RE: Advice needed

[pharmer <pharmer@domain.elided>]

Dan Nees wrote:
> If you were ta ask Gip Marchette about off-roading a Traveall, he would
> have some stories for you! I'm sure Bill T knows some. I hear some of
> the most amazing stories about T'alls from non IH people who used to
> have T'alls. I think people imediatly handicap T'alls because they are
> long. Besides, John H. will tell you about the time he drove, or is that
> drug?, his T'all up Suprise Canyon.

Ya know, it would be nice to have a good place for an archive of "war
stories".  Hmmm, for that matter, it would be nice to have a little
"starting problem diagnostic expert document".  I've saved pieces of some
really good notes that folks on the list have shared - and it seems to be a
big slice of the types of problems IHers have.

I remember watching Gip at the RMIHR last year in his open-diff Travelall
beat a lot of highly modified Scouts in a race around a tight obstacle
course!  Of course, all those front-lockers were slowing the scouts down,
but still, it was fun, and evident that he has a good sense of humor!

I agree with you Dan, Travelalls work fine off road - and they share the
same advantages/disadvantages of most long wheelbase vehicles (with the
added plus that they are IH!).

<war story on>
I remember a few years ago helping a friend build a road up the side of a
large hill/small mt.  Everyone drove their 4x4 to the location.  We were
cutting down Aspen to clear space for a road to the top and to get logs for
the cabin at top.  But we had to drag them up by hand, one at a time up a
*serious* hill because nobody would bring their "SUV" in among the trees,
the owner didn't want to destroy the land with a lot of tire spinning, and
they initially thought that we could just carry the stuff up there.
Finally, after a bunch of trees were cut down, a few logs moved to the top,
and a bunch of folks left spent and whiney, I recommended that we use my
Travelall to pull the logs up there.  Well, the owner decided to chance it -
if my Travelall could make it with its bald tires.  Actually, my Travelall
ended up dragging over a 1000 lbs of logs at a time, along with a half-dozen
folks up the hill repeatedly.  The travelall was also used to finish
clearing the smaller trees of the planned road location - anything less than
3" diameter was simply driven over.  The trees ripped my windshield wipers
off, and I got some scratches in the paint, but the Travelall handled the
task like it had been waiting 20 years to finally get to flex some muscle.
All the other folks there, who had been poking mild-fun at me for owning
such a beast, gradually changed their tone to respect, then *awe* when we
began using the truck to drive over anything in its way!  That's the day the
travelall got the nickname that represented its machismo and burliness: BGP
(stands for "Big Green Penis").

Anyhow, the only downside that I've found to using it in that kind of a
capacity, is that big vehicles like that can be tough, and a bit scary to
maneuver around in tight spots with sheer cliffs, and steep drop-offs!

<war story off>

Ken Farmer
1980 Scout II
1974 Travelall BGP
1975 Travelall