I just discovered, to my surprise, that I expect to take delivery of
an M561 Gama Goat soon. (What a coincidence! :-) I've only been near
one once, and I don't have any operator's or service manuals for one
yet. The truck might arrive before I can get my hands on a set of
manuals, so I have a few questions for my esteemed fellow list
members.
First, is there anything special that I need to know about starting,
driving and stopping one of these beasts, or will that all be readily
apparent to any 2.5-ton owner who sits down in the driver's seat?
Second, I'll need to deal with getting the truck off a plain flatbed
semi-trailer without access to a loading ramp. Some of you may have
seen the recent pictures of my 5-ton wrecker being unloaded:
http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/greentruck/truck3/pics.html
I imagine that a similar technique might be necessary to unload the
Goat, and I'm wondering if my M543A2 5-ton wrecker might be up to the
task. Some quick guesstimates, based on weights and dimensions from
the M561's transport guidelines (the only M561 TM I have) make me
think that it might be able to unload the Goat with a bit of care...
at least as long as the truss is installed to keep the Goat from
bending in the middle (which would make a much higher lift necessary,
I would guess), and assuming that I locate the wrecker to lift at the
shortest possible lift radius (i.e., locating the wrecker alongside
the semitrailer and doing a side lift at the shortest practical lift
radius). What do y'all think about this? The Goat is supposed to
include the truss, but I should be prepared to unload it without the
truss if necessary. For instance, it might not work properly, or I
might not know how to install the thing.
That brings me to the third question. You probably saw this one
coming: How do I install and remove the truss?
If anybody could provide an electronic (or even FAXed) copy of any
picture(s) showing the driver's controls/dashboard, or even
identifying the controls, that would be really great, and would help
me know what to expect if I can't get an operator's manual before I
need to drive the Goat into its parking space.
Some of you might be wondering why I bought this thing, since I
obviously know so little about it:
* It's a very unusual vehicle.
* It's butt-ugly.
* It looks needlessly complicated.
* It looks difficult to maintain.
* It has far more wheels and driven axles than I really need.
In other words, it has all of the features I look for in a green
truck! :-)
Thanks in advance for any information, advice, interesting Goat
stories, outbursts of jealousy, raucous laughter at my obvious mental
defect that makes me blow money on things like Gama Goats located 2/3
of a continent away from my home, offers to send me free beer and/or
cute 18-year-old cheerleaders, best wishes for my dog Lugnut, etc.
-- Mark J. Blair, KE6MYK <mblair1@home.net> PGP 2.6.2 public key available from http://www.keyserver.net/ Web page: http://www.qsl.net/ke6myk/ DO NOT SEND ANY UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL TO THIS SITE PLEASE SEND PLAIN ASCII TEXT ONLY -- NO HTML OR QUOTED-PRINTABLE
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