensed by the Army to drive 45 passenger buses in South Korea, and my assigned truck was an M934A2 (5 ton truck with 20 foot box on the back) with a 66 panel camo net rolled up on top (add a couple thousand pounds to the roof, even more when wet) and towing a trailer.

These days I pretty much just stick to my F450 flatbed as the largest thing I drive.

Not my truck, but sasme type.

1987815259_download(57).jpg.10329b0729c9a29b7fcbddf7321365f2.jpg

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16 minutes ago, Cougar_ml said:

Never driven a loaded rig, but I did get my class A CDL.

Was also licensed by the Army to drive 45 passenger buses in South Korea, and my assigned truck was an M934A2 (5 ton truck with 20 foot box on the back) with a 66 panel camo net rolled up on top (add a couple thousand pounds to the roof, even more when wet) and towing a trailer.

These days I pretty much just stick to my F450 flatbed as the largest thing I drive.

Not my truck, but sasme type.

1987815259_download(57).jpg.10329b0729c9a29b7fcbddf7321365f2.jpg

And since people are adding tales to this, I ended up having to drive my truck out to the field with no brake lights, no spare tire, and no rear driveshaft.  Any one of these is supposed to deadline the vehicle, but they told me to do it anyway.

Oh, and the transfer case got stuck in low range, so I was maxing out at 24 mph, convoy speed was 25.  (I fixed it with a couple wrenches at a rest stop, just the linkage)

 

My favorite part of that truck was the air ride seat with about 8" of travel.  The second best part was the passengers had a bench seat with a 2" foam cushion.  Add those to all the speed bumps I took at full speed and a soft roof on the cab, and I had a lot of fun.

 

As for driving the bus, somewhere some former/current Army officers have some pictures of me driving down the road with a large steamed bun in my mouth and both hands on the wheel.  I miss the food in South Korea from all the roadside stands.

Edited by Cougar_ml
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