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Chapter 2: The Long Journey Home
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Posted by Nathan Enders (more from Nathan Enders) on Tue, 27 Aug 2002 14:13:36 Share Post by Email
In Reply to: My Saab Story (long!) Chapter 1: The Find, Nathan Enders, Tue, 27 Aug 2002 11:02:48
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My Saab Story - Chapter 2: The Long Journey Home
(Long again, I've got a few minutes to kill!)

So, yesterday (monday) afternoon, I call the UHaul place. I'd already called around about getting a garage to tow it, and it would have been silly expensive - like $150 or $200 to tow the thing 35 miles. So, I figure I'll do what any car nut has done once in his life - rent a UHaul with a tow dolly, and tow that baby home myself.

UHaul's main Syracuse center is, luckily, right on the way to the seller's house. So, I call em up and ask about renting a tow dolly and the minimum truck you can tow it behind. That turns out to be a 14 footer - for $19.95. The dolly itself is a little steeper - $29.95 I think. I figure, heck, what's $50 though? Beats paying a pro rig $150 or more.

Of course, when I got there, I discovered the proverbial "fine print." The rental has an additional fee of $0.59 a mile, and insurance is thirty some smackers. Without the insurance policy, you are liable for any and all damage to the truck or dolly. So, in the end, I'm probably gonna have to fork out around a hundred bucks or so. Still beats the truck, and hell, it's an "adventure," right?

An hour after work, I'm leaving the UHaul place in the truck. The wife is behind me, in her Jeep, to keep an eye on things. Right off the bat, I'm pretty amazed by the truck - I've never driven something that big before, and it has quite a bit of power, a very short stopping distance, and a comfy ride. (All that is about to change though!)

20 minutes later, I'm pulling into Dominic's driveway. He comes out, looking a little bit flustered. Instantly, the thought "he's trying to pull something on me" comes back in to my mind. But, it turns out the source of his flusterness is completely unrelated. He was driving home from work an hour earlier in his (rather nice) 1984 'vette, when he got hit in the rear quarter by someone running a stop sign. I express my condolences, and we move on to the Saab.

There it is, in the end of his driveway, in all its non-running glory. The paint is actually in better shape than I had thought, it looks like it just needs a good cleaning, a load of polish on some parts, and some wax.

And now beginneth the struggle. The car was in the end of his driveway, but it was facing in - so if I had backed the UHaul into the drive, the car would be facing the wrong direciton. So, I parked the thing alongside the road, and be pushed and huffed and puffed until the Saab was on the sholder behind it, facing towards the dolly. I unhooked the pivot on the dolly, letting the ramps tip down to the ground. Dominic and I put our sholders to the back of the car, counted to three, and pushed for all we were worth.

Five seconds later, we were huffing and puffing, but the car wouldn't roll up the ramps. Try as we might, we couldn't muster the strength. As we were taking a breather, a car pulled over. A guy steps out, and says, "Hey, you guys need a hand?" Imagine the luck - here we are, straining to get this car up the ramps, and a guy who could be a Stone Cold Steve impersonator offers to lend us a hand. Needless to say, with his help, we did not have a problem getting the car on the dolly.

Five minutes later, I'm shaking Dominic's hand, and we're ready to leave. This is the point where disaster almost struck. Well, it did strike, just not in full force.

I feel that I must provide a bit of background information at this point. Unlike the majority of passenger cars, early Saab 900's have the hand brake on their front wheels. Who knows what quirky reason Saab had for doing that. . . But, in 1986, when the 9000 came out, they used a more conventional caliper, with the hand brake on the back wheels. In 1988, the 900 underwent a minor redesign, and began to use the brake setup (and, several other hub components) from the 9000. Thus, in '88, the hand brake operated the rear wheels on 900's.

The Saab that I had previously owned was an '87 900, with the hand brake on the front wheels. This 900 was an '88, and had the handbrake on the back wheels. I bet some of you can see what's coming already.

So, back to the story. When we got the car on the dolly, and I was securing the wheel straps and safety chains, I had the handbrake set. I didn't think anything of it, since in my mind, the hand brake operated the front wheels. We strapped the car down, I jumped in, the wife got in her Jeep, and off I drove. Before we left, I told my wife to honk and blink her lights if anything looked wrong from behind. Let me give a word of warning - when you are sitting in a 14 foot truck, with the windows rolled up and the A/C on full blast, it is *impossible* to hear someone honking their horn behind you.

As we rolled off, I noticed a funny noise - almost a really hushed squealing coming from behind me. I shrugged it off, thinking it was just the car settling on the dolly, or the rear wheels turning for the first time in a couple months - there had been some rust on the rotors, so I figured it was just rubbing off. The noise was barely noticeable, so I paid it no heed.

Not even 200 yards down the road though, I glanced in my side mirror for the first time. What I saw caught me off guard - there was my wife, frantically blinking her lights and waving, with a *very* distressed look on her face. I saw an empty parking lot ahead, and pulled off. She was out of her car before I was out of the truck, and she looked highly concerned.

"Didn't you HEAR that?" "Or SEE it?" she said, in a very distressed tone of voice.

"What?" I asked.

"That loud squealing and all that smoke!"

Then, it hit me - the parking brake was still on, and it is on the *REAR* wheels on this car! Doh! I got down on the ground to inspect the damage. The driver's side rear wheel and tire looked fine, though the rotor was already very hot to the touch. It was the passenger side wheel which had taken the harder hit.

The parking brake had done its job - preventing the wheel from turning. The squealing noise, and the "big cloud of smoke" my wife was talking about had been from the tire screeching out a 200 yard long strip of black rubber on the road! The brake looked fine, but the tire itself was, well, let's put it this way - I'd been thinking that I might throw new tires on the thing, and now my mind is definitely made up - the thing will get new tires before I drive it.

Anyways, the rest of the drive home was fairly uneventful. The car is now sitting on the grass next to the driveway at my parent's house. After work today, I'm gonna return the rental truck, take my wife out to dinner, and then, *maybe* if it isn't too late, I'll throw a battery in the thing and fire it up.

-Nate

posted by 12.3.14...
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