Adventures In Flat Towing: Except For The Bad Engine, All Systems Go!
I’ve become quite familiar with the burning-coolant/oil/misery-combo smell of a blown head gasket/cracked head, what with the scent being such a frequent olfactory treat at LeMons races, and so I knew what was happening on I-25 in downtown Denver once I got within nose distance of this scene.
Safety first! Got the auxiliary brake lights, everything’s hooked up safely, the works… well, except for the small problem that the tow vehicle’s engine is undergoing catastrophic failure. The driver seemed unconcerned (in spite of the frantic gestures from other drivers, the pegged-out temperature gauge, and the terrible noises from under the hood) and kept the pedal to the metal. I didn’t stick around for the final act of this cruel drama— the one that ends with the truck sitting in a puddle of oil and steam (and possibly on fire) in the fast lane during rush hour— but I’m sure it involved a great deal of angst all around.
Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.
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This scene is vaguely reminiscent of the scene from Jaws where Quint kept pushing his ailing boat at full throttle while dragging the shark in closer to land. Hopefully this didn't end as badly for those guys as it did for Quint.
I was thinking of adding a class ii hitch, some frame distributed bits and possibly fabbing up some custom anti-sway damping rods to the Roadmaster wagon for a pending vehicle purchase and delivery to a friend in another state - but seeing that has me seriously considering just calling a delivery service after we iron out all the bugs and have them present the new ride remotely. Got the factory air leveling system but no lsd in the rear carrier, which might make the climb to the Eisenhower tunnel and the pass beyond - interesting.