[richard2717]

Years back my buddy talked me into getting a beach pass for my 79' toyota 4x4. We go into the guard shack I pay the fifty bucks and get the sticker. He puts his on his Bronco II and I put mine on the yoda. Jump in truck and key wont go in ignition. Messed with it for 20 minutes. Had some tools and a bfh. Used BFH to bust column apart so I could remove key side of ignition. Then took switch side of ignition out and used flat blade screwdriver to start truck. Looks real nasty, I am mad but truck starts so we go on to the beach. Go several miles down the beach ( almost to VA line)and park both trucks. Get out and spend day enjoying the beach. Later in the afternoon we decide to leave, I break out trusty screwdriver to start truck and NOTHING. No electrical just NOTHING. I get out of truck look under hood, don't see anything obvious at first, then notice that the starter is hanging under the truck by the cables. walk several hundred feet tracing tracks and find one nut and one bolt. Realize threads are stripped in aluminum bell housing so bolt wont go back in. Stud for the nut has crushed threads from starter rubbing back and forth so nut wont go back on. Find pair of vice grips and clamp starter to bell housing. Truck fires up and away we go. couple hundred yards later truck shuts down. Vice grips apparently not tight enough. Cant find vice grips. Search for 20 minutes told my buddy to stop laughing and back his truck up. Vice grips were under his tire. Get vice grips back on and use several wire ties to secure them to the firewall so I dont have buddy running over them again. Vice grips don't seem to like the curvature of bell housing, a mile later they fall off again. I figure no big deal at least I know where they are Go to push clutch in to bring truck to stop and pedal falls to floor and stays there. Look under truck and fluid everywhere. When starter fell positve post shorted out on hyd. clutch line. Now really mad. still have two miles of beach to cover and more people are laying out on beach in way. No clutch now so have to start out in low 1 to get truck moving. Sand dead enough cant shift before truck comes to stop. Labor engine for next mile of beach. Get bright idea to got off main beach and take access road behind dunes to avoid people on beach. Bad idea. deeper sand made for harder labor of engine and wild horses standing in road way. No stopping for horses just blow the horn.Then we come up on riders on horseback. Tell buddy to go around me since he had a pa on his cb and I didnt. Told them to clear out cause I could not stop. Looked like Moses parting the red sea . Finally get to blacktop and while waiting for truck to cool down some and buddy to fill air in his tires I notice I had some new brake lines laying in the back of the truck from something else I had been working on. Crawl under truck on hot blacktop and remove remenants of line. Lines in back of truck look right so I proceeded to bend new one to similar coils of existing one. I was proud for a short moment until I crawl back under truck on hot blacktop again and realize toyota metric/ old chevy standard thread. Crawl back out from under truck go to front bumper walk over to guard house tell them where they can place sticker. Get in truck and tell buddy that I will drive to Napa a few miles away and get metric line and more fluid. Pull up to Napa to find out they close at noon on Sunday. Drive truck 35 miles home no clutch. Drove truck like that for two more weeks until I got my 69 chevy back on the road. Me and my buddy dont talk much anymore. Never have been back to the beach either