To those of you who weren't aware, I bought a 1966 222 station wagon from
a fellow in Tulsa on ebay. We went Tuesday to pick it up, armed with a flatbed
trailer and 2x10 yellow pine ramps. The trailer is usually used to move OLD
cars (and to the trailer's owner, OLD means single-digit year model, i.e.1904,
etc). There was some concern that the ramps would break under the station
wagon's greater weight. For that reason we placed a block under the center
of one ramp and a scissor jack under the center of the other one. (BTW the
wagon would not move under its own power because of uninstalled clutch hydraulics, missing battery, loose carbs, etc.) The previous owner, his son and my friend pushed while I steered. It was tough going and at one point the
block and the jack popped out from under the ramp, but they were able to push
the car onto the trailer OK. After that we noticed that the hooks on the ramps
had come out of the slots at the end of the trailer and were up on the floor of
the trailer bed. (??) We made the 45 mile trip back to Bartlesville OK and
with some effort managed to get the trailer backed into a narrow part of my
driveway so that the car could coast down the driveway to where my garage is.
It was about 9 pm by that time and pretty dark. Figuring again that support
under the ramps was a good idea, we set them up and with me in the driver's
seat again, rolled the car back. Just as we got the back wheels onto the ramps
they popped out straight and jumped out from under the car so it was sitting
on its swingarms on the edge of the trailer, wheels dangling in the air.
"OK, what do we do now, coach??" ran across my mind. First thing we decided to
do was get the swingarms off the trailer bed. So with a flashlight, blocks
and scissor jack we started jacking up the differential. Pretty soon we had
both wheels clear of the 2x10 ramps and looked for something to put under them.
I had some solid wood ramps about 4 feet long made of laminated 2x12 lumber,
about 9" high so I dragged them out and with a little more jacking we got them
under the rear wheels. (Not having decided yet how to get the car off the
trailer, we put them in sloping end forward.) After a bit of thought and
discussion we elected to jack again and turn the ramps around and then uncouple
the trailer (after chocking its wheels). The trailer had very heavy pipe
guards around its taillights so that when fully tipped up it still had about
10" ground clearance from bed to pavement. The trailer was pretty tongue-heavy
so we gradually rolled the car back, about 4" at a time until the tongue was
just sitting on the hitch. We then began jacking the front of the trailer and
it came up all the way pretty quick so we were able to roll the car off the
trailer onto the ramps and then down the driveway. ET was about 2 hours because
of delays collecting blocks, deciding how to go about this, etc.
In retrospect we conclude that the springs in the trailer allowed us to
outsmart ourselves because we didn't consider how much the bed of the trailer
would sink with the weight of the car on it, or with changing position of the
weight. We're pretty sure that the ramps would have been fine if we had just
TRUSTED them. (Is this a faith lesson or what???) and the ramps would have
stayed put rather than doing the teeter-totter thing on the blocks we put
under the middle of them. 20/20 hindsight, they say.

The car is now safely in my driveway. It needs rebuilding of both clutch
cylinders, a battery, maybe some ignition work, reinstallation (or replacement)
of the ignition switch and final hookup of carburetors to get it operational.

Only one body part has serious damage. That's the nose, the front panel that
holds the grilles. If anybody knows where I can get one of these, preferably
white, gray, celery green, etc, in good shape for a reasonable price, I'm VERY interested. The one on this car has holes rusted through it.

It was quite a trip. I'll keep you posted.
--
George Downs, The "original" Walrus3, Bartlesville, Oklahoma