Sounds pretty interesting.

Did you take any pictures back then?

 

yea, i had a few of the rig, the move, and the pickup.
but they all got ruined in the flood at the old house rite before i moved here.
i lost close to 5,000 pictures, $6,200 in cameras and lenses, and a darkroom in that one.
a water pipe froze and burst while i was out of state, and no one realized it until water started flowing out of the basement windows.
and of course the darkroom and all the photo equipment was in the basement.

 

Man, that was unfortunate. Hope the insurance treated you well.

 

Not much in comparison to your haul, but the wildest load I ever carried were a full set of 37 Ft A-Frame Roof Trusses. Now when we hauled trusses, we carried them up-side-down. The bottom of the triangle sat in the middle of the 20 Ft Flatbed and one side of the set sat on the top of the steel headboard. The other end was supported by wood. The tail end of this load was probably 12 Ft off the ground and probably about 9 Ft pass the end of the bed. Another words, I had to be extra careful of "Tail Swing".

Now once I got to the site, I needed to Dump them. I was surprised that they sent me out with no helper, but they were probably figuring that I would get some help from the guys on the site, but no one was there. Now to dump them sucessfully, the idea was to get them on the ground in the same position, but sitting on the back edge of the triangle. Once ready, I tied a rope on the Headboard side, then removed all the Chains, and left a little slack in the Rope. Then I removed the wood supports in the rear and pulled down on the set to let the rope now catch it. I then slowly let the rope out to slowly lower them on the back edge of the triangle, sitting on the back of the bed.

Now the dumping part. I raised the bed slowly and at the highest point, the top of the trusses are now probably about 30 Ft off the ground. Once the load slid and hit the ground, I lowered the bed back down some, then quickly pulled away.

As mentioned, I had no helpers, but it did attract a small audience, lol.

This was the truck that had the 10-Speed Road Ranger Trans.

Bill

 

i saw a few guy do similar with trusses.
when they delivered the trusses for my garage here at the new place, i had a high lift waiting for them. took me all of about 10 minutes to unload 21 of them.

 

Yeah, in all the years I delivered loads, there were just a few times that they had Forklifts on the job sites. This was back in the early to mid 70's and only some certain big jobs were starting to get some back then.

I also used to deliver 4 X 8 Sheet Stock to jobs and no machines to raise them up to the 2nd and 3rd Floor windows as well. It was two sheets at a time, up the stairways, over and over. The whole truck load and a gang of 6 to 8 guys would take the best part of the day to get to the last sheet.

Now talk about exercise, lol !!

Bill

 

Many other delivered loads as well including Roof Shingles. Off by hand and most of the time alone. We would bring an extra pallet and you would carefully throw a Bundle on one side of it, the 2nd on the other side and the 3rd in the middle. If you mis-judged, you jumped down, fixed it and climbed back up. Then once you were done, you could enjoy a nice cool ride back to the yard, as we were allowed to open both windows, lol. No AC back then.

Drivers today don't know how good they have it !!

 

A manual trans is not for everybody. I do find it unfortunate the option is no longer available in the SD but I understand why. Low sales figures and it probably became more cost effective to drop it from the option list altogether. Auto transmissions have become so advanced today that most do not see the reason any more for a manual trans. It's nice to see that RAM has kept it in their line up and it will be interesting to see how long from now that it does.

The manual trans is for the true vehicle enthusiast who enjoys being as intimate as possible with their vehicle and having the most involved driving experience they can. Old school or not, I am one of those folks and wouldn't have it any other way.

 

 

The thing with manual transmissions, is that they still do a few things that automatics can not do.
Automatics can do things the standard can't as well, it just depends what you want or expect.

Manual are fully locked in every gear - no TC slippage and you can put the RPM's where you want. You always know what gear your in, and what your shifting into. You have more control of the drivetrain at all times.

Autos, even modern, you don't stay locked all the time, you don't know when it's going to upshift or downshift, ( some exceptions, like paddle shifting), and lots of TC slippage.

The truth of it is, manuals are way better in a truck, and autos are way better in cars, however 95% of people now use their truck AS a car, so this easily explains why the automatic transmissions are taking over.

It would be amazing to see the mechanics on a truck if they spent as much time and money developing engine and drivetrain technology instead of cup holders and navigation systems.

 

actually most large truck fleets are going to automatic transmissions because they give better fuel economy, and there is way less vehicle down time due to breakage with the automatic.

 

IDK if you could say most, nor do I agree about better fuel economy. However drivers are cheaper, and with cheap drivers they can break fewer parts. I think the trend is local, light weight, and city equals automatic, long haul, heavy, or rural equals manual.

 

my friend went from 5 MPG to 7 MPG. all trucks have 427 engines, 58,000 rear suspension, 12.00-24 radial tires, and 5.88 gears. the auto trans trucks regularly get at least 7 miles per gallon, more than the manual trans trucks that only get 5 MPG..

 

It would seem impossible that an automatic would get 7 MPG and a manual would get 5 MPG, all else being equal. In fact, it is impossible, since driveline losses usually go the other way, and certainly wouldn't favor an automatic transmission to that extent.
The only explanation is funny shifting habits with the manual, or just too small of an experiment to achieve accurate data.

Thats claiming like a 30% increase in fuel economy by switching to an automatic? Kind of hard to explain that, other than driving habits or an error.

 

I believe it is how they are driven and no offense to your friend Tom, but if a Manual is driven at the peak performance, economy wise, I agree that it could not be beat by an automatic.

When I was driving for myself, although they were smaller trucks, the same principle applies and I would get some pretty impressive mileage.

Even with the '71 GMC 9500 with the 10-Speed RR Trans I used to drive. I didn't even realize it till they told me one day, and not to sound braggy, but the other driver could never beat my oil and fuel mileage numbers.

My point is, it can be achieved.

Bill