Hey Joe!

[gimpyrobb]

"Ask me some day about dropping a valve on a M151 at 2 in the moring 30 miles outside of Aberdeen....."

Well...?

[brute4c]

Hey Gimpness...ever had the joy of dropping a valve on a M151 at 2 in the morning 30 miles outside of Aberdeen??

[Barrman]

Leave him alone Jon. He has been up all week already. Plus, I heard this story from Joe in person. It is a good story.

[brute4c]

I got to bed at 3:45 Am this morning...was up at 6AM...feels like I have been up all week myself...

[k8icu]

I use to hang with a guy that restored MVs back in the 80s (may he rest in peace) and he had bid on and won a M59 APC at Aberdeen Proving grounds in March of 1990. So we had made arrangements for the two of us to head to APG and cut the APC up so that it would meet the demill requirement but not so that he couldn’t weld the armor back together. The plan was to take his M151a2 pulling a M416 trailer with tools torch etc from Cleveland Ohio no later than 08:00 Sunday Morning. This way we could get to Aberdeen by around 17:00 and get a hotel room and then be on base by 08:00 Monday morning to pay DRMO for the bid and get the vehicle ready to be removed by Wednesday and be back to work by Thursday.
I get over to this guys house at 07:30 Sunday morning and he is still a sleep. So I wake him up and he takes forever to get up. Then he wants some breakfast so we go down the street to the restaurant and get breakfast. Then back to his place so he can pack and then we have to go to another guy’s house where he is restoring a CCKW and get his tools and load up etc so that it is now 16:00 on Sunday. I’m ticked off about the time and as we are making the final arrangements to leave he notices a small tick in the motor. He says to me “do you think we should adjust the valves before we leave?” I said something like whatever you want to do cause I’m so made I can spit nails. He thinks for a minute and says “na let’s just go it will be ok.”
Mind you it is mid March so temps were in the mid 50s during the daylight hours, but would fall into the 30s at night. We finally pull out of Cleveland at 17:30. It’s getting dark. (Daylight savings use to come later back then) it’s dark and cold. Thought the A2 had doors and side curtains and a heater it was anything but warm. Also it has started a rain snow mix and the roads are crappy and the NDT aren’t happy either. It gets to a point where we can only drive about 2 hours and then we have to get out and stretch our legs get some caffeine and warm up at the rest stops along the PA Turnpike. We keep prodding along at 50 mph because we can’t see the road to well and we are about 30 miles from the destination at Aberdeen. It is now 0200 Monday morning, my friend is driving and I’m trying hard to stay awake when all of a sudden the motor just stops with a moan and we coast off the highway.
We grab a flashlight and open the hood to see what the problem is. My buddy takes a hold of the fan and starts to turn the motor over by hand. It turns about half a revolution and stops. He turns it back the other direction about the same amount and it stops. My buddy says “crap we dropped a valve.” I ask him if he sure and he says yes that why we can’t rotate the motor over. I look at my watch 02:30. Now what? I look back down the road to the overpass we had just past and I can see a phone booth (before cell phones) at the top. So my buddy stays with the jeep and I walk up to the phone booth to call AAA. I explain to the person that the jeep is camouflaged in color and that it is not a military jeep because they won’t tow a military jeep. Finally at 03:30 the tow truck gets to us. The driver wants to argue with us that he can’t tow the jeep because it’s gubment property. We assure him that it isn’t and show him the plates, the title and registration etc. The driver then says well I can’t tow the trailer because AAA only pays for the jeep. Ok how much to tow the trailer? $20.00 done! He hooks onto the front end of the jeep and picks up the front end and tows the jeep which is towing the trailer with the three of us stuff in the cab and off to the motel we go. By the time we got unloaded from the tow truck, filled out the AAA paperwork and gave him a Jackson it was 05:30. Got our room took a 30 min power nap, got showered, got breakfast, walked over to the U-Haul place and rented a small U-Haul truck. Loaded up the tools into the U-Haul and then headed over to APG because he had to have the payment in by 09:00 that day or he lost the bid. We got to the DRMO office with about 10 mins to spare. We get out to where the APC is sitting and this thing had been used as a target. No tracks, no motors and transmissions, rusted badly, RPG holes in several locations, and yet my buddy says “I think I can rebuild it.”
We head back to the hotel and we take the motor apart in the parking lot and yep we dropped a valve in #1 cylinder. We went to the room and called Phil Nelson of Nelsons Jeep Parts and asked Phil (we were both friends of Phil) if he would send us a takeoff head and head gasket to the hotel ASAP and my buddy would pay him later for it. Phil does but it takes till Thursday afternoon to get to us. We’ve spent two days getting his hunk of steel APC ready for shipment and meeting the approval of the DRMO and one day checking out APG and the museum etc.
Friday we go to an auction at APG DRMO and buy some more green junk and then head back to the hotel to work on the jeep. We put the new head on in a snow storm get packed up and start to head for home but there is a problem. The head is leaking and we are getting white puffs in the exhaust. My buddy and I talk it over and I was like look we have to get home, we have no more money and I’m going to lose my job if I don’t get back for Monday. Get some Bars Stop Leak. So off to the NAPA store and get a bottle of stop leak. We put it in and go up the road to a restaurant and get some dinner before we hit the road. By the time we got to dinner the puffing had stopped and we drove all night home to Cleveland and he drove that 151 for another 2 years before he pulled the motor and put another in before he sold it.
So there you go Gimp…..we’ve all been there and had something happen to us.

[gimpyrobb]

Thanks for the story Joe. I know it wasn't just me, but its nice to hear other people's horror storys.

[Barrman]

Good story Joe.

Here is another one for you Chris:

August 1990. I had just started my antique/classic car business after the Army said they didn't need anymore 2nd LT's. My business was outside College Station, TX. My sister was going to Purdue and my mom was living just north of Ft. Wayne, In. I had a 1968 Chevelle SS 396 body. No engine, no transmission and a trashed interior. It was a 4 speed car though. I had $300 in it and couldn't get $400 from anybody around here.

Back in those pre-internet days, there was a huge price difference on stuff in different parts of the country. I had my mom put the car in a local classified paper called Peddlers Post at $1500.00. Her phone was ringing off the hook. I called back the persistant ones and had 3 guys bidding the price up to $2200. I borrowed a VHS cam corder and made a 15 minute walk around of the car, jumped in a 1971 350 Camaro I had taken in trade a few days before and drove 1200 miles non stop.

The first 1000 miles were trouble free and that car liked to run. The last 200 miles saw blue smoke, black smoke and white smoke. Along with a top speed of about 30 mph. Lots of white smoke. But, I made it.

I used my mom's car to drive to each of the 3 guys interested and show the video. I had a guy buy it at $2700. He gave me $1500 down and the rest would be when I brought him the car. He wanted the car in 3 days.

I found a junk 350, bought a few tools at a pawn shop and spent a day finding a truck to borrow to pick up the engine, getting the engine home and swapping it out. It ran great, but had blue smoke. A few hours of sleep and I was making another 20 hour drive back to Texas. It burned about 1 qt every 100 miles no matter how fast I drove, so I let it run.

I didn't have a long haul truck or trailer then. So, once I got back and slept for a few hours, I started calling people I knew begging for one. I found a 1978 Ford 3/4 ton Good Times conversion van with a fiberglass top on it and a 20 foot tandem axle trailer. The truck hadn't run in about 4 years, had no tags or inspection. The trailer was basically new.

I spent a day getting the Ford running and realized I hadn't slept much in the last 5 days and would be a danger if I tried the drive by myself. This was mid August in a college town. Nobody I knew was there. I was going to just try it on my own, sleeping in the over the driver bunk when I could. I only had 36 hours to get the car to Indiana however. Then I remembered a girl I had a class with. She was from Brenham only 30 miles away. We had a class together and I had her home phone because we had studied together and she went home often. I had also asked her out and she told me to leave her alone. I was desperate at this point, so I called her parents house. Once she realized I wasn't drunk and was serious, she agreed to go. Her mom drove her to my place.

The first 600 miles of the trip went great. I would drive while she slept, She would keep us moving at slow speeds, not pass anybody and slow down when we were getting passed (Which was a lot) and generally be a nervous wreck because she had never driven anything bigger than her Escort before and of course, never pulled a trailer either while I slept an hour or so at a time.

I guess I should mention that the fuel gauge didn't work and we found out when the sun came up around Little Rock that the a/c didn't work either. She started talking about how much airline tickets cost and where the nearest big airport was. I told her it was an adventure and didn't point out the big airport right next to the interstate or mention that Memphis was just 10 miles from our route.

Somewhere about southern Il, the van decided it didn't want to climb hills anymore. It just plain wouldn't run above 20 going up hill. All of southern IL, is hills by the way. I figured it was just low on gas, so I topped it off and of course, that didn't fix it. But, I was able to hit 70 or so down hill and coast up the next climb around 40, repeat so, I just kept on going. She really wasn't speaking to me by this point and just secluded herself in the upper bunk with the window open so it would only be around 90 degrees where she was.

I of course swaped out fuel filters at the next stop and it didn't help. I did cap and rotor at the stop after that and it didn't help. I just topped it off every 100 miles and it seemed almost run right and we kept on going. We made it on time, the guy like the car, I got my money and slept for maybe 6 hours before it was time to start for home.

Well, not yet start for home. I found a 1970 455 Riviera that ran and drove for $200. I have always liked the Buick big blocks and bought it. Of course, it didn't run so we had to load it by hand. Then I got to thinking of that bad Camero engine and figured I should take it home too. I had nothing to pick it up with, so I got it on the trailer by standing it on end and picking the bottom end up. It ended up on the trailer upside down. I strapped it to the trailer and went inside for a few more hours of sleep.

Stacey, the girl, didn't really seem to be enjoying the trip but was nice to my mom. My mom lived it town. A small town of about 3000 people. I had gotten maybe 2 hours of sleep when Stacey burst into the room I was sleeping in telling me the police and fire department were outside wanting to talk to me!

I threw on my really dirty, stinky clothes and went outside to see what was going on. I so wish I had taken a picture of this. I found the street blocked off with 4 police cars, two fire trucks (the entire fleet for both departments) and 3 guys in yellow HazMat suits. Complete with the hoods. (I can't watch Monsters Inc without going into hysterics.) They were staring at a black puddle next to my trailer. I started walking toward them and they started yelling at me to stay back since they didn't know what this "foreign substance" was in the street. I told them it was residual 10W-30 from the upside down engine 2 feet over the spill. I guess they didn't make the connection between the engine and the oil. Anyway, I talked my way out of a fine and promised to leave town right away. Nobody noticed the expired tags on the van.

The van did not like the 2000 or so extra pounds the fully assembled Buick and 350 weighed compared to the Chevelle body and it was a fight to hit 60. Down hill. Up hill, was worse. So was Stacey's attitude. She pretty much refused to drive anymore. I had acted completely proper toward her the entire time and even though I was dead tired, never even suggested we pull into a rest area and both sleep at the same time. I talked her into driving somewhere in southern, IL. Just south of Effingham because we had topped off there. It was 162 miles to the Mississippi river and another 20 after that to Sikeston, MO. Lots of truck stops in Sikeston. I forget the name of the town, but there is one somewhere around the 90 mile marker on I-57 in IL. I asked her to drive to that while I slept and then I would be ok for a while. I passed out and she drove. I woke up to silence. We were coasting down the MO side of the Mississippi River bridge into MO. It was about 0200 and at least 10 miles to the nearest gas station.

I didn't have a gas can. I did have an anti-freeze jug, so I tried to siphon some gas out of the Buick. I got varnish. Some crazy guy in a 1967 C10 pulls up, stares at Stacey and ignores me while he is talking to her. She moves over, puts her arm around my waist and ask if he can help out a young couple? She got to ride in the cab while I was stuck in the bed of the truck with a dog and a bunch of greasy combine parts for the 20 minute ride to the nearest gas station that was open. I was very illegally carrying a Taurus PT92 and was about ready to beat or shoot that stinky very slobbery dog by the time we got back to the van with 5 gallons of gas. The guy dropped us off and left before I was fully out of the bed. I should have bought a funnel too. I cut up the Prestone bottle and got about 4 of the 5 gallons in the tank. Primed the carb and we were off.

I don't know why, but that incident seemed to make her laugh at just about everything and really enjoy the rest of the trip. We stopped every 100 miles, couldn't climb hills and developed a real hate for Ford's, but we made it. She called her mom to come get her, told me she would call me, but don't call her and left. I never heard from her again.

I ended up replacing the Holley on the 351 and all was well again. The a/c was a disconnected wire on the compressor clutch. I never even looked at it on the trip. I actually ended up buying it and I used that van for swap meets for a few months and then bought a 1986 C30 4 door dually with a 454. That truck would pull. Couldn't pass gas stations, but it would pull.

Enough memory lane. I have to go to bed.

[Barrman]

Boy, I sure did ramble on last night. Sorry about that. I think I made about $100 on the SS 396 car by the time all the repairs, food and fuel was paid for. Plus being gone from my shop for a week.

[gimpyrobb]

Thats a good one Tim. I know better than to have a chick go on a road trip like that. You are crazy.

[k8icu]

And here I thought he was going to tell us that's how he and Jennifer hooked up....sigh...oh well... Good story Tim.

Yep Gimp it's all an adventure and fun and games until someone gets hurt.