When we last left our intrepid hero, Court, Maybeline (a custom prerunner style 86′ Toyota) was trapped in a graveyard-esque car storage facility in San Jose, CA! Court and Maybeline made a delayed escape to meet up with Harry in Saratoga so that a new gas motor could be installed along with a new drive box (or something).
The towing bit of the day, the simple part that I had outsourced to a “professional” did not go as planned, not one bit. First of all, due to a car accident he was late by two hours. Second, my mechanic Harry was leaving work and only had a limited window of time before personal plans were to take effect. I was stressed, and bummed to be paying so much money, wasting my time, and delaying friends. Once we were on the road with the towtruck I figured the hard part was over. I was so, so very wrong.
The tow truck driver Jeff was going to follow me to the location but he had a GPS in his car so instead of trying to coordinate a train we just split up and I went to Jack In the Box to get a much needed chicken sandwich (I had been waiting over 2 hours). I left Jack’s (thinking I was behind the tow truck) but ended up arriving at Harry’s farm ahead of the tow. No Maybeline, just me and an upset looking Harry waiting in the fading and darkening hours of the evening for the truck to come. It turns out Jeff got lost or turned around, but eventually he showed up and we figured everything was fine. Unfortunately, during that time Harry’s car (which was needing some work) died. This wasn’t such a big deal because it started back up but it became a much bigger problem later when he tried to escort the tow truck along a dirt road through a forested area of Saratoga where the farm workshop was.
Harry’s Mercedes died right there in the middle of the single track dirt road forest trail and the tow truck couldn’t get around! Thankfully Harry knew another way in and helped back the flatbed towtruck up and reposition for a loop to the other side of the farm. This would have been a good idea except the loop was under construction and there was a port-o-fence up at the very end of the loop on this freshly paved, walled in driveway. At this point Harry has been waiting three hours and is late to meet his friends so he directs me to help him move the port o fence out of the way and just drive the tow truck down the driveway. I started asking him if that was alright but he just said shook his head asked me to start pulling. I pointed out the padlock and hay bails holding down the fence and he paused just long enough for us to hear an Indian fellow yelling “what are you guys doing to my fence!”
The Indian guy was pretty pissed off. We were tresspassing on his property, tearing out his fence, and on the verge of cracking the edge of his new driveway. An argument ensued and I pulled back to let the tow truck driver and Harry sort it out. Poor Maybeline had to wait on the flatbed until we finally decided to try to back the tow out. I would find out later that this caused some damage to the tow truck (apparently the large trucks are manual and aren’t meant to go backwards like that). Careful as we were, the back end of the tow truck also bumped the cement walls of the driveway so the Indian guy really got screwed that night, nobody was happy (my apologies Indian guy if you’re reading this).
Jeff, the tow truck guy was pissed now and upon arriving back at the entrance to the farm dirt road simply unloaded my non-working Toyota in the middle of the street and left us. Harry assured me that we’d find another way to move here to the farm, but without power steering it wasn’t going to be easy. I waited as he called his buddy Tim (who lives on the farm) to come get us with one of their trucks. Tim eventually arrived and we tied a rope to Maybeline’s front push bumper to begin the tow.
It all worked out pretty well, we cut across the field and then all got out and pushed Maybeline the last hundred feet up the driveway to her final resting place. Over the following weeks I helped locate a 22R engine and the parts needed to get Maybeline back on the road. This whole thing cost $120 towing and $1,500 in parts and labor from Harry and Tim… But, at least I don’t have to pay $100 a month for storage now.
In the video below you can see Maybeline chilling on Tim’s farm with her engine taken out. Towards the end I zoom in on the thrown rod on the sideo of the engine block. You can also see the racing clutch that had been added and the engine bay of the truck (which needs some serious cleaning and rust prevention work).
