Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ road trip/swap...

[epcivic]

sorry guys, no pics yet...



Friday February 5th, my buddy and I forced ourselves up out of bed at around 4:30am after a relatively sleepless night to get ready for a long road trip up to Allentown, Pa.. (about 820 miles away) We left Evansville, In after filling up at around 5:30am. At this time it was just cold, rainy, and damp. Things were rather uneventful until we got to Cincinatti, where the snow had begun to fall. We get about an hour northeast of Cincinatti and it (the snow) is becoming pretty thick… We motor on, stopping for more gas and some 5 hour energy drink (that shit really works) about a third of the way across Ohio. In the meantime, the snow is just getting heavier and heavier. I’d say by about dusk, we’re already in West Virginia and we’re having to slow down some because it’s getting pretty nasty out. Snow was beginning to stick to the interstate roads in places and it was starting to get slick, so I needed to “slow my roll” some so I’m already slowing down to the fifties on a seventy mph highway. By the time we cross over the Pennsylvania state line, there’s a full winter storm going on and we now are getting maybe 100 feet visibility and having to slow to the mid thirties/low forties, which was kinda sucking because we should’ve already been there by then.
Here’s where it starts getting interesting. We are on this six lane interstate at like seven in the evening and all around us is snow and wrecked or stalled or hung up cars, trucks, and suv’s. This whole time I’m thinking out loud that that’s some f’d up shit, because if all of these people knew that some guy with a paralyzed right arm, driving a lil lowered civic that’s a five speed on top of that, was motoring past them with no trouble whatsoever, how would they react? Lol You know maybe I shouldn’t have been thinking that….
Well as I said, the interstate was six lanes and I just tried to stay in the middle, because the other open lanes were not being traveled and there were no tracks I could use as a guide anyway. Now by this time, I’d slowed down to between twenty-five/thirtyish mph because it was getting BAD out. Really the only vehicles out in this nasty weather were big rigs and a few four by fours because any idiots (aside from me) had better sense than to be out in this shit. We got about a hundred miles from our destination and things were going fairly smooth and uneventful so far, but alas things would not stay that way for much longer.
Big rigs and truck people really must think that nothing will ever affect them, because they would just keep flying by me like I was just sitting there. Then about nine or so, this truck comes up behind me and starts riding my ass for about a mile or so and decides to pass me on the right side because I won’t merge over in to the next lane, which is a snowy wasteland. This idiot gets right up beside my rear quarter and he’s within mere inches of smacking me in the side, so I attempt to slowly merge over to my left to try and get out of his way so he can pass me. We were on a gradual left hand bend in the road, so it was slightly angled for rain runoff I suppose. My car began to lose traction in this untraveled section of the highway and I began to spin and slide sideways. I’m thinking this whole time, “NO NO NO…” I tried to counter steer out of the slide, but because the highway was at an angle, I had no traction. Once I straightened out the car just started sliding laterally to the edge of the road. My buddy kept trying to coach me out of this, but it was no use. We were ditch bound…
Luckily for us, the ditch was just a mild incline that went maybe twenty feet from the road to a runoff, then back up another mild embankment. We slid down the incline to the runoff and got stuck there. My buddy got out to survey the area and to see if we could get out of this mess. He gets back in and tells me to try and go from first to reverse, first to reverse, etc. (try and rock it back and forth) I tried to do that a few times and then we switched and he tried to no avail… Some guy in a jeep rolls up and asks us if we’re ok, which we were, just butthurt from the embarrassment of what happened. I’m totally freaked out and pissed off because I was sure we’d make it without incident and I’d get my swap done by morning. But NO, this shit had to happen… The dude asked us if we had any drugs in the car, which we didn’t and then said “don’t you wish you able to just get stoned now?” What an idiot… He apologized he wasn’t able to help, wished us luck, and he rolled off. Then some chicks slowed to a stop on the highway beside us, creeped forward slowly and just took off. My buddy and I were thinking WTF?!! One other guy stopped and tried to help us push the car out, but we weren’t getting out without a tow truck. We call 911 and gave directions to where we were and to send out a tow truck to help get us out. By this time it was already almost midnight.
About a half an hour after we called, a flatbed pulls up and a flood of relief began to wash over me. Finally we were going get out…
WRONG… This guy chains up my tow hook to his truck, starts to pull us out and then HE gets pulled down the embankment too… So now not only am I stuck, but the guy trying to get us out is stuck too. Just freaking great… He had to call his supervisor and tell someone there to get HIM out as well as me. Meanwhile my guy up in Allentown is calling me to find out what’s up and where we are. All we can say is “we’ll get there when we get out”… I mean what else can we say? Finally about forty-five minutes later, a second tow truck shows up. But this one is BEEFY and is four wheel drive too. The guy pulls us out first and then pulls out the other truck. It took all of five minutes for him, whereas the other guy got stuck. (what a retard) The effin thing is, the whole time we were sitting in that ditch before the tow trucks came, snowplows would drive by and not even slow down. But when they would see the tow truck hung up, they’d pull over to see if he needed help… WTF?!!
After I paid the tow truck guy for his service, ($150) we were slowly on our way again. By this time, the snow was so heavy that we were reduced to about twenty-twenty-five mph, maybe thirty in certain parts. But the thing is, we never gave up…
Finally we’re in the home stretch and about a mile (seriously) from the place, but we have this big ass hill to go over first before we get there. We make it up about 2/3rds of the hill before we are going so too slow and spinning. We stop, call the guy and tell him we’re almost there, but we can’t get over this big hill. We told him we’re going back down and going to try it again and if we can’t make it we’ll call him back. We go down the hill. Go a bit down the road. We turn around and about that time a snowplow drives by. He scrapes most of the snow off the road. SWEET… We hammer it up the hill, start spinning my tires at about the same spot as before, but we aren’t losing any momentum. We crest the hill… YES!!!
We pulled in to his drive at about 4:25am on Saturday morning. By noon that day, we’re going home…

About twenty three hours of driving, including being pulled out of a ditch. Then he/his buddies do the swap in less than five hours and we headed right back.

We left at about 1:30pm Saturday and got back to Evansville, In at around 9:30 the next morning. Why did it take so long to get back? Two words: REST STOPS…

[jdmitrna]

(IMG:http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads14/dayum+from+friday11457756851224075516.jpg)

[FD3S]

haven't said this in a long time
TL;DR

[THE REAL DEAL]

(IMG:http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploads14/dayum+from+friday11457756851224075516.jpg)

(IMG:http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/Deadbent/WhoaNigga-1.jpg)

[jdmitrna]

That sucks John. At least it's all over with. That dude I the semi needed to be shot! Oh and what did you guys do from the time you got stuck to being pulled out????? Did you stay outside that whole time?

[epcivic]

That sucks John. At least it's all over with. That dude I the semi needed to be shot! Oh and what did you guys do from the time you got stuck to being pulled out????? Did you stay outside that whole time?

HELLZ NO... full tank.... warm car...

[epcivic]

(IMG:http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b358/Deadbent/WhoaNigga-1.jpg)

then don't read it....

[THE REAL DEAL]

then don't read it....

well it kinda sucks because i want to. :lol: i always get a kick out of reading your stories even though i'm sure this one isn't as exciting as the gimp arm ass slap, the treadmill, or farting at work.

edit: i gave in and read. that sounds like a really shitty trip but i'm impressed by the 5 hour swap. it took us a couple days to get a b16 swapped into my friend's eg. i almost put my car into a guard rail on 41 last time it snowed. scared the shit out of me.

This post has been edited by THE REAL DEAL: Feb 8 2010, 10:00 PM

[BlackCavyZ]

That sucks big time John, but at least it's over with and you got your new engine. Plus you get another crazy story to tell people. That's what road trips are all about lol.

[epcivic]

well it kinda sucks because i want to.  :lol: i always get a kick out of reading your stories even though i'm sure this one isn't as exciting as the gimp arm ass slap, the treadmill, or farting at work.

edit: i gave in and read. that sounds like a really shitty trip but i'm impressed by the 5 hour swap. it took us a couple days to get a b16 swapped into my friend's eg. i almost put my car into a guard rail on 41 last time it snowed. scared the shit out of me.

yeah i was definitely impressed by the quickness of the swap... at 1st, i was concerned corners were cut, but i was wrong. these guys are goooooooood...

[EJ1 CRP 94]

holy shit...goood read!

good thing teh panda has no damages :)

[06sinside]

sounds like a very loooooong weekend.....BTW did they drop the subframe and lift the car over?

[epcivic]

sounds like a very loooooong weekend.....BTW did they drop the subframe and lift the car over?

OHH THE WEEKEND DEFINITELY SUCKED... at least till my car was done. :P

and yeah they dropped the subframe put the old engine on a dolly and rolled it out from underneath. put the new engine on another dolly and reversed the process.

[Heath]

....and it's a quick lil sumbitch too.