She's new to me, but old for this world. Alabbasi revealed the details in his recent "weekend wrenching" post.

On Sunday, we drove to Dallas from Houston dragging a car transport trailer to retrieve the '76 Euro 6.9 that Al has been trying to sell for some time.

A few ruminations on the transportation experience. I've created another thread on the car itself - I'd like to do a restoration thread on that as things progress.

I thought I was going to have an ace-in-the-hold with a business associate needing to transport a CNC mill to Dallas. He offered to bring the car back after making the delivery. However, delays, and Hurricane Ike put a kink in that schedule and I finally had to resort to other options. Al got shipping quote for $350. I wasn't sure about that option, as the car is hard to start, and that usually results in a very pissed transport drivers. Some agencies won't even transport cars that don't start and drive easily.

Did a bit of checking and I could rent a trailer here, drag it to Dallas and back for a sweet cost. Trailer Wheel & Frame offers trailers that will handle a 5250# car for $66.00/day, no mileage. Pick up after 3pm Friday, back by 9am Monday for 1.5 days charge. We have a 1988 1/2 ton Chevy pickup, 350 v8 w/AOD transmission that I figured was up to the task. Truck has less than 100,000 miles. I got this truck from my Uncle who used it to tow a tandem-axle cattle trailer with up to 4 cows - guessing that's good for 5/6000# total weight. He probably never towed farther than 50 miles, but I know he did it fairly regularly.

I had considered U-haul, as I would be able to do a one-way rental for about $88, and they offer damage insurance, which TW&F does not. However, to reserve the trailer online, if I was honest with the towing/towed vehicle selection, the system would not permit the combination. They want the trailer+towed vehicle to weigh no more than 85% of the tow vehicle. The truck weighs probably 4500#. The Benz weighs 4200, the trailer, an additional 2000. I would need a tow vehicle that weighs 7300 # to make their math work. I figured I could lie and say I was towing a Yugo or something and get the reservation, but I might face rejection in Dallas when the truth was told.

I had a frame hitch installed on the truck - wanted one of these anyway as it makes backing a trailer easier than a bumper hitch. Cost, installed - $160.00, also at Trailer Wheel & Frame.

Installed a 22k# plate-style transmission cooler on the truck - had it in "stock" from another vehicle I never used it on. Cost - $10 for bits and pieces to install it properly (no punch through condenser/radiator holddowns for me, thank you).

Picked up trailer on Friday - newish tires, good shape overall. Surge brakes, nothing rusty or horribly dented. Drag it home. Ugh - this is gonna be a "bumpy" ride. I figure it will be better on the open road, and hope it won't get worse when we load the car.

We leave for Dallas about 7am on Sunday. I select "D" on the shifter to prevent the truck from shifting into overdrive. On flat ground it would hold 4th, but the slightest hill would cause a downshift. I'm not certain of the durability of the OD clutches/bands in this vintage of 700R4 transmission, so 3rd and fewer downshifts is bound to be better. 65mph is about 2100 rpm. Cruise works well, unlocking the torque converter as required to maintain speed.

Get to Dallas easily in about 4 hours. 274 miles on 19.8 gallons of RUG - 13.8mpg - I had hoped for 10.

Al had his helper (David?) on hand and he was very knowledgeable on strapping down a car for transport. Got going and went to a road where I could do some test stops. First test was a miserable failure. Think '76 MB atop big orange trailer pushing '88 red Chevy pickup down street at 30mph with the front tires on the truck LOCKED. Truck has rear ABS, so no locking there, which is a Good thing when towing a trailer, but I will need to stop at some point.

Then I remember that David said when he transports cars, he rolls the car onto the trailer and stops at the point where the hitch just dips below where it was with just the trailer empty. Ah-ha - we're too nose heavy, and the surge brakes aren't engaging because the mechanism is binding.

It took 3 more adjustments, moving the car further and further back before we got it "close enough". I was never satisfied completely with the balance, but was afraid if we moved it any further back, we could be too light on the hitch which would be real bad in undulating road conditions, which I knew we were sure to encounter on our way home.

Gassed up and headed out. Completely nerve wracking in Big D traffic. Doubly bad as we wound up getting ducted onto 112 when we wanted to stay on 35E. Out to Texas stadium and U-turn - thank goodness the Cowboy's were out of town. Get back on 112 and head back where we came from, only to wind up on 635E - Dallas' north loop. Apparently, there's no way to interchange from 112 east bound to 35E south bound, or I just missed it. Anyway - U turn at Royal Ln (1st chance) - which in hind sight could have been a big mistake. Should have gone a couple more exits to allow for merging across 6 lanes of traffic to get 35E-southbound from 635W. However, the traffic gods were smiling and we were able to enter at 50mph (there's a dent in the floorboard under the accelerator pedal) and merge across smoothly to the correct lane.

Found on uneven roads, 55mph was about all we could muster without the trailer exhibiting a tendency to "wag". No cruise control on the way home. I-45 has some fairly steep hills, and the cruise would be hard on the gas climbing the hill, and as soon as you crest the hill it would back way off on the gas to keep the speed. Don't want to abruptly get off the gas without using the brakes, lest you set up a condition that may cause the trailer to wag. On some of the longer downhill grades, I actually wound up going quite a bit faster than I wanted at the bottom - 65-70mph just trying to keep tension on the trailer to keep it from wagging.

Years ago I had a VERY bad incident involving a trailer that started wagging, and before I realized what was happening (or knew what to do about it) I got jerked by my tail end all over the freeway and ended up backwards on the shoulder facing traffic with the trailer upside down on top of the towed car. Only guardian angels and some reasonable behind-the-wheel skills kept me from jackknifing the whole affair and trashing the tow vehicle along with the rest of the rig.

To this day, if a trailer, even a small, lightly loaded one, wags, my stomach flip-flops.

My travelling companion says he only noticed one instance of a wag from the trailer. I "noticed" many more than that. I strongly suspect some of it was psychosomatic based on my previous experience and the noted long-term stress effects. Still, better safe than sorry.

Got out of Dallas and on to I-45 headed for Houston. We kept to the right lane and managed 55-60 mph. Only had one close call south of town where there's road construction. They've narrowed the road down to 2 lanes with concrete barriers on the left and a narrow, steeply sloped shoulder on the right. This goes on for about 5 or 10 miles. The lanes are NARROW, to boot. I'm struggling to keep my lane, and still am getting passed by semi's on the left, and they're right on top of the stripe so they won't hit the wall. This causes a couple of tense moments where I could feel the right hand wheels of the trailer rolling on the "botz dots" that are at the very edge of the road. To the right of the dots, the shoulder is asphalt, but it slopes away at a steep rate. I feel certain that if we'd slipped the wheels onto that surface that things would have come out non-too-good.

Two close calls were two too many and I took the next exit and ran the feeder road until the construction ended.

My buddy asked what would have happened should the wheels have slipped onto the shoulder. I told him that worse case would be the trailer would pull strongly to the right, pulling us with it. Once it hit the soft shoulder (the asphalt was only about 3 feet wide), we'd be done in - think massive fishtail - 6500# trailer taking 4500# truck for a drag. We would be lucky if everything remained upright. Solution would be to gun the throttle and attempt to pull the trailer back up onto the road. While the truck had acceptable power to keep respectable pace with traffic and could climb most all of the hills we hit in 3rd it did not have enough power to succeed in "jerking" the trailer back onto the road if the need were to arise.

After that it was business-as-usual all the way home. Took about 5 hours to get home vs 4 going up. Dallas is a long way from Houston @ 55mph. Consumed about 24.83 gallons for 282 miles or about 11.36mpg. Not too shabby.

Al's quote: $350.00 shipped.
Out of pocket:
Fuel - 44.63 gallons of fuel: 135.17
Trailer rental: $100
Total: $235.17 - "in" the money $114.83. That will last about 4 seconds when I start buying restoration parts.

I don't count the cost of the hitch or the stuff to install the tranny cooler. I needed a frame hitch for the truck and was planning on getting one before I made this decision. Likewise with the transmission cooler.

Hindsight being 20-20, I would have probably been better off nerve-wise to have the car shipped.

I'm glad it's home and we're safe. My forearms are sore from gripping the wheel so tightly...