The day I pulled my Chevy home
with my WD45 Allis Chalmers
Most of the time I love my old sky-blue ChevyVan. Currently I am a little irritated at old blue because the axle broke in two the other day. I was waiting for a kid in a Camaro to get out of my way (I was already greatly agitated at my son’s school. He had been involved in some lunch room fracas and some school personnel had assigned him an essay as punishment. I believe that any form of writing as punishment is detrimental to the child’s lifetime attitude about writing. (It has a tendency to make illiterate morons out of the children and it shows the brilliance of the educators that support such punishment )). After the Camaro was clear I pressed on the gas petal (maybe a little hard) and boom! the van made a horrendous noise. My son thought I had ran into the Camaro! All forward motion ceased but the speedometer told me the van was going 20 miles per hour. I looked under old blue and the drive shaft was merrily spinning around. Luckily, this had happened in front of my wife’s work place so we did not have to walk. I went home, hooked the car trailer to my Allis Chalmers WD45 and drove the ten miles back to town and retrieved my injured van. When I stopped at a truck stop to put air in one of the trailer’s tires, one trucker told me, "You have it backwards, you are supposed to have the classic Allis Chalmers WD45 on the trailer and be pulling it with the van." I really had a fun time pulling the van home with the Allis Chalmers WD45 (my idea of fun is a little different and it gave me a good excuse to drive my tractor to town). Right now I am a little peeved at old blue but I really cannot complain too much for no more than this vehicle has cost me in repairs while I have driven it.
The van seems to eat one rear U-joint a year at the cost of about $35.
More repairs, this summer the heat riser tube fell off the air cleaner and burnt out several wires stranding us up in the city(about 45 miles from our rural home). It died and I had power to nothing except the headlights. I managed to hot wire it and it was running by the time the cops pulled up to help me. I told them I had hot wired it and I thought we would make it home. We made it without a hitch but I did learn why you should not drive with the doghouse off ( I was about roasted when we arrived at home). I spent about $40 on the wiring and used the alternator from an old Buick I had sitting behind the barn.
I had to charge the air conditioning system last spring at a cost of about $50.
Other than these few incidents I have been extremely happy with old blue. It has pulled my horse trailer, car trailer, camper and assorted farm equipment. I did not pay much for it and only bought it to drive while I put a transmission in my much newer Ford Econoline Conversion. Now that the Chevy is broke my family has voted that I put the newer and nicer Ford back on the road. The one thing I really wonder about is why Chevy put out a ¾ ton van with light duty components such as a 10-bolt rear end. The Ford is built with a heavier frame and rear end. But as hard as I use the poor old thing maybe I should replace it with a one ton unit. I can not tell you how many cars and trucks I have pulled home with old blue not to mention the other hard uses I have put it through. Once I hauled 5500lbs of gravel in my horse trailer.
I can hear that more repairs are due on this unit, now there is an ominous grinding noise coming from the transmission at take off. This noise seems to only occur in first and second gear. In high gear and reverse the transmission seems to function normally.
After many months the tranny finally went. It will not even go around the grain bins forward. Now my brother thinks we should rebuild the 4 speed auto that came out of his GMC and stick in old blue. You can get a controller for non computer equipped vehicles. He wants to see if it gets better gas mileage.
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This is my Chevy and my horse trailer
