Trouble strikes again. I picked up a winch (3,000 lb. rating), hooked it to the D-rings in the trailer, and got the 12V battery out of Murphy. The first hint of Trouble was when we discovered that the trailer battery that we were going to use was dead. Guess I better not have a break-away. Anyway, we were doing a straightline pull and Trouble was smoothly going up the ramp. We were following the instructions, winching for a minute and then giving it a rest. It was going okay. Then, we noticed the winch was pulling verrrrryyyy sllllllowwwwyyyy. And then it stopped...with Trouble sitting at the top of the ramp, nose up in the air.
We couldn't unhook my truck to bring it around to try and switch batteries and didn't want to risk draining the truck batteries since we had to head out at 5 am. Oh yeah, it was 10 pm by this time. The neighbor across the street brought his car over to see if we could jump the winch off his battery. Nope, it didn't work.
Thank God for AAA. I called and almost an hour later, the tow truck showed up and we had a great driver. I hadn't told the dispatcher what the problem was, figuring she might not send help. I just said we had a dead car and needed to get it in the trailer. So, we tried jumping off the tow truck and still nothing from the winch. We figured we had burned it out.
Then, the tow truck driver said he could lift Trouble's rear wheels in the air and then we could roll the car into the trailer. Sounded good to us. Problem was that once he lifted the rear wheels, there was a 1-foot drop before the car would hit the trailer ramp. So, we started putting some boards under there and it still wasn't working. Finally, the driver got it in a position and said we need some plywood or something to make another ramp. Oh yay! I have ramps! We placed the ramps in front of the rear wheels and gave Trouble a push. The car flew into the trailer, didn't hit anything, and I started breathing again. The gas tank did get some paint scraped off but nothing was dented or broken, and I gave the driver $20. We finished loading up at midnight.
Today, we discovered why the winch stopped working. The cable didn't spool properly as it was winding up and it jammed. No battery in the world would have worked. Sigh......
We couldn't unhook my truck to bring it around to try and switch batteries and didn't want to risk draining the truck batteries since we had to head out at 5 am. Oh yeah, it was 10 pm by this time. The neighbor across the street brought his car over to see if we could jump the winch off his battery. Nope, it didn't work.
Thank God for AAA. I called and almost an hour later, the tow truck showed up and we had a great driver. I hadn't told the dispatcher what the problem was, figuring she might not send help. I just said we had a dead car and needed to get it in the trailer. So, we tried jumping off the tow truck and still nothing from the winch. We figured we had burned it out.
Then, the tow truck driver said he could lift Trouble's rear wheels in the air and then we could roll the car into the trailer. Sounded good to us. Problem was that once he lifted the rear wheels, there was a 1-foot drop before the car would hit the trailer ramp. So, we started putting some boards under there and it still wasn't working. Finally, the driver got it in a position and said we need some plywood or something to make another ramp. Oh yay! I have ramps! We placed the ramps in front of the rear wheels and gave Trouble a push. The car flew into the trailer, didn't hit anything, and I started breathing again. The gas tank did get some paint scraped off but nothing was dented or broken, and I gave the driver $20. We finished loading up at midnight.
Today, we discovered why the winch stopped working. The cable didn't spool properly as it was winding up and it jammed. No battery in the world would have worked. Sigh......
