The ubiquitous knuckleboom deuce

Just returned from pulling a stuck pickup truck up an icy hill. The man's truck had ended up across the narrow dirt road after sliding down the hill.
Fortunately, I still had the chains on the deuce so after parking the new trailer, another tricky thing to learn (it took almost 1/2 an hour to turn it around and get it right in the yard), I headed down the road to the pickup truck.
The crane was turned to the front of the deuce. We hooked up the front end of the PU to the extended boom. The PU front end was lifted and the vehicle set right on the road. Next, it was towed up the hill as I was backing up and he was on his way again. There were trees all around and along the road, so the crane had to be positioned vertically to swing around.
Note: The deuce was used in a 4x4 mode (no stub axle) and I 'm wondering if I will ever need it again.
Tried to upload more pictures, but the attachment manager timed out, must be doing something wrong.

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Today we experimented with two snatch blocks and used the crane as an improvised winch.
The mechanical advantage was 2:1 so the boom had to be lifted several times to complete the pull. The M37 was pulled over the hump and the engine was running at about 1,000 rpm completeing the job without difficulty. The wheels had to be chocked, needless to say.

Kenny, the wire rope is the one you gave me a couple of weeks ago, thanks! I think I found a use for it.
The 5-ton snatch blocks came from Colemans Surplus ($35/ea), as suggested by someone on this forum, thanks, excellent service.

Bjorn, was the exhaust brake stock or did you add it? If you added it, where did you get it? Nice vehicle!

I found the in-line butterfly valve in a muffler shop. The return spring was defective and I got it for ten bucks. For pictures:

http://imageevent.com/cranetruck/m35exhaustbrake

Bjorn, pretty cool man. Glad the cable came into use.

Checking out the "flag pole" for Aberdeen.

Shouldn't be a problem finding you there [^]