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Operation Hammer Down aka Operation Red Team Blue Team

spankrjs

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Biloxi
State
MS
Tommy and 'jatepper" already filled in most of it, I'll just add some details.

#1, A HUGE thank your to "jatepper". Thank you so much for everything you did for us. If you ever need a hand, please let us know :thumbsup::cheers::wave:

I left my house at 7:30 Friday night, got to Tommy's house around 9:45. I got back home last night at 9:45. So, 48 straight "road" hours for me.

I regret we didn't get to meet up in Marshall, TX, and meet a fellow forum member/get Tommy's parts, we were just out of time and completely exhausted/goofy in the heads by Sunday afternoon.

I am glad we got to meet "jatepper", and see some of his Jeeps. He has some very nice Jeeps :drool:

Don't eat at a gas station Wendy's. Bad idea.

Heated rear seats make for a comfortable bed.

I am very grateful we had no problems with Tommy's truck or trailer. No issues at all. We road that poor truck for all it was worth for two days straight at 80 mph unloaded, 75 mph loaded, never a whimper. I think it is a 2016 - 2018 Ford F150 Platinum Edition 4x4, V8 (no ecoboost crap) with a 10 speed automatic. I used to make fun of all extra's on this truck, because it ha everything Ford could put on an F150. But, some of that stuff is really nice for a trip like this.

When we left Louisiana Friday night, we knew the guy just had a u-joint issue. I figure this guy could fix that in an hour or two tops, be back on the road, heading our way. So, I figured we would meet up with him on I-10, us heading west, him heading east. I was thinking/hoping/praying for a short trip. Nope, never happened.

When you cross out of Louisiana on I-10 heading west, and the first sign you see tells you that El Paso is 875 miles away, and you still need to add about 500 miles to that to get to your final destination, kind of a gut punch!!!!!!!!!!!!! My recent Michigan trip was 1,100 miles one way, but at least those miles were spread out through Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, and Michigan. We spent over 900 miles in Texas alone, just one way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Texas is TOO BIG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Be nice to the Border Patrol people who have check points set up on I-10. They have big guns, and lots of them.

After we left Arizona, I was sleeping, somewhere east of El Paso. I suddenly feel the truck slowing down, hit some big bumps, and wake up to the truck being inside a hanger like structure, lots of bright lights and cameras. We were at a Border Patrol check point on I-10. The only think they asked us, "Are you US citizens?". We answered yes, they let us pass though. They have a bunch of scanner/sensors/hi-tech stuff you have to drive through, plus lots of dogs, and guns. Nice people, but they mean business. We were going to joke about the hitch hikers we picked up who were in the bed of the Scrambler, but luckily thought better of it...................

We spent about 5 minutes looking at the Scrambler, when Tommy finally got to it. The "mission" had completely taken over. It could have been a giant turd and we wouldn't have cared, we got it.

The Scrambler is most definitly NOT a giant turd. It is very very very very very very very nice. I never really was a fan of this paint color, or the garnet interior. I am now. This color combination looks amazing. Even though the trip was very exhausting, and the Scrambler is NOT mine, I never got tired of looking at it through the rear view mirrors, or looking at it during gas stops. It is a great Scrambler, I knew I should have purchased it :banghead:
 

Jeep Addict

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Baton Rouge
State
La
Also, his starter was going out. So, if he had to pull over for any reason and turn off his truck he may or may not have to wait for someone else to stop and turn the key in the ignition while he tapped on the starter to get the truck to start.

Probably the reason for the NEED A JUMP sign that he had. But yeah what a story
 

Jeep Addict

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Baton Rouge
State
La
Raymond if it makes you feel better you are the only one who has driven it. You unloaded it, loaded it, unloaded it again and parked it in the shop. I've been playing on this great CJ-8 forum for the past 4 hours today. I should probably leave the house now.
 

DeLuke

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Dallas
State
TX
Non-Scrambler question: what else did you get in parts??
 

jerseyjeeps

Crazy about AMC Jeeps
Lifetime Member
City
Landing
State
NJ
did you learn not to use U-ship??? What does it really save you? nothing. Teppers broker has done me right 5 Jeeps in a row...just saying..

seriously why are using Uship for such a rare original Jem? :oops:
 

Jeep Addict

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Baton Rouge
State
La
I ended up not using Uship in the end. But to answer your question, Yes! No more UShipping Jeeps I called Tepper's guy but there was an issue with me having parts in the back and the small timeline window could not be confirmed. Not that that mattered in the end. Originally the seller was supposed to drive to the the Jeep with all the parts and load them in the bed for transport. At the last minute I was informed that he was no longer driving but flying there. I will certainly use Tepper's guy in the future.
 
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OGRES

Ramblin' Wreck
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Lifetime Member
City
Suwanee
State
GA
That is an absolutely amazing story.

One that needs to be written up and published about what lengths some crazy jeep folks will go to to pick up a "new" jeep.

I am glad all made it through to tell the tale.
 

Ornj Krush

New member
City
Lake Country
State
BC
Wow what a journey.....you could not script that! I was so glad to read the poor u ship guy was ok. I thot the truck fell on him. At least a happy ending for all. Nice scrambler!!
We truly are a crazy lot....lol.
 

CJ7Pilot

18436572
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Yuba City
State
CA
What an adventure! I, like a lot of others here, thought the poor guy had died... once that was cleared up, the story got a lot better.

Good job, guys! :cheers:
 

ag4ever

Average Nut
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Silver Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Richmond
State
TX
Friday night he had left me a two minute coming to Jesus voicemail about his bad luck, the dark cloud that is always over his head, everyone thinks he's always lying about what happens to him, swearing on his grandson that all this bad luck is real and he would never steal from me and so on...

I've learned that bad luck does not always "find" you, sometimes you invite it right into your life. Running a rig down the road in that condition and having a major failure is not bad luck. That is poor planning. No way around that. It is really GOOD luck that he did not have a failure that resulted in a loss of control and seriously injuring other innocent motorists all the while loosing the load he was HIRED to transport. The next question is, did he have the commercial auto insurance required to haul for hire and did he have insurance that would have covered the costs if his poorly maintained vehicle had cause harm to others?

The next question is, where was the highway patrol (State Police, or other similar agency)? They should have found him on the side of the highway camped out for 2 days and acted to prevent loss of life.
 

spankrjs

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Biloxi
State
MS
I've learned that bad luck does not always "find" you, sometimes you invite it right into your life. Running a rig down the road in that condition and having a major failure is not bad luck. That is poor planning. No way around that. It is really GOOD luck that he did not have a failure that resulted in a loss of control and seriously injuring other innocent motorists all the while loosing the load he was HIRED to transport. The next question is, did he have the commercial auto insurance required to haul for hire and did he have insurance that would have covered the costs if his poorly maintained vehicle had cause harm to others?

The next question is, where was the highway patrol (State Police, or other similar agency)? They should have found him on the side of the highway camped out for 2 days and acted to prevent loss of life.

We called the local police to do a welfare check on him. They said his possible location was not in their jurisdiction. They gave us the number for the Arizona Public Safety Office. They said they would send a highway patrol man to check up on him and let us know his condition. We never heard back from them again.

As for the insurance, no idea, I would assume he does have it and U-Ship would verify this?

But, knowing U-Ship, probably not.
 

spankrjs

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Biloxi
State
MS
More "Orv notes".

I think the driver's name is Orville, Tommy called him Orv, but we also ended up calling him "Bork" for some reason. Getting"Borked" is now a euphemism for getting "F----D".

He told Tommy he took a job paying $450 to haul a load of furniture from Illinois to California. $450/$2.75 a gallon gas price is equal to about 163 gallons of fuel to drive 2,000 plus miles. 2,000/163 equals about 12 MPG. So, you take a job to hopefully break even on fuel costs ONLY?

He said his wallet was stolen in California, but yet he had ID to get PayPal money from Wal-Mart?

He was almost arrested in Wal-Mart for trying to take a bath in the sink.

He told Tommy he just needed another $175 advance to drive from Arizona to Baton Rouge. (over 1,200 miles, you can do the math)

Some of the first advance money Tommy gave him was supposed to be so his cell phone wouldn't get cut off. It got cut off anyway.

He got a flat driving to California on his trailer. "Don't worry, I got a sweet deal on four used tires!!".

He got a flat on his truck from running over a cactus in Arizona.

His trailer was rear ended by an eighteen wheeler, it only damaged the tail light on the trailer. I called BS on this, BUT when I went to pull one of the ramps off the back of his trailer, I couldn't because it was smashed into the trailer. Maybe true?

He wouldn't "swear on his grandma's grave", but he would "swear on my grandson's life".

The voice mail is hilarious.

He put his sleeping bag inside the Scrambler's cab. It still smells like something died in there.

He never told U-Ship he picked up the load. Tommy had to call U-Ship and tell them that he had video proof of their driver picking up the load so that they would mark it as being picked up.

U-Ship is worthless if you have a problem. We had to do all the work.


In the end, it all worked out, Tommy avoided getting "Borked up the tail pipe".

I am glad the driver is not dead in the desert. I can say that now.

I really thought old Orv was trying to pull a fast one somehow. All his stories were so far fetched. In the end, I think he was being honest about most of it. He had a run of self inflicted bad luck, for sure.

Still not sure how he is leaving Arizona with only the $140 cash deposit he got back from Autozone?

He might still be out there wondering the highways and bi-ways of the American south west, like some type of American/modern day "Road Warrior".

I doubt it.

He is more like "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation's Uncle Eddie". Yeah, that about sums up old Orv. Heart of gold, just everything else is a disaster :twocents:

We might send him some "Love's Truck Stop free shower tokens" for Christmas. Maybe.........................


Oh yeah, and don't ever listen to me about how "Oh, we can just drive out there and get it, no problem!".

LOL, it ended up being a cool adventure, and we can laugh about it now. Or maybe next week, after I catch up on sleep :rotfl:
 

Belizeit

CJ-8 Member
Gold Member
City
River Ridge
State
La
Glad everyone and everything made it. As we like to say where I work, low bid spec is not always the best thing !
 

ag4ever

Average Nut
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Silver Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Richmond
State
TX
When I bought my '82, I got it in Cottonwood Arizona. It was not running at the time. I had all kinds of crazy u-ship quotes. I ended up hooking a trailer to my truck and driving out there and hauling it back. It turned into a fun trip with my wife. We stopped at Taliesin West on the return trip and had a wonderful stop at a friend's house in Las Cruces, NM. (And yes, Texas is way to big in either direction, Louisiana - New Mexico --or-- Oklahoma - Mexico. Both directions just suck, and most of the scenery is flat boring land.)

I generally like to pick things up in person, partly for the fun of it, and partly because I have a bit of a trust issue, especially after seeing experiences like this.

The two of you will most definitely have a wonderful story to tell the rest of your lives, even if you did not want that experience. I'm sure y'all were red hot for the last 4+ days, but the story will become more funny with every passing day.

Where I work, CSP=Low Bid wins, CM@R=Best Value bid wins. Makes the CSP projects that much more fun.
 

Scramblin Man

Beyond help
Lifetime Member
City
Woodway
State
Tx
I agree that everyone I know that has continuous bad luck can look in the mirror to see the cause.
 

Jeep Addict

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Baton Rouge
State
La
My intention was never to use Uship. I certainly didn't pick him because he was the cheapest. I had the vehicle listed for about a week with a broker that I used a few times in the past. Only after that week was coming to an end with no carrier confirming pickup between 18-20 did I try Uship. After I booked with Uship I was then told by the seller that he was no longer driving as planned with the extra parts but flying. It turned out that the Uship driver was passing close to where the seller was and could pick up the parts. It just all seemed to be coming together in the beginning with the Uship driver. He could make the small pick up window and now pick up the extra parts being in a different location. It was more out of necessity to pick up between the 18-20 and him being the only candidate did I choose him. Absolutely do I wish the broker would have lined up a carrier to pick up the Jeep between the 18-20. I would have gladly shipped all of the parts. It just didn't work out that way.
 

jerseyjeeps

Crazy about AMC Jeeps
Lifetime Member
City
Landing
State
NJ
We called the local police to do a welfare check on him. They said his possible location was not in their jurisdiction. They gave us the number for the Arizona Public Safety Office. They said they would send a highway patrol man to check up on him and let us know his condition. We never heard back from them again.

As for the insurance, no idea, I would assume he does have it and U-Ship would verify this?

But, knowing U-Ship, probably not.

Yes....it’s sketchy. Not a lot of verification going on when I can sign up tomorrow and haul some cars and horses if I want to. And what was his feedback record. Tommy should be able to tell us that. It’s like an eBay record.... hmmmm ?
 

Jeep Addict

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Baton Rouge
State
La
Yes....it’s sketchy. Not a lot of verification going on when I can sign up tomorrow and haul some cars and horses if I want to. And what was his feedback record. Tommy should be able to tell us that. It’s like an eBay record.... hmmmm ?

I chose the guy with a 0 feedback since I wanted this to be as challenging as possible. JJ, your a Uship driver! You told me in the past you’ve slashed prices to pick up vehicles to cover gas since you were already headed that way. I assume this is how you know so much about Uship. My feedback on Uship is only 2 or 3. Does that mean I’m a terrible person? My eBay feedback is almost 800 maybe more. How does that correlate again?
 
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