Adventures in Moving
Cj's dad Rick inherited his mother's house when she died 8 years ago. For various reasons, it has sat more or less untouched for all this time. Recently, someone (probably the realtor selling the house next door) called the city on him, and now they're requiring that he make certain improvements to the property. One of these is moving a non-functioning pickup with a camper shell out of the driveway. We have no idea why he isn't allowed to keep a truck in his own driveway, but whatever. It's sat there for something like 12 years without moving, so it was probably time to deal with it anyway.
The truck doesn't move under its own power... it needs a new engine. Rick wanted to put it into the garage, but it won't fit with the camper shell on. So the plan was to push it into the back yard, take the camper shell off, and then push the truck into the garage. To this end, Cj and Rick spent most of last week cleaning out a space in the garage for the truck. They also took the chain-link fence down, so that the truck could be pushed into the back yard (there to unload the camper shell).
So Saturday morning we had Keith and Nancy (my brother and his girlfriend) come over, and with their help, Rick and Cj and I got to work. I don't know how well proportioned this diagram is, but trust me, with the space available and the turning radius of the truck, it was not a simple matter to simply push it into the back yard. We had to push it back, then turn the wheel, push it forward, turn the wheel, push it forward, etc. Trying to do parallel-parking-like maneuvers while pushing a truck is not easy. If you're not careful, you might push it 6 inches too far, and damage your neighbor's fence. Also, once a tire goes off the cement, pushing becomes a lot harder. At one point, we had to just put the truck straight back into the driveway and start over. But after about half an hour, and laying down boards on the soft wet ground in the back yard, and a little damage to corners of roofs and campers, we got it backed into the yard. Not back along the side of the garage as Rick had hoped. Not even far enough back to allow us to put the fence back up (an old clothes line pole got in the way). But enough so that it wasn't visible from the street. I guess Rick had some plan for moving it after that... I was never sure.
Anyway, once the truck was in position, we lowered these piston pole jack thingies down, and lifted the camper shell about 6 inches up above the truck bed. Actually, there were two different types of jacks. On the left side, there were two hydraulic poles on the corners that came with camper shell. The poles on the right side had been left outside too long (10+ years), and had rusted beyond usefulness. So on the right side, Rick was using a single crank-driven jack to support the middle of that side. So the shell was being held up by three legs, and appeared to be stable. Since pushing the truck out from under the shell seemed infeasible, we cabled the truck to the Subaru, and pulled it out. With a little more work, we got the truck straightened out in the driveway. (Since I didn't have my camera on me at the time, these next three diagrams have been prepared for your enlightenment.)
Rick then tried to lower the camper shell to the ground, lowering each leg a little bit at a time. But the two old hydraulic poles didn't want to lower. And, looking at them, they seemed to be ever so slightly bowed, so we figured maybe that was the problem. So Rick drove back to his house to get his other crank jack to use as added support on the left side while he tried to force the poles down. Cj and Nancy went around the corner to our house to get cleaned up. Keith and I stayed there to wait for Rick. And I wandered back to look over the back yard. And it looked to me like maybe the camper was leaning to the left a little bit. So I sat and stared at it, then went to get Keith for a second opinion. And we looked at it, and it was definitely listing to the left, and the left legs were definitely not sitting vertical. And as we stared at it, we thought we heard very subtle creaking and popping noises. And, yeah, that sucker was listing. Very slowly, but it was clearly not sitting still. And we just sat there, and hoped that Rick got back soon. Well, not soon enough. The creaking and groaning began in earnest, and very soon, the thing was just falling over. But the jacks were still providing vertical support, so it was parallel to the ground as leaned over. And the legs got to about 20 degrees off vertical, and then it stopped when it hit the garage, and just sat there. The three jacks were preventing vertical motion, and the garage was preventing horizontal motion, and so it was, for the moment, stable. Ish.
So Rick got back with the other jack, and looked over the situation. It was clear that the right side jack needed to be removed, because anything vertically pushing up on the left side would start to tilt as soon as the jack on the right started to straighten up. So Rick propped the right side up with some boards. And took the jack on the right out, and it held. But then, for no reason that Keith or I could figure, and in spite of our advice to the contrary, Rick took the jack from the right around to the left, so that now all four jacks were on the left side, and only some stacked wood was holding up the right. Well, he started trying to get a new jack under the left side, and he hadn't raised it an inch when the stacked wood on the right gave out, and the whole thing just fell over on it's side.
The hydraulic jacks had been physically bolted to the corners of the camper. These ripped off completely, leaving two corners shredded. The jack on the right tore a gash into the side of the shell when the thing first went over to the left. There was still, for some reason, a fair amount of crap inside, all of which has now come loose, and is just all over the place in there. The thing is too close to the garage to even be tilted back to horizontal; if we tried to push it over to lie flat, it would hit the garage before it hit the ground. On the whole, though, the thing still *appears* to be in one piece. I have no idea if it's really salvageable. I have no idea how we might move it at this point. We can't put the fence back up until we do. It's quite a mess. But no one was hurt, and it was fun to watch. The whole thing had the feel of one of those "Send your home videos to America's Dumbest Rednecks, and you too could be on television!" shows.
So. Yeah. If anyone in the L.A. area has a helicopter for an airlift, we've got a camper shell that I bet we'd be willing to let go of for cheap....
The truck doesn't move under its own power... it needs a new engine. Rick wanted to put it into the garage, but it won't fit with the camper shell on. So the plan was to push it into the back yard, take the camper shell off, and then push the truck into the garage. To this end, Cj and Rick spent most of last week cleaning out a space in the garage for the truck. They also took the chain-link fence down, so that the truck could be pushed into the back yard (there to unload the camper shell).
So Saturday morning we had Keith and Nancy (my brother and his girlfriend) come over, and with their help, Rick and Cj and I got to work. I don't know how well proportioned this diagram is, but trust me, with the space available and the turning radius of the truck, it was not a simple matter to simply push it into the back yard. We had to push it back, then turn the wheel, push it forward, turn the wheel, push it forward, etc. Trying to do parallel-parking-like maneuvers while pushing a truck is not easy. If you're not careful, you might push it 6 inches too far, and damage your neighbor's fence. Also, once a tire goes off the cement, pushing becomes a lot harder. At one point, we had to just put the truck straight back into the driveway and start over. But after about half an hour, and laying down boards on the soft wet ground in the back yard, and a little damage to corners of roofs and campers, we got it backed into the yard. Not back along the side of the garage as Rick had hoped. Not even far enough back to allow us to put the fence back up (an old clothes line pole got in the way). But enough so that it wasn't visible from the street. I guess Rick had some plan for moving it after that... I was never sure.
Anyway, once the truck was in position, we lowered these piston pole jack thingies down, and lifted the camper shell about 6 inches up above the truck bed. Actually, there were two different types of jacks. On the left side, there were two hydraulic poles on the corners that came with camper shell. The poles on the right side had been left outside too long (10+ years), and had rusted beyond usefulness. So on the right side, Rick was using a single crank-driven jack to support the middle of that side. So the shell was being held up by three legs, and appeared to be stable. Since pushing the truck out from under the shell seemed infeasible, we cabled the truck to the Subaru, and pulled it out. With a little more work, we got the truck straightened out in the driveway. (Since I didn't have my camera on me at the time, these next three diagrams have been prepared for your enlightenment.)
Rick then tried to lower the camper shell to the ground, lowering each leg a little bit at a time. But the two old hydraulic poles didn't want to lower. And, looking at them, they seemed to be ever so slightly bowed, so we figured maybe that was the problem. So Rick drove back to his house to get his other crank jack to use as added support on the left side while he tried to force the poles down. Cj and Nancy went around the corner to our house to get cleaned up. Keith and I stayed there to wait for Rick. And I wandered back to look over the back yard. And it looked to me like maybe the camper was leaning to the left a little bit. So I sat and stared at it, then went to get Keith for a second opinion. And we looked at it, and it was definitely listing to the left, and the left legs were definitely not sitting vertical. And as we stared at it, we thought we heard very subtle creaking and popping noises. And, yeah, that sucker was listing. Very slowly, but it was clearly not sitting still. And we just sat there, and hoped that Rick got back soon. Well, not soon enough. The creaking and groaning began in earnest, and very soon, the thing was just falling over. But the jacks were still providing vertical support, so it was parallel to the ground as leaned over. And the legs got to about 20 degrees off vertical, and then it stopped when it hit the garage, and just sat there. The three jacks were preventing vertical motion, and the garage was preventing horizontal motion, and so it was, for the moment, stable. Ish.
So Rick got back with the other jack, and looked over the situation. It was clear that the right side jack needed to be removed, because anything vertically pushing up on the left side would start to tilt as soon as the jack on the right started to straighten up. So Rick propped the right side up with some boards. And took the jack on the right out, and it held. But then, for no reason that Keith or I could figure, and in spite of our advice to the contrary, Rick took the jack from the right around to the left, so that now all four jacks were on the left side, and only some stacked wood was holding up the right. Well, he started trying to get a new jack under the left side, and he hadn't raised it an inch when the stacked wood on the right gave out, and the whole thing just fell over on it's side.
The hydraulic jacks had been physically bolted to the corners of the camper. These ripped off completely, leaving two corners shredded. The jack on the right tore a gash into the side of the shell when the thing first went over to the left. There was still, for some reason, a fair amount of crap inside, all of which has now come loose, and is just all over the place in there. The thing is too close to the garage to even be tilted back to horizontal; if we tried to push it over to lie flat, it would hit the garage before it hit the ground. On the whole, though, the thing still *appears* to be in one piece. I have no idea if it's really salvageable. I have no idea how we might move it at this point. We can't put the fence back up until we do. It's quite a mess. But no one was hurt, and it was fun to watch. The whole thing had the feel of one of those "Send your home videos to America's Dumbest Rednecks, and you too could be on television!" shows.
So. Yeah. If anyone in the L.A. area has a helicopter for an airlift, we've got a camper shell that I bet we'd be willing to let go of for cheap....