I used one last summer. I helped a friend install a chain-link fence in his yard. We used a come-along - horizontally - to pull the fence tight at each post. Chain-link doesn't pull easily.
In British English this appears to be a "Hand Puller (Winch)":
I think the last time I used one of my collection of different types of come alongs was a couple of years ago when the ledger board on our home's deck became rotten to the core because the sods who built the place about 18 years earler didn't bother spending a few extra bucks for a piece of pressure treated lumber.
We put temporary props under the deck, disconnected the joists from the ledger board and swapped in a new PT ledger board.
I used a come along to pull on the deck so the joists were held firmly back in contact with the ledger while we fastened a new set of hanger brackets in place.
A padded piece of 2x6 across the inside of a fortuitously located open window provided a handy place to pull against.
Jeff
Fortuitous is the right word. If I'd been doing that, my luck is such that the window would have been closed.
Is that you or a little Wisnia in the picture?
My last 3 cars haven't been able to use a bumper jack, but I still saved the one from my Buick for who knows what I''ll need it for?
It is amazing how many uses a come-along has. Beside latching my convertible top three years now, I've used it several times.
One was the classic example of straightening a fence post. My gate was rubbing on the sidewalk, so I unnailed the rails and ran the come-along cable from the post the gate hung on to the next post . I crancke the handle, but the post wouldn't move. So I ran the garden hose for 10 minutes and the post moved fine.
The posts were 4" round wood ones, and in answer to someone's comment, that time, or when I ran the cable around something even smaller, I sort of kinked the cable**, but so far it hasn't given me any problem. Maybe I wrapped it up on the spool and let it sit for a year, don't remember.
**The ones that use chains won't have that problem of course, but mine was very cheap, under 20 dollars.I left a little grey line on two of those posts, but you have to get withing 6 feet to see it, and no one will ever notice. The paint is pitted with brown spots, looking like little volcanos, all over the yellow posts. I think 15 years ago the paint was a lot better.
Heh! Don't use it on a bumper!
Modern bumpers are designed to come off. Or crumple. Or just die of shame.
And a Jeep, no less. Doubly humiliating.
I guess if they attached the chain to the axle, they might have ripped off the axle. Probably have to attach it to both axles, or both ends of both axles.
I got stuck in the sand once at Breezy Point, or whatever is west of Riis Park on a barrier island at the end of Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn. Everything was fine until I slowed down. (from 20 or 25mph to 10)
I looked around and saw 2 or 3 rusted hulks of cars, from when the tide came in and covered the cars with salt-water. Or at least a foot deep.
After I tried for a while, I saw a guy on the sand with a Jeep or pickup and asked him to tow me out. He refused.
I tried more of the same. I tried rocking the car. No good. I let air out of my rear tires, but it didn't help. This was before cell phones. I thought of walking back to the last gas station. It was 2 or 3 miles and I didn't know if the tide was going out or coming in. I had a girl with me at the time, and I'm sure she was impressed, although that was the least of my worries.
30 or 45 minutes after I asked him, the guy came over and towed me to a place where the sand was shallow and there was firm dirt under the sand. I think he just wanted me to sweat a bit so I wouldn't do it again. I think he said that. He wouldn't take money.This was back when cars were cars. It was probably a '67 Pontiac Catalina. convertible.
I remember the first time I visited Daytona Beach, maybe 40 years ago, and just HAD to try driving my rental car down the beach.
Of course I got it stuck in the sand. And, along came a guy with a Jeep and a tow line who got me free and off the beach for IIRC just $5.
The thing I never forgot about it was his tow line which was a giant piece of elastic (bungee?) cord maybe 20 feet long unstretched. After attaching it to my car he roared off ahead of me and that damn line looked like it stretched three times its length before my car started moving.
I never really understood what principle was involved in the use of an elastic tow line, but I'd be happy to find out here.
Jeff
I might have one of those. I'm not sure. I probably bought it 20 years ago and put it in the big tupperware box in my trunk. I rarely open it, and I've forgotten what exactly is in there.
I do know that I have two melmac plates, and 2 forks, 2 spoons, and 2 knives. I've been carrying them for 30 years and only had one occasion to use them. But it was worth it for that one time.
I have spare fuses, and a piece of non-electric wire. I used to have a 12 volt floodlight, but I think I had to take it out to make more room.
And I have a yellow band (like a tape, 2 inches wide) with big cast hooks at each end, silver colored. I know it is meant for towing, but i forget if it is elastic or not. I know I haven't had occasion to do that in 20 years either, and might not have the nerve even if there was a reason. I'd be afraid once the car behind me took off, it would rear end me. I don't trust the other driver. Well, maybe I will when I know who he is.
And I have a pair of sneakers on their last legs. I used to carry cover-alls to but I lost them when my car was stolen. But I got new sneakers. Once my car broke down between 5th and 6th on 47 or 49 st. in NYC. I was wearing nice leather shoes and didn't want to scratch them when I was lying under the car. (It was about 6:30 PM on a weeknight, and very quiet on that block.) Then I didn't want to damage my socks so I took them off too, and I walked around 47th St. for over an hour, working on the car, going to a pay phone, waiting until a friend brought me parts, and I didn't cut my feet at all, or ever get them very dirty. But I still carry old shoes now.
And salt and pepper, whhich I use pretty often.
A stretch as far as you describe seems a bit excessive, the reason for using elastic gtwo ropes is to prevent either breakage of the tow rope or ripping off your bumper or whatever due to a sudden shock, for instance, when the towing car gets the rope fully extended and it suddenly jerks on your car.
That akes sense now that I think about it...
Jeff
Also, because of the inertia of the fast moving tow vehicle, the elastic tow rope can exert a pull greater than the tow vehicle can exert from a standstill. A non-elastic tow rope can do the same thing if the vehicles can stand the shock but the elastic works much better.
Don Young
Have these items been in the same car for 20 years, or in a succession of cars?
It's good to have an emergency kit in the car. Mine includes much of what you listed, plus a first aid kit, jumper cables, tools (including hand-axe), two MREs, smallish tarp, smallish thermal blanket, fire extinguisher, five dollars in coins, cigarette lighter, pistol, short-barreled 16 gauge shotgun, and about 200 rounds of ammunition.
I used to carry a spare, clean, dress shirt and condoms. But with age and (now) no wife, they seem superfluous.
OK, I knew stealing sneakers had been all the rage in the past couple decades, but I didn't know it had progressed to taking the owner's legs along with them. Even so, I don't get why you would keep the legs, and not put the sneakers onto your own.--unless you use them as stilts or something.
¬R
Glenn has already wondered about the sneakers and whose legs they are on. I wonder, in addition, how you will guarantee those are their last legs. Will you direct your heirs to destroy them? How well do you trust the administrator of your will?
How does it work in an emergency? Do you creep up on a tow-truck and shake the seasoning on the crane? I imagine you have a very refined technique by this time.
Three cars in the last 21 years, all Chysler LeBarons. All in the same blue Rubbermaid** container, about 13" by 18" by 6" high. I think once or twice the trunk got wet, so I switched to the plastic box. or maybe it was that the car's trunk is so small compared to my Catalinas and my Centurion, that I needed to put it all in one box, so I could take it all out easily when I needed more space. I can't remember which.
**I said Tupperware before. I meant Rubbermaid.
I've found it's better to get others to do my work for me. Let them run around. I'm going to be an executive when I grow up.
He's not chosen yet. Sure my brother is listed as executor, in a will I haven't updated since 1973 (because, sadly, so little has changed that it's still correct on the big ticket items. My mother has died, but I allowed for that in the original will.) But he lives thousands of miles away, and didn't even show interest in my mother's estate, left it all up to me, so he would transfer the money correctly, if I'm lucky enough to still have some (or unlucky enough to die early), but getting him to do anything with my "stuff" will be impossible.
So I have to pick out some person locally to dispose of my stuff to people who can use it. My ex-girlfriend is very compatible with me on stuff like this, and would do a good job, but she's short of time and money, and she's only an ex, so I have to figure out a salary or formula that's generous enough that she'll actually want to do this, even though she has a full time job. OTOH, she's only 15 years younger than I, and if I live long enough, she may be an old lady by the time I die. (That's stretching it. I'll likely not live past 90, adn she'll only be 75, and probably very healthy and active. She still weighs what she did in junior high school, and her mother and aunt are still slim too, and very active.
But if she's still working, say she's 64 and I'm 79, she really won't have enough time, so I'm trying to find a category of person, like a mother from a thrifty family who needs a part-time job, that my friend can hire to do the work. I guess I would give her the authority to pick that person's salary. (My brother will trust her if say she's ok.)
i havent done it yet, but i intend to compile a list of friends who get first crack at my stuff/
And then I'm going to leave instructions on what sort of person to hire to advertise my antique radios and other things people might want, and to have yard sales for the junk, and what to give away free because only someone like me or the people on ahr would want it, because I don't want anything going to the dump if I can avoid it.
I mean, if I saw my stuff, I would want almost all of it**, so someone else must want it too.
**I got to get rid of the broken tvs to make room for all the tv's that will be in the trash next February. If I hadn't broken my arm, I'd be further along on this.Mostly, where I park, I'm often attacked by snails and slugs, and I sneak up on them and salt them, and they shrivel up. And occasionally I put it on emergency food.
Sounds like you really pick 'em. Get on this now!
Yeah? But how much younger than you is Brother? Is he likely to be around in a time of need? Get on this now!
Donate it online now to freecycle and meet wonderful new people.
Get on this now!
Oh, yeah! You gotta get on this. (Before the Reaper gives you the come-along treatment!)
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