A Brown Volvo Wagon Saves a Fellow Ford

"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion) 11/15/2016 at 10:34 • Filed to: volvo, ford

5

7

Around this time last year, I got a late-afternoon phone call from my father: “Can you come over after the kids are in bed? I need your help.” It turns out that putting the plow on his ‘97 F250 with the first snowstorm of the year wasn’t such a good idea. That is, it would have been, had he not been planning to drive off into the woods to collect firewood. He had backed into an area of questionable integrity and found a hole the size of his front axle.

I showed up to find the truck with the plow blade resting firmly on the ground, even with the hydraulic all the way up. The hood was about at waist height for me as I approached the truck; not good. It’s not like we could hook up a winch and pull this thing, either. The wet-snow-covered field was devoid of an anchor point for over 100' in any useful direction, and also we don’t have a winch. All we had was a 2006 Volvo XC70. We actually needed a crane.

So we did the next best thing: lifting the truck by its frame using a series of jacks and wood blocks, over and over, lifting the whole beast and stuffing things under the tires and frame to get it up and out of the muck; a Sisyphean task at first. 6" up, 5 & 3/4" back down into the muck.

Lifting the truck - plow and all - not only taxed our cheap floor jack and bottle jack to the point of partial failure, but also the balance point of the truck was so far forward that we really were lifting the rear wheel off the ground before the front made much progress upwards. So basically we were lifting half the truck with no leverage,

occasionally jumping on the rear bumper to pry the front up, using a precarious pile of wood as the lever point.

. I kept shoving wood blocks farther forward until finally we got a chain under the plow, although we still had to use a prybar to get the plow up.

At this point we were both soaking wet, muddy, and exhausted. We had filled the hole up as best we could, and made kind of a ramp for the wheels to get the rest of the way up. So we hooked up the chain to the Mightiest Tow Vehicle available to us - the Volvo. This was a big grassy field covered in 6" of wet, sticky snow. The Volvo didn’t even have snow tires. But we were done digging and lifting and swearing. Time to try powaahhhh!

On my signal from inside the Ford, my father gave the Volvo a good application of throttle in reverse, the chain hooked onto the threaded tow point on the front bumper, with the other end wrapped around the plow frame of the truck. I gave the old Ford a healthy dose of throttle in 4-low, too, and by a small miracle of redneck engineering, we were out of the woods, literally.

I wish I had not been covered in snow and mud and exhausted and frustrated, and gotten a video of a Volvo pulling a rusty old Ford plow truck out of an impossible muddy, snowy trap. I didn’t even get a single photo. My phone probably spent the whole ordeal in the warm, dry safety of my car. But it wasn’t all about traction, or about the relative merits of 4WD over AWD. Momentum is king, and a good old Swedish brick is always good for that.

So here’s a close re-enactment of the job: just chop the extra doors off the Ford and add a Fisher plow to the front, plus night time, snow, mud, trees, and... well, at least I got the colors of the vehicles right.

photos via google image search - productioncars.com (volvo) and myclassicgarage.com (ford)

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > functionoverfashion 11/15/2016 at 10:38

6

Your image editing skills and studied misuse of Swedish bricks are an inspiration to us all.

shop-teacher > functionoverfashion 11/15/2016 at 11:41

1

Well done sir!

DynamicWeight > functionoverfashion 11/15/2016 at 11:53

1

If you like snow encrusted rescues involving improper vehicles for the task, I highly recommend a book I just read, Endurance by Alfred Lansing. It’s a true story about a group of men led by Ernest Shackleton (so British) who got stranded in Antarctica in 1914.

As a minor aside, now that I’ve read this book, any time I am annoyed by my life I think of what these men went through and my life suddenly seems incredibly easy by comparison.

functionoverfashion > DynamicWeight 11/15/2016 at 12:35

0

I’ve read that book! I have always enjoyed that genre, and really any stories of the sort. My favorite Top Gear is the Bolivia episode. Followed by the Botswana one, Vietnam, Burma, you get the idea.

Lost City of Z is another good story to make you feel like you live in a palace surrounded by feather pillows and pure luxury. Even current Amazon expeditions face some really tough conditions that no amount of equipment or preparation can save you from.

The Endurace story made me really fell like a wimp. I coach nordic ski jumping in the winter, it’s a very cold sport for coaches. We spend a lot of cold hours outdoors in the winter, and I feel pretty tough at the time. But then I get in my car and go home to my 68 degree house and get in my king-size bed with my wife. Some of the statistics about the area where their base camp was located really stick with me, like the average 40+mph wind speed year round.

DynamicWeight > functionoverfashion 11/15/2016 at 12:50

1

Okay, Lost City of Z goes on the list. But I don’t think I can handle another book like that right now. What really gets me are the true little miseries described that you wouldn’t even have realized are a thing. For instance, you may remember, in Endurance, Lansing describes a phenomenon where a small icicle would form on the end of each man’s nose. They would, eventually, have to break it off which would lead to a small patch of skin on the tip of the nose never quite healing.

Yeah, that couching sounds pretty tough. But it’s nice to remind yourself you still get to go home at night to a warm house. I’ve used this kind of thinking to swim in the ocean here in California. It’s really cold and sandy. And as a kid that didn’t bother me. But now as adult I wasn’t swimming very often because it was uncomfortable. Then one day I realized I can just bring a change of clothing and the car is really nice and warm with the heater on. And if I’m really that cold I can just run around to warm up. Being less wimpy is so much fun!

functionoverfashion > DynamicWeight 11/15/2016 at 14:09

0

So true on the relative discomfort of cold. I go out cross-country skiing from my house at night a lot in the winter, even when it’s close to zero (F). Because worst case I just have to turn around sooner or shorten my loop and head home. And boy, does my house feel nice when I get back. The 55 degree basement I come into feels toasty, let alone upstairs by the woodstove!

Have you read any of the books about climbing Everest that made the rounds on bestseller lists a few years back? Like Into Thin Air, and some others I can’t think of... I remember liking that one at the time.

DynamicWeight > functionoverfashion 11/15/2016 at 14:33

0

You’re making me miss living in snow. I used to ride my bicycle and/or walk to class in blizzards when I lived on America’s East Coast. Now in California the weather is so boring and makes everyone (including me somewhat) really wimpy when it comes to temperature.

I read a lot of novels but Endurance was actually my first non-fiction book. It’s been a great introduction and I will certainly be reading more of this type of thing. Currently reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.