well i find these stories interesting for some reason. so i thought i would ask you what yours was.

well feb 10 i belive me my uncle and one of my best friends chris where coming home from a 3 day snowmobiling trip. well it snowed the night before and for some reason the highways whernt in to good of condition. well we started out doing 65 like every one else and passed the few slower cars. well traffic died out and i continued chugging along at 65. the trailor i was pulling is a 3 place enclosed sled trailor 8 feet wide with 3 sleds in it. i was getting passed by rigs like i was in north carolina(if you havent been their the rigs fly down their and pass you like your standing still) well their was this one rig who happend to be going allot slower than me so i go to pass. well i passed him fine. but when i went to cut back over the trailor tires where in the slush and started to sway and then the roads where all snow it was like the plows just stoped plowing. i mean the roads went from all but cleared to all snow with in 500 feet. well back to the trailor swaying. so the trailor starts to sway and i grab the steering a little tighter. so i start to edge my way over but then my tires get caught in the slush and out she goes. truck and trailor sideways almost spunn around. so i am doing everything i can to recover and the truck goes left to right and sways for a long time. i recover just intime to cross a bridge. not. as soon as the trailor hit the bridges edge ot sends us completly sideways again. luckly the trailor stayed stright on the highway. i slid sideways for what seemed like forever then it fish tailed a little and went straight. all i could see was my truck totaled on the side of the road. man was i scared. but as scared as i was i was almost in tears listening to my uncle and friend scream. i had my cb on and the trucker i just passed said in a deep red neck voice "thats some mighty fine driveing their son" after a few minutes me and the trucker decided to stick next to one anouther incase somethign happend. we had a small convoy going on it was pretty cool i thought.

so whats your story?

Most any day pulling my sons show cattle to fairs. Someone somewhere will take their itty bitty car and pull dead out in front of me, seems like they can't see a lifted truck with a trailer in tow, much less one with daytime driving lights!! May not be as dramatic sounding as grizzly's but just as scary

Cruising along on Route 128 to New England Dragway a few years ago. I'm going along with traffic doing about 65 (maybe 70). I must have only looked away for a second or two. Look back to see traffic in front of me is pretty much stopped. There was no way that I was going to make it so I just cranked the wheel to the right while getting on the brakes hard. We make it into a little slot in the middle lane. Thankfully there was nobody next to me when I turned. My buddy was pretty close to needing to change his shorts after that :)

well i find these stories interesting for some reason. so i thought i would ask you what yours was.

well feb 10 i belive me my uncle and one of my best friends chris where coming home from a 3 day snowmobiling trip. well it snowed the night before and for some reason the highways whernt in to good of condition. well we started out doing 65 like every one else and passed the few slower cars. well traffic died out and i continued chugging along at 65. the trailor i was pulling is a 3 place enclosed sled trailor 8 feet wide with 3 sleds in it. i was getting passed by rigs like i was in north carolina(if you havent been their the rigs fly down their and pass you like your standing still) well their was this one rig who happend to be going allot slower than me so i go to pass. well i passed him fine. but when i went to cut back over the trailor tires where in the slush and started to sway and then the roads where all snow it was like the plows just stoped plowing. i mean the roads went from all but cleared to all snow with in 500 feet. well back to the trailor swaying. so the trailor starts to sway and i grab the steering a little tighter. so i start to edge my way over but then my tires get caught in the slush and out she goes. truck and trailor sideways almost spunn around. so i am doing everything i can to recover and the truck goes left to right and sways for a long time. i recover just intime to cross a bridge. not. as soon as the trailor hit the bridges edge ot sends us completly sideways again. luckly the trailor stayed stright on the highway. i slid sideways for what seemed like forever then it fish tailed a little and went straight. all i could see was my truck totaled on the side of the road. man was i scared. but as scared as i was i was almost in tears listening to my uncle and friend scream. i had my cb on and the trucker i just passed said in a deep red neck voice "thats some mighty fine driveing their son" after a few minutes me and the trucker decided to stick next to one anouther incase somethign happend. we had a small convoy going on it was pretty cool i thought.

so whats your story?That's some scary chit right there, :eek:

South Dakota coming home from Walleye fishing on the Missouri. I am by myself following my fiance. Her grandpa is driving. There in a 2wd 3500 Chevy longbed. Towing a 34 trailer with a 17' fishing boat attached in back.

Were coming down a winding strecth of road, medium grade. Traveling about 55. I noticed the whip starting to crack. He tried to break hard but that just made it worse. I could see her, then the trailer, then the boat. They flung back and forth about 3 times. This whole time smoke was rolling off so many tires I could not see straight. There was a solid rock wall to the driver side and a 30-40 foot drop on the passenger side. I followed behind helpless. Things finally straigtened up and I kept following.

About 20 minutes later Grandpa pulled over. Everything in the trailer was trashed. Fridge door ripped off, food everywhere. I think we all needed a change of shorts.

The next day we went back, the skid marks looked like Christmas ribbon.

Once I was moving some fruit to market, and was towing a ~3000 lb trailer, and I had 1000 lbs in the bed.

About 10 miles of downhill, windy narrow roads. At the bottom, I felt some slack in the hitch, and about 100 yds from my destination, I remembered that I failed to latch down the tongue lever deal. You know? Nothing ever happened, but I make damn sure to latch that thing now.

Had enough tongue weight that the hitch never lifted off the ball, and the safety chains were attached, but it would have been bad either way.

Luckily, on my way down the hill, I was behind a very very slow moving truck. I elected not to pass. Im very glad I didnt.

Ill post mine AFTER Juice gets me a job!

i had to rent a 12' uhaul 2 years ago when i had the 03 3500 DRW crew 8.1. i had never towed a uhaul and it felt really weird like it wasnt attached or something.well i get about 7 miles away in a interstate construction zone with barriers on both sides of the road and the booger comes off the hitch at 65 mph.the chains caught it but the chains must have been about 6' long and this thing is back there thrashing around like a bat out of hell. its hitting the concrete barriers the chains are loosening and tightening all the time im trying to catch it from fishtailing and whatever im doing aint working. and this woman comes from behind me and tries to pass me on the left.typical woman stuff. the trailer was in her lane when she began and it appeared as though she was trying to ram the trailer. when she got about a foot from it ducked to the right and slammed the wall.somehow she missed the trailer and i got it under control enough to stop and re-attach it. seems the idiot at uhaul didnt tighten the trailer down onto the ball when he hooked it up and it stayed attached for 7 miles til it decided to jump ship. i had no damage what so ever. and the funny part is the chains were long enough if i had slammed on brakes the hitch would have went righ thru the rear end cover. boy would that have been a mess.

then the guy at uhaul who loaded the trailer had the balls to try and get me to pay for the damage on the trailer . while i was waiting in line to return the trailer the manager starts spouting off how he was gonna call this customer and cuss them out for being 4 hours late bringing the trailer back.the lady that rented me the trailer said "dont do that hes standing right here in line".he looked like he had just swallowed a turd...so the girl that helped me return the trailer,betty, called the home office to report the damage to the trailer and they asked to speak to me and i told them the story and they immediately apologized. so i told them what the manager did and the guy on the other end didnt say anything other than "put betty back on the phone please" and they asked her if that really happened, she said it did and hung up. about 3 minutes later the manager comes storming out and gets in my face and says i cost him his job. i just smiled back like a mule eatin yellow jackets.end of story

i got 2 actually.this one is hilarious. i work construction with my dad. my dad who,well lets just say when hes doing something safety isnt the first thing on his mind.neither is anything rational.and he was terrible about overloading a truck with materials or whatever we had to do. he had a 77 chevy 1/2 ton 2wd long bed with a 350 and slick passenger car tires with about 27 lbs of air in them because it "rode good" with that amount.he had to get a 22' steel flatbed with 14,000 lbs of concrete blocks on it about 50 miles to a job site. well he sees his 'ol 77 out there and says "oh i can do it with that" so he hooks up to it and starts goin down the road. now he doesnt have any kind of trailer brake thing on the truck or a plug for the lights. all he hooked up were the chains and the ball and he was done.no trailer brakes. no brake lights.nothing.and get this. he didnt have a hitch. only a bumper ball.so the trialer weighs about 4500 by itself.he had to move about 50 blocks so the front tires on the truck would touch the ground. he gets about 2 miles and hes runnin 50 mph in 5:30 traffic,which is amazing in itself, and the first traffic light is on a huge downhill. well he never slows up or nothing, well much to his surprise theyres cars on the hill. and theyre sitting at a red light.what a shocker huh? he touches the brakes and another surprise, nothing happens. he basically has no brakes with almost 20,000 pounds behind his 1/2 ton.he locks all 4 tires,starts blowing the horn and somehow there was only one car in the center lane on a 10 lane road and its a woman. she sees him coming,another shcoker, and floors the gas and runs the light and my dad came about 6" from rear ending her and they both go thru the intersection "flying" with dad 6" off her bumper with concrete blocks going every which way but backwards and neither of them or the blocks touch anything.well he finally gets stopped. im still not sure how but he does get stopped about 1/4 mile away.he goes to the back of the truck and the bumper is just hanging by a thread. and that was the day dad learned about overloading a truck.and he hasnt done it since. see you can teach a old dog new tricks

Luckily I've never crashed or damaged anything.

My first time driving semi was for the Army. A lowboy with a D7 dozer. The whole rig grossed close to 100K. It was an ancient truck with a completely nonsyncro 5 speed. I turned a corner and started up a steep hill in town. The intersection I just went through was T intersection going of course the wrong way. I missed a gear and had to stop. I killed the engine at least once. In the mean time I was losing air pressure fast and the brakes were starting to not hold. The e-brake was a band brake on the driveshaft and never was an option. I had one more chance before gaining too much speed to launch and I did. Talk about a rectum tighening experience.:eek: Cars behind me, steep hill, house at the bottom, 100K truck, and fading brakes!!!

I may have recounted this story on another post, but here goes. Mama JJ and our 2 kids were camping up in Georgia several years back with our 30' travel trailer. We were leaving the campground later in the morning. I noticed a storm approaching. This campground didn't have a paved driveway, mostly Georgia clay, which FYI turns slick as ice when it rains. So I hurriedly got everything together, hooked the trailer to our van, threw the kids in with their PJ's still on, trying to beat the rain out of there. :badidea:

Long story short the rain started before we could get moving, a real gullie washer to. The driveway was pretty steep and 150-200' long, so my plan was to crawl out of there nice and slow. Almost made it to! Within 30'-40' of cresting the driveway my rear tires broke loose, we started going backwards. I hit the brakes, nothing! I manually engaged the trailer brakes, nothing again! :wtf1: Get the picture? :o:

Fortunately I actually backup as well, Mama JJ says better, than when I'm going forward. So I have Mama JJ and 2 kids screaming at the top of their lungs while we are free falling back down this driveway. The good Lord had his hand on that wheel with me that day because I couldn't see anything behind me. Why the trailer didn't jackknife I'll never know. We were so fortunate that we didn't hit another unit or one of their buildings. We ended up backing right into a camping site. We waited for the rain to stop before trying that again. Ironically this was the exact reason Mama JJ insisted on a 4x4 when we bought our truck. Gotta love her! JJ :)

Mine was with my 97 reg cab long bed z71 towing a small haulmark enclosed trailer with some salt bags and a ATV, its the landscape trailer in the summer carying mowers and such normally. After 2 days of working on a side walk crew(shoveling, using an atv with a blade, spreading salt) I had worked close to 40 hours IIRC in 2 days. The sun is just starting to come up and there are 0 cars on the road thank god. The caffein and such had worn off and we were heading back to the shop since we were done. In town and the roads are a little slick still. I'm traveling around 40 MPH down a major road thats 2 lanes with a median in each direction. I go through an intersection and and drift off into lala land and also start to drift to the left twards the median. My bud is next to me thinking to himself(not saying anything to me) Boy, I wonder if he fell asleep or what and why he is drifting. Since its in an intersection I dont hit a curb, I instead run my driver side up the little ramped portoin at the end of the median and the bump wakes me up and down I come off the median. Truck kicks sideways, I countersteer, trialer kicks out and thus starts a swinging cycle that involves me going lock to lock back and forth for I dont know how long. I get her straightened out and start applying the brake now. My heart starts slowing and I start accelerating and my bud says(whoes eyes were the size of dinner plates) "Gee, I was wondering if you fell asleep back there but didnt want to say anything."

OK, new rule, When in doubt MAKE SHURE I"M AWAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wasnt the slightest bit sleepy till we got home.

This happened to me two years ago, my fiance and I got a free little tiny 10 foot trailor, were heading to glaimis in my 98 dodge regular gasser. We were happy to even have this little trailor because all we would do is tent it and that gets really old really fast. Anyways, this trailor was 20 years old, I spent the whole time fixing her up took about one month to get her good to go, one thing I forgot to do on this old gal, well on our way to glamis my brother in law is following, were heading out, cant feel a thing because this trailor is soo small and soo light, well the dam whell broke off, I was driving thinking what the hell happened, I look at my fiancee and the kids are scared as hell because of the noise, my finacee looks in the rear view mirror about the same time I do and :eek: I see sparks going everywhere. I pull over my brother in law comes running up, are you guys ok, I was like yeah but I didnt know what happened, he started cracking up and said the dam tire flew off about three hundred yards and you dragged the trailor about 100 yards . After making sure everyone is ok and i change my shorts, I said to myself what the hell happened, it finally dawned on my that I forgot to grease the bearings. Anyways thank god no one was around for that tire to have impact and everything was ok. Grease those bearings. I know have a bigger truck and bigger trailor I dont take these chances anymore. Leasons learned in life.

Oh by the way thank god I brought the tent because we were only 30 minutes away from glamis, I towed the trailor to a nice farmer and he let me park it in his drive way for a few weeks till I was able to pick it up.

Mine pales in comparison to some of the above, but was towing a dune buggy up the hill to Lake Arrowhead in Calif, two lanes in each direction. About halfway up, I look to my left, and here comes a tire passing me. Well of course, I then hear metal screeching and sparks flying and immediately pull over and stop. I am now running up the hill chasing the tire. The tire sees a car coming down the hill and heads for its bumper. Well the car swerved and missed the tire, but by this time, the tire had lost momentum and turned around. Now it is going down hill. So now I start running downhill and the tire gets along beside me and I start kicking it into the guard rail. After doing this a couple of times, I was able to get it stopped. Amazingly, the lugnut were inside the hubcap, so all I had to do was put the tire back on and was on my way. Did I say I was only 21 when this happened? Running uphill now would be a heart attack in the making.

I was on I-44 in tulsa fixing to get on the will rogers turnpike. There is a curve on the road just before you get on and I look over and there is some people pulling a small fiberglass tri-hull boat behind a little nissan car. I guess right as they hit the curve the hitch lever was not locked down. I look over and watch the boat disconnect, they hit the brakes, and the boat has caught up with them and is riding next to them. Well the road started to curve and the boat and trailer slammed the 3' concrete barrier. That thing shattered like an egg!! if I only had a camera to catch the look on their face when there boat was next to them. I guess they never heard of safety chains.

Story # 2 My good friend is pulling his boat back from college. A 16' mark twain v-vull. He loses control on an icy I-40 near the arkansas/oklahoma state line. The boat comes of the trailer and lands in the center median. He said the boat was in twenty pieces and the little 4-cylinder inboard was laying there all by itself. Well the highway patrol shows up to check it out. The highway patrolman is in his car on the side of the road and a 18-wheeler loses control and runs over the top of the car. Sheered the top of the car off, the patrolman was ducked down in his seat and he was not hurt. I saw the pictures so I know this is a no BS story.

Got two of them of many:

(a) Going North on I-81 in PA near Harrisburg with my 2500 8.1 Suburban pulling my Hensley Arrow equipped 32' 10,000 lb camping trailer; moving along at about 75 in the left lane of a three lane road. Following a small car that is following a Chevy 1500 pickup. Next thing ya know, the pickup swerves left, the car swerves right and there's a tractor trailer tire and rim bouncing around in the middle of the lane. No where to go to the right so I swerve to the left onto the shoulder and now have to avoid the pickup that has decided to come to a stop (holy sh*t) so we swerve even further left onto the stones and into the wet grass that is sloped about 25 degrees down into the ditch in the center of the median. Around the bleeping stopped pickup and slowly bring the truck and trailer back up onto the road. Never hit the brakes, didn't have time, and back on the road with the flow of traffic. Don't think we ever dropped below 65 mph. My wife was actually pretty calm and the trucker behind us on the CB could not believe we didn't wreck it. Don't want to try that again! To this day, I credit the ability of the Hensley with getting us through that mess.

(b) Bunch of us going snowmobiling in Quebec; I was bringing up the rear on I-20 outside Montreal; starting to snow and roads getting slick; Jeep CJ with a two place trailer with sleds in front of me; next thing you know, we WERE following tail lights only to see HEADLIGHTS to be followed by tail lights again. At 60 mph, the Jeep did a complete 360 in the middle of the road--guess it was a little slick. Stopped a few miles later and the driver never said a word (none of us in my truck said anything) but when his wife got out of the passenger side, things smelled real bad! She needed a change of shorts and we all just lost it laughing!

Back in '87, me and the misses are towing a borrowed car trailer with a '64 Chevy stock car on it, and we are pulling it with a '72 reg. cab short bed chevy(1/2 ton). Anyways, we are driving from nothern Washington state down to Tacoma when we start across this overpass. Now this wasn't your everyday run-o-da-mill overpass, this baby was 8 lanes wide, and arched up in the middle crossing a valley at least 120 ft. to the bottom. Well I go to step on the brakes and the trailer starts doin the waltz and I can't get it stopped. It starts fish tailin so bad that I tried to get close to the center dividing wall hoping the trailer will hit the wall and stop fish tailing. Well, I turned the wheel to the left...to get to the wall...and the trailer goes to the right, and around we went. The truck and trailer spun completely around twice. As we are spinning we can see 4 lanes of traffic stopped watching us spin, the trailer finally hits the wall, we come to a stop, and the only damage is a bent step bumper and a small dent in the front fender where the trailer came around and tapped it. Turns out the load was to far back and the trailer brakes failed. Purty scary. I now tow with a Chevy 3500 diesel and dual rear wheels even if I'm just towing the hitchball...:lol:

JP

Oy! So many stories, so little time.

1982, Northern IN. My uncle is a Dodge Man (In Canada, he was a Plymouth truck man, but that's another story). Construction worker, welder, Elk, Moose, Knights of Columbus, keeps trying to have a son, but has 4 daughters. A real suds-drink'n, loud-cussi'n, joke-telli'n......You get the picture.

Gets a deal on a '56 apache 3/4 ton pickup with rotten floorboards and bed (step-side, with the spare high-mounted on the rear fender). Needs a lot of work and the slant 6 is seized. But he is also a Studebaker restorer in his spare time, so this cannot be too much of a job, maybe even make some money at the auction in Michigan City.

Out with the 6, in with a CAT 4-cyl diesel (dunno where he got it). Out with the 3-sp. on the column, in with a 4-on the floor (came with the CAT???). New floor boards, a false botton under the bed (between the rails) and a new White Maple bed floor, some bondo and paint, and were good to go..>>>

Test drive. Down the street, make a right, hit a pothole, blow both front tires off the rim :eek: . I guess the CAT is heavier than the slant 6. New tires, and try again, but this time, there is an uncontrollable wabble in the steering. Outside observers can see both front tires wobbling side to side, as if hanging on by 1 loose lug each :eek:. New rims off a Dodge Power Wagon, and trial no 3....>>>

On US 20 W at about 45 Mph and all is well with the world, except that the engine is at max RPM and tranny in high gear. Wont go any faster, so a change is required in the differential ration.....no problem....junk yard in Michigan City will have what we need ):h . Huge Dana 55 or 60 (????) and some new springs, hangers and shackles, some front end suspension parts (which looked to be sagging, but the coils are in 1/2's). Back to the house for more alterations.....>>>

Ready to try once again? Let's go. Down the street, this time things are looking good. Make the left onto US20 again, and off we go. At 35mph, Ol' Bob slams on the brakes and tries to get over. I look back and both rear tires are about 3' away from the fenders, with the axles extending out. Missed something? C-Clips perhaps :eek: ?....>>>

Get her fixed. Has a lead on some houses for sale real cheap, must be either moved or leveled because they are on land that has been designated as Lake Michigan National Seashore....something or rather. Gets an estimate for professionals to move'em, but too much money. "We'll do it ourselves" he says :eek: . Gets some I-Beams from work (don't ask), 6 Mobile Home axles (complete with tires and wheels), does a bit of welding, buys a dozen or so bottle jacks (from the 40's) at an auction, and off we go with the truck, and his antique Farmall tractor. Spent two weeks digging, wedging, lifting, planking, and sliding in the mud, but we got the first house up on his....contraption. (No permits, no special license, no nothing) This makes a trailer about 18' wide and 72' long, no brakes. Weight? Not a clue. ... Beers' almost gone, time to go ... >>>

Used the Farmall (22 Hp, I think) and truck (??? HP) to wrestle the house onto the road (the w h o l e road), and straight south for about 3-4 miles. Off we go in "granny" gear. House tipping from side to side, taking out random mailboxes and all overhanging branches as we go. One slight detour around a very high fire hydrand, but no other events until we get to the driveway (slight up hill). Half way into the turn.....Bang. Exploded the clutch. Now blocking both lanes, and shoulders, 1/2 the trailer tires are comming off the rims one way and the rest comming off the other way, and he's dead in the road. I won't mention the lil'ol lady smokin the stogey that was very uspet about having to go around the block to get home. Let's just say, she was packin heat, but was too frail to pull the double-action on her Ruger :eek:, gave up...and went around.

Another six-pack later, finished the turn and spotted the house in the middle of his drive by hitching my little 6-banger FIAT tugging at the front of the Farmall with a heavy peice of hemph rope. Found out later that this broke one of my motor mounts.

The Storal of the Morey is.... Beer is a common-sense lubricant. And you don't want to know about his escapades with his two broke-framed Dodge 1-tons. DC might get wind of it and want their buy-back money returned ):h .

RF

Was coming out of Needles, Ca. hauling a tractor heading towards Barstow on I-40. Long, hard pull out of Needles and then a big long easy straight downgrade into one of those wide forever valleys common to this area. You could see forever ......and I could see way down the road where construction had been going on and was completed......signs down and barracades stacked along the road, etc. So eased through at about 60 which was pretty slow for that area. Then up front of me I saw this whoop-de-doo they had left.......big hump in the road way out of character for the rest of the roadway.......YEOW....the truck went over and left my stomach in my throat and then I looked in the mirrors to what the trailer and tractor was gonna do. The trailer actually lifted off the road. I saw the tractor come right with it. It was now that I expected the trailer to start acting up and start heeing & hawing, but it didn't.....just settled down right behind the truck as though nothing had happened. Good chains and a well balanced load brought me right through this one and reinforced the importance of loading them right and chaining them down tight. I can just imagine a load of tomatos or oranges coming through there.

Had a Damn similar story to B-Rad's

About '97 I rented a 8-10' Uhaul to move my (future)wife, with my cousin pulling with my '89 chevy sb 350. Picked up the trailer, and the uhaul guy busy yackin' away, I was ready to get the he!! outta there and "apparently" I forgot to put the pin in the receiver on my truck. Surprizingly I made it about 10 miles before it slid out. It whipped left, right, left chains broke, trailer spun around hit the outside retaining wall. It then proceeded to exit off of I-35 on the exit ramp, and came to a stop, we had a great time trying to get it turned around and hooked back up. No noticable damage to the trailer, that uhaul saw. Didn't hurt my truck at all, never touched it. Luckily nobody got hit by it, and we went on our way.:eek:

BTW I love reading JJ's stories.

Not me, but Mom's boyfriend was haulin' his boat (25' Howard) back from the lake. This was his first tow w/ the DMAX, had towed the boat many times w/ old truck. about 40 miles (was a 6 hour trip IIRC) from home the ball came out of the hitch, came down on the cables for a second or two, and then trailer and boat off into the desert. Trailer hit a sandy wash and stuck, the boat kept on goin'. All the equip. was the same as before. Was ruled by Ins. co. that someone had tried to steal the boat while it was in the lot at the lake and was interupted. He has stayed on a house boat most of the time, his boat was for screwin' around, so it was on the trailer when not in use. Got the nut on the ball loose and almost cut through the braided steel cables. He has the ball and cables in his garage, theaded end of ball ground off at 45* from the road, cables have an almost perect cut through them both! After a lot of wrestling w/ Ins. co. he got a new/better boat.

I've been very lucky (fingers crossed)!

What a great thread. I have been lauging hysterically all morning long reading this.

I haven't told or thought about this in years. This happened 25 years ago, when I was 16. My family owned a 1959 15' fiberglass boat, 60 hp outboard, that I kind of took ownership of, as I was the one who worked on it, maintenance, etc. On a nice summer weekend, I invited two of my friends to go boating, water skiing. That morning, I'm hitching up the boat to my dad's '72 blood red F250, 4 X 4, with 35" gumbo monster mudders, 4.11's, 360 4 spd. My dad is helping me, and we got the boat hitched up, but I couldn't find the bolt we use to lock the ball hitch closed. There was some type of locking latch on the hitch, and my dad told me that it would be OK just with that, and I didn't need a bolt, or pin, through the hitch, locking it. We then hooked up the safety chain. A single safety chain.
:badidea:

My friends arrive, actually brothers, and we hop in and take off, about 10 AM. We want to get out to the lake as early as possible, before the lake gets crowded, to get some skiing in. We're traveling eastbound down the freeway, rte 30, east of pgh, doing about 55-60, coming up to a light, where we have to make a left. While coming up to the turning lane, I see the light is green in the turning lane, and I'm not slowing. Just before entering the long turning lane, the light turns yellow. I turn, sway into the turning lane, and apply the brakes. I'm not slowing, so I push harder. I'm still not slowing, so I put both feet on the brake pedal (manual brakes) and gripping the steering wheel with both hands, and pushing on the brakes as hard as possible. By this time, the light has turned red, and I'm looking at the opposing traffic, including a passenger car in the opposing fast lane, and a dump truck in the slow lane. I begin to feel the truck slow down, but I could easily tell that my speed was not nearly dropping fast enough to be able to stop by the end of the turning lane, so I start blowing my horn, still literally standing on the brakes. By the time I reach the end of the turning lane, I'm probably down to about 20 - 25 mph, and thank god none of the opposing vehicles started out yet, so I made the left turn, much faster than I thought was possible, and started north bound. My hands were shaking. I looked over to my friends, and I didn't think they really knew what was happening as they had a blank look on their face. I was literally shaking. You figure I , and they, were only 16. We stop about 1/4 mile down the road to check the boat/trailer, get some food to cool down, and everything was fine. We're still going to make a good day out of it. We start out again.

:badidea:

We're just crusing fine now, maybe doing about 45 mph, along this two lane highway, rte 981 actually, when all of the sudden, the truck starts shaking/swaying violently. I look in the rear view mirror, and I can see the winch of the boat trailer above the closed tailgate, much higher than it should be, and violently moving from side to side. I look in the side view mirrors, and I can see the boat trailer swinging out from side to side, going about 3 ft over the edge of the road, and quickly then to 3 ft over the center line in the path of opposing traffic. After deducing that the trailer was no longer connected to my truck, I'm gently applying the brakes , trying to keep my vehicles on the road, slowing down, while the swaying trailer feels like a rabid great dane on a leash. I see a 240Z or something like that coming towards me in the opposite direction, and just as it is passing me, you've guessed it, the trailer swings out into his lane. I watched in the side view mirror as he drove buy. I have no idea how the trailer missed hitting his car. It had to be by 1 or 2 inches. I finally get slowed down, and pull over on the side. Obvioulsy, I'm shaking. We get out and inspect the damage. The single safety chain held, and the front of the trailer moved in an arc like fashion side to side, grinding a arc like groove in the back of the tailgate. The strap holding down the boat snapped, and the boat was sitting cock-eyed on the trailer. The portable 12 gallon fuel tank had slid, slicing the fuel line, and gas was sprayed aorund the inside of the boat. The guy driving the 280Z I guess realized there was something wrong, and came back to help us, helping us hand lift the boat back on the trailer. No hard feelings. We tie the boat back to the trailer with water ski rope. I now find a nail in my trcuk, and after getting the hitch back on truck, I put the nail through the hole in the hitch, now locking it in place.

Well, nothing was severely damaged, and even though we had already two mishaps, we were determined to still make a good day out of it, that is boating.

We arrived at the lake, uneventful, put the boat in, and actually had a good time boating. I think we may have lost several gallons of gas, and we had to cut our boating time accordingly. We were trying to get maximum use, and ran the gas pretty low. We then were making it back to the ramp, running on fumes, when some idiot , I think pulling a skier, turns directly in front of us, maiking us turn to avoid him and the skier. Well by turning, we then had to travel a bit farther, and wouldn't you know it, we ran out of fuel. Someone towed us back to the ramp, maybe about 500 yds.

On the return trip, everything went fine. What a day.

I hope you enjoy reading this. I enjoyed thinking again about it.

well, one of my buddys grandparents own a house on the gulf in a small fishing town and his dad has a deep sea boat to go grouper fishing. so back in high school we used to love to go with him anytime we could. it is about a 2.5 hour trip from where we lived and is nothing but straight 2 lane road through the middle of nowhere. his dads boat is a 32 footer sitting on a tripple axle trailer and he towed it with a ford bronco. so this one time we are coming back from a fishing trip and 2 of the left side bearings froze at the same damn time. both tires lockup and the trailer starts going crazy. this thing was fishtailing so violently it was lifting the bronco off the ground. this went on for what seemed like a mile (about 100 yds) until we scrubbed enough speed so he could get it under control. when we got out, you could see the little skid marks where the bronco would touch down briefly in each lane. luckily we were only going about 55 and there was nobody else on the road. man that was scary though!

both me and my buddy (we were about 14) learned an important lesson that day (beside keep the bearings greased) - never hit the brakes in that situation. if he had panicked and hit the brakes we wouldve been screwed!

In December of 2003 we were moving from Southern Colorado to the center of the state staying on the Western slope. A trucker was to pick up my 8' x 8' x 20' shipping container with all the household goods in it. House was sold and we had to be out by Saturday Evening. Trucker called Thursday night from Alabama, he had broken down and was not going to make it. I felt I had no choice. I rented the only trailer I could find that would haul the shipping container. It was an equipment type trailer, very tongue heavy.

I picked the trailer up with my K3500 srw, called for a crane, loaded up, air bags maxed out and hit the road, very carefully. Three mountain passes to get over. Not knowing the weight, but knowing that I was overweight, I waited until after dark to leave to have fewer vehicles trying to pass me. Reached the top of the first two passes doing about 15MPH, not bad for the way it felt. Coming down off of Red Mountain Pass, the third pass, The receiver hitch broke loose from the frame and hit the road.
At the point where this happened there is absolutly no shoulder and it would be very unsafe to stop there. My cell phone would not connect. I knew I could stop about two miles down the road. As the landing shoe of the trailer drug on the road, it caught on fire.
I stopped and with a chain and a couple of binders I raised the hitch off the road. Had about ten miles to go to get to flat ground. As it is 2AM and no traffic it's a good time to move. Slipped on down to Ridgeway and called for a wrecker. The first wrecker was not able to raise the trailer, it's capacity was 3600#'s. I had to get a "Big-Boy".
Later, at the new place, the crane weighed the container at 16,800#. The trailer was probably 7000#'s Putting the total weight at approx. 31,000#'s.
It did break my truck. Had some trannie and rear end work done.
It could have been worse, if the loose trailer had tried to push me off the slippery road. Or if the two remaing bolts ripped from the frame and the trailed tried to go by it's self.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Thanks