My truck arrives from Wisconsin, on the back of a drop-deck trailer.
5/1/01
Here's a close-up of my truck.
5/1/01
This is the commercial wrecker which we used to unload my truck from the trailer, since no loading ramp was available. We thought that the wrecking company was going to bring a tilt-bed trailer, so that we could just drive my truck from one trailer to the other, and use the tilt-bed to lower it to the ground. Unloading my truck with this type of wrecker took a lot longer, but it didn't cost me any more, and unloading my truck turned out to be a lot more fun for me this way! This commercial wrecker was really impressive. The driver told me it cost about $190,000, so I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with my puny little 5-ton toy.
5/1/01
We used the wrecker to left the back end of my 34,000-pound truck, pulled the trailer forward, lowered the back end of my truck to the ground, lifted the front end, pulled the trailer out the rest of the way, and then finally lowered the front end of my truck to the ground. It was a pretty spectacular arrival! I was sitting in my truck's cab and steering when we lifted the rear end and pulled the trailer forward. Eeek! My truck's engine is running here, since I needed to lift its boom a bit to make clearance for the other wrecker's boom. It's a good thing I studied my manuals ahead of time, so I knew how to operate the crane! We lifted my truck by the rear axle with the commercial wrecker's lifting forks. We could not lower it all the way with the forks, because my truck's pintle interfered with the boom. We used the commercial wrecker's dual crane to lower my truck the rest of the way, and then to lift and lower the front end.
5/1/01
At work on Mark's Green Truck Ranch, hitched up to an incomplete M1022 dolly set. Photo courtesy of Matt Tait.
3/16/02
Towing the M1022 dolly set cross-country. Photo courtesy of Matt Tait.
3/16/02
Lifting the rear half of another M1022 dolly set. Photo courtesy of Matt Tait.
3/16/02
Here's a wide shot of Mark's Green Truck Ranch. Photo courtesy of Matt Tait.
3/16/02