The first order of business was to get a bunch of cold engines started and warming up, and I knew that was going to be a rodeo in itself.
First up, the excavator-which after its 20 second glow plug routine, fired right up with minimal drama.
Next, the trusty Harbor Freight 3000 generator that lives in the back of the Freightshaker. That fired up on the second pull, and I plugged in the heat gun and let it run pointed at the Cummins ECU for about 10 minutes to warm up the ECU-which refuses to send fuel to the injectors when it’s cold, presumably due to micro cracks in its circuit board.
Then, the Freightshaker itself, which started, but under protest of the early hour and cold temperatures.
I didn’t notice the cool smoke rings the truck blew until I watched the video. 😄😄
Then I went to the Super Duty, which I knew wasn’t going to play nice, and I was right.
To be fair to it, it has only about half of its glow plugs working-they were supposed to have gotten changed out a couple years ago, but there was some things that got in the way of that being done, and, well… here we are. 🙄
I tried to start it a couple times just in case-but no joy, so I drug out another generator and plugged in the block heater for about 45 minutes while I went and did other stuff.
It finally started then with the assistance of a big jump box with a big cloud of rattling smoke.
Down by the big truck, I had all the lights on to help me find and load everything in the dark.
After double checking the entire solar system again, and going over the whole site looking for loose ends or errant tools, everything slowly started finding its way to its places on the trucks and getting secured-no small task.
The trucks themselves were ready to roll just after daybreak, but the real rodeo for the day was only about to begin.
You see, we had two issues;1- the space was so tight, there was no way we could back either trailer out with either truck. It just wasn’t possible.
2-there was just enough snow and ice right where we needed to maneuver the trucks and trailers, that even had there been space, it would have taken a miracle to keep everything out of the huge and steep ditches and avoid a really costly tow bill.
So we started playing a tense, stressful and rather long game of equipment Jenga. First, we moved the F-350 out in the street and parked it where there was no ice so it was out of the way and wouldn’t slide into a ditch.
Then we chained its trailer to the excavator and used it to push the trailer up the property and back it into the parking spot, the excavator slipping and sliding the whole time on the ice.
I wish pictures did justice to what a huge pain this actually was, and how steep this terrain actually is.
Once that trailer was set, we slipped and slid the F-350 over the ice backwards and got it hooked up.
Then we had to do the same for the Freightshaker and its equipment trailer.
This setup was even harder because everything had to be moved two or three times to get it all turned around on solid footing. 🙄
Finally, every thing was loaded up, hooked up, secured and pointed in something that resembled the right direction to GTFO of here. I sent Denise off in the little truck first, communicating to her via phone to help her get out without getting stuck.
Despite planning the exit very carefully, the truck still slid around on the ice, and it was a tense and dicey couple minutes getting her out on the road.
Then once she had it all on the road and lined out just right, the trailer-which fortunately was very lightly loaded- was suddenly sucked into the deep ditch as if by some huge invisible vacuum cleaner! Then it started to slide the rear of the truck towards the ditch.
Oh shit!
I told her to up her speed and keep the truck pointed at ice-free roadway, and luckily the truck didn’t follow the trailer into the ditch, and eventually the trailer tires bounced off a big rock in the ditch that helped guide it onto the road just in time to avoid hitting the Freightshaker parked and awaiting its turn to exit on the next driveway.
Once she was clear, it was my turn to get the semi out, and to be sure, the pressure was on.
If we had gotten the little truck stuck, we could have used the excavator to free it. It would suck, but it’s doable.
But if I dropped the semi in a ditch, we were gonna have to call a heavy wrecker, on a Saturday, in a remote spot. That’s a recovery bill that has a really large price tag. 😬
As I got the truck about halfway out, using every inch of road I dared to make the turn, the resistance of the loaded triple axle trailer in a sharp turn on solid ground started to slew the rear of the semi that was partially on ice, pointing me right at the opposite drainage ditch. My butt puckered enough to make a few diamonds, and I fed the Cummins a little healthier dose of throttle and crammed the wheel over. Thankfully, the truck found solid road and the trailer followed, skirting precariously along the very edge of the ditch-with one tire hanging out in space for a brief moment that seemed to last for minutes.
Finally-FINALLY, we had both trucks lined out and rolling towards home.
It had taken five hours, 33 minutes just to extricate ourselves from the property.
Did I mention there’s a reason we don’t normally do jobs in this kind of weather?!😄😄🙄
We were still three hours from home at that point, but other than an uncomfortable section of the trip that took us through a busy downtown flagstaff on a Saturday afternoon, we made it home late in the day without further incident.
We were beat.