JH23JOB
Enthusiast
Here's the story of my trip to get the Black/Silver striped ACR Viper from Minneapolis Minnesota to Florida and back.....
Well, it went pretty smoothly until Saturday night at 12:30am when My daughter and I are cruizin' southbound on the Florida Turnpike @ 70mph and when I came up over a small hill and traffic was STOPPED about 700 feet ahead of me. Needless to say I had to stop my Dodge 3/4 ton 4x4 V-10 pickup truck and the 24' enclosed car hauler that was attached to it fairly quickly..........Wow, was that a little awakening !! Anyhow, after coming to a complete stop, I notice that up ahead about a 1/4 mile there's a 18 wheeler on it's side with the cab of the truck smashed into a corner of a bridge overpass cement guardrail..... Not a pretty sight, apparently a fatal accident. He apparently took out a Minivan, a jeep, and a car when he wiped out, and there we sat for 3 and a half hours with nowhere to go. I shut off my truck and got out to walk around a little bit after being on the road all day, and was warned not to venture off into the "woods" 'cause of the gators that might be out and about. That's nice. Well, I stayed on the highway and chatted with other stranded people 'til the emergency vehicles were able to clear a path for traffic to pass by at about 4am or so. I continued on my way for a couple hours 'til I just had to stop and rest for a couple hours.........Yes, 2 hours of sleep and away I went again. I arrived to pick up the ACR Viper, and Bill, The guy I picked up the car from( Super nice guy !! )noticed that one of my rear tires on the trailer was hissing.........Lovely. Anyway, I decided to take the ACR to Daytona beach despite the problem on the trailer tire at the moment ( Thanks Greg... ), and that was definitley a goodtime. Well, 125 bux later for a new trailer tire (ouch), and I was on my way back to Minnesota. Because of my lack of sleep the night before, I decided to at least get through Atlanta and crash....wait, let me re-phrase that, SLEEP for the night...lol.
OK, now I'm heading towards Minnesota again, and all's going smooth as I get into Illinois. About 6pm now and I'm Heading North on 57 just South of Champaign Ill traveling at 65mph, cruise control is set, and everthing looks like smooth sailing as I'm thinking about making Minneapolis late that evening and getting a good nights sleep. Moving into the left lane to get around a slower group of vehicles ahead, I see others doing the same as a slower semi truck is in the right lane. As I'm approaching the truck, there's a dually pickup pulling a trailer with some implement equipment on it that pulles in front of me to get around the semi as I'm doing. Seems he's keeping pace, so I figure no problem. As I'm just tooling down the highway, I notice something coming off his **** trailer !! I see a large tire/rim combo, possibly a spare tire of some sort sliding off the back and bouncing on the freeway right front of me. Guess what ?? There's nowhere for me to go but right over the top of it !! As it's about to go under the truck, it must have wedged itself up on its end, up under my front bumper launching me up in the air as it continues its route underneath my truck tumbling and damaging various things under my tow vehicle. Everytime that tire would tumble up on it's end, it would launch my truck up in the air again. A couple times, I know that my truck was completly airborne about 2-3 feet in the air !! Now the tire has finished it's fine job on my truck, and now it's the trailers turn in the barrel. Again, it starts tumbling under the 24' enclosed car trailer, and remember there's a '99 Black/siler ACR Viper GTS along for the ride too. The trailer is jumping off the pavement now everytime the tire goes up on it's end, and making it extremely tough for me to control this vehicle combo at 65mph while it's lifting the backend of my truck completely off the pavement and throwing me all over the road, and halfway in the ditch too while I'm one one wheel, then two, then three, then back to two again and so forth!! Finally the tire from Hell decides to exit the rear of the trailer, and as I let off the gas to try to get things back in order and shake out my shorts, I now find myself wanting to pull over and examine the handy work of a wild spare tire to the truck-trailer combo that I'm trying so hard to just get to Minneapolis with.
At first I didn't notice too much, but I did notice that the trailer tires were aiming in directions that the axle gods didn't intend them to aim...... Yes, Major bent axles !! I call Greg, the new owner of the ACR, and he suggested that I limp it to a better lite facility to better examine the situation. I do so, and as I'm turning into the truckstop, I notice that my truck doesn't make right turns !! Yikes !! I found that it made really ugly sounds while turning, and was able to get it turned just enough to get it in the place. I see now that ALL the trailer floor beams are toast, and the large framework at the bottom of the backdoor is also bent outwards quite a bit too at the center hinge which means that tire went directly center down both my truck, and the enclosed car hauler.... The floor boards in the trailer are sticking up, but ther Viper still looks good, and Both My Daughter and I are alive and well ( Thank God ). Belive it or not, I decide to make the tough call to MOVE FORWARD and continue my adventure to Minneapolis. Limping the rig back, I made Minneapolis with no further problems at 6:15am other than my gas gauge now reads up and down the scale when it feels like it. I went to Gregs place around noon to deliver his ACR, and we all got under the truck to see the damage. I noticed that my Grille, brushguard, bumper and bumper mouldings are wasted......Oh yeah, my front plate is gone too.....lol. Now under the truck we see damage to my steering linkage, and my V-10 oil pan is SMASHED but not leaking. I also notice that the tire bounced off my driveshaft probably bending it a little and smashed the shield surrounding my fuel tank (not leaking either), My rear axle housing (Dana 70) is bent, and the trailer is basically toast as previously mentioned. I also noticed that THREE of my wheel wells are busted from my Dukes of Hazzard immitation on I-57 too. I must have really caught some air to do that !! After getting to my home, I also noticed that the box of my truck sits kiltered to one side like it was twisted or whatever. I still haven't gone through every inch of the truck, but I'm sure that there's more to be seen.
How's that for a simple trip to get a Viper ????
Well, it went pretty smoothly until Saturday night at 12:30am when My daughter and I are cruizin' southbound on the Florida Turnpike @ 70mph and when I came up over a small hill and traffic was STOPPED about 700 feet ahead of me. Needless to say I had to stop my Dodge 3/4 ton 4x4 V-10 pickup truck and the 24' enclosed car hauler that was attached to it fairly quickly..........Wow, was that a little awakening !! Anyhow, after coming to a complete stop, I notice that up ahead about a 1/4 mile there's a 18 wheeler on it's side with the cab of the truck smashed into a corner of a bridge overpass cement guardrail..... Not a pretty sight, apparently a fatal accident. He apparently took out a Minivan, a jeep, and a car when he wiped out, and there we sat for 3 and a half hours with nowhere to go. I shut off my truck and got out to walk around a little bit after being on the road all day, and was warned not to venture off into the "woods" 'cause of the gators that might be out and about. That's nice. Well, I stayed on the highway and chatted with other stranded people 'til the emergency vehicles were able to clear a path for traffic to pass by at about 4am or so. I continued on my way for a couple hours 'til I just had to stop and rest for a couple hours.........Yes, 2 hours of sleep and away I went again. I arrived to pick up the ACR Viper, and Bill, The guy I picked up the car from( Super nice guy !! )noticed that one of my rear tires on the trailer was hissing.........Lovely. Anyway, I decided to take the ACR to Daytona beach despite the problem on the trailer tire at the moment ( Thanks Greg... ), and that was definitley a goodtime. Well, 125 bux later for a new trailer tire (ouch), and I was on my way back to Minnesota. Because of my lack of sleep the night before, I decided to at least get through Atlanta and crash....wait, let me re-phrase that, SLEEP for the night...lol.
OK, now I'm heading towards Minnesota again, and all's going smooth as I get into Illinois. About 6pm now and I'm Heading North on 57 just South of Champaign Ill traveling at 65mph, cruise control is set, and everthing looks like smooth sailing as I'm thinking about making Minneapolis late that evening and getting a good nights sleep. Moving into the left lane to get around a slower group of vehicles ahead, I see others doing the same as a slower semi truck is in the right lane. As I'm approaching the truck, there's a dually pickup pulling a trailer with some implement equipment on it that pulles in front of me to get around the semi as I'm doing. Seems he's keeping pace, so I figure no problem. As I'm just tooling down the highway, I notice something coming off his **** trailer !! I see a large tire/rim combo, possibly a spare tire of some sort sliding off the back and bouncing on the freeway right front of me. Guess what ?? There's nowhere for me to go but right over the top of it !! As it's about to go under the truck, it must have wedged itself up on its end, up under my front bumper launching me up in the air as it continues its route underneath my truck tumbling and damaging various things under my tow vehicle. Everytime that tire would tumble up on it's end, it would launch my truck up in the air again. A couple times, I know that my truck was completly airborne about 2-3 feet in the air !! Now the tire has finished it's fine job on my truck, and now it's the trailers turn in the barrel. Again, it starts tumbling under the 24' enclosed car trailer, and remember there's a '99 Black/siler ACR Viper GTS along for the ride too. The trailer is jumping off the pavement now everytime the tire goes up on it's end, and making it extremely tough for me to control this vehicle combo at 65mph while it's lifting the backend of my truck completely off the pavement and throwing me all over the road, and halfway in the ditch too while I'm one one wheel, then two, then three, then back to two again and so forth!! Finally the tire from Hell decides to exit the rear of the trailer, and as I let off the gas to try to get things back in order and shake out my shorts, I now find myself wanting to pull over and examine the handy work of a wild spare tire to the truck-trailer combo that I'm trying so hard to just get to Minneapolis with.
At first I didn't notice too much, but I did notice that the trailer tires were aiming in directions that the axle gods didn't intend them to aim...... Yes, Major bent axles !! I call Greg, the new owner of the ACR, and he suggested that I limp it to a better lite facility to better examine the situation. I do so, and as I'm turning into the truckstop, I notice that my truck doesn't make right turns !! Yikes !! I found that it made really ugly sounds while turning, and was able to get it turned just enough to get it in the place. I see now that ALL the trailer floor beams are toast, and the large framework at the bottom of the backdoor is also bent outwards quite a bit too at the center hinge which means that tire went directly center down both my truck, and the enclosed car hauler.... The floor boards in the trailer are sticking up, but ther Viper still looks good, and Both My Daughter and I are alive and well ( Thank God ). Belive it or not, I decide to make the tough call to MOVE FORWARD and continue my adventure to Minneapolis. Limping the rig back, I made Minneapolis with no further problems at 6:15am other than my gas gauge now reads up and down the scale when it feels like it. I went to Gregs place around noon to deliver his ACR, and we all got under the truck to see the damage. I noticed that my Grille, brushguard, bumper and bumper mouldings are wasted......Oh yeah, my front plate is gone too.....lol. Now under the truck we see damage to my steering linkage, and my V-10 oil pan is SMASHED but not leaking. I also notice that the tire bounced off my driveshaft probably bending it a little and smashed the shield surrounding my fuel tank (not leaking either), My rear axle housing (Dana 70) is bent, and the trailer is basically toast as previously mentioned. I also noticed that THREE of my wheel wells are busted from my Dukes of Hazzard immitation on I-57 too. I must have really caught some air to do that !! After getting to my home, I also noticed that the box of my truck sits kiltered to one side like it was twisted or whatever. I still haven't gone through every inch of the truck, but I'm sure that there's more to be seen.
How's that for a simple trip to get a Viper ????
