Spring is definitely the time of year when we decide to shed more “stuff.” That was certainly the case in 2023, when I posted a combination washer-dryer, tent, bike carts, and the biggest deal of all, a Model Z45/22 Genie Boom Lift on Craigslist.
Much to John’s dismay, the Genie Boom had been on my “we-need-to-deal-with-this” list for far too long. It had not been started in years; it was taking up space; and we might be able to use it to close in the skylight and paint the soffits on the cupola roof. The previous year, John had worked to getting it running; however, the summer ended before he finished the task. Now that we had acquired another pickup and a fifth wheel would be joining it in July, dealing with the Genie Boom rose to the top of our “critical-path” task list. We needed the extra parking space.
We purchased the Genie Boom nearly twenty years ago. It was used to put up solar panels when we were off grid and to perform other work on the second and third stories of the house. It had served its purpose. For many years, it’s primary function was simply holding up a very large green tarp that covered it.
The first question was whether it would start. Because John was not sure he could get it running, I left a message with a local company to see how much it would cost to have them haul it away. The Genie Boom must have heard my conversation, since after additional efforts by John, it started. That was a happy turn of events! The next test was seeing if the hydraulics still worked. Much to our surprise, they did.
Because of its weight (almost seven tons), over the years, the Genie Boom had been slowly sinking into the ground. The first of many tasks on our quest to sell it required John to dig the soil out from underneath the body and away from the tires. It was then when, much to our dismay, John discovered that one of the tires was flat. This would make moving it much more difficult. While the Genie Boom was not between a rock and a hard spot; it was between a large birch tree and diesel fuel tank, neither of which could be moved.
I then spent several hours cleaning the Genie Boom, getting it ready to photograph for its appearance on Craigslist. Over the years, I have had lots of luck writing ads and pricing items we have sold this way…everything from a 1966 International Harvester dump truck to furniture, appliances, recreational gear, and 315-pound batteries. Only time would tell what interest there would be in the Genie Boom.
The ad for the Genie boom stated that it was a two-wheel drive, had one flat tire, and was priced to sell, all of which were true. We just wanted it to be gone; we were not looking to recoup what we had paid for it those many years ago.
As soon as the ad was placed at 9:00 p.m. on a Saturday night, there was an amazing feeding frenzy like you see when you throw fish food into the water where a group of koi fish reside. I clearly had hit the sweet spot on the price. Now it was a matter of sorting through the emails for someone that seemed both serious and reasonable. This was where my intuition came in.
After reading through the several dozen responses I received, I recommended John call a man named Tom. His wife, Laura, had emailed me twice via Craigslist. While Tom was at work on the North Slope, he really wanted to purchase the Genie Boom. He said while Laura could bring the check over the next day (on Monday); he wouldn’t be back in town until the following Friday. He further indicated he had a long trailer and, if necessary, he could bring a tractor over to pull the Genie Boom out from between the tree and diesel tank.
John and I agreed to sell the Genie Boom to Tom. He sounded not only serious and reasonable, but he also seemed to have the necessary equipment and know how to retrieve it. We were ecstatic! Unbeknownst to us, however, we had just climbed into a roller coaster for a wild ride with an unknown ending.
The morning of the day when Tom was planning to pick up the Genie Boom, John was outside early. While he managed to get the Genie Boom started and to move an inch or two, now the hydraulics would not raise or lower the boom. After working for another hour and failing to solve the problem, John reluctantly called Tom to let him know. With our permission, Tom, although disappointed, backed out of our deal.
The pressure now off, both John and I worked to troubleshoot the issue checking out the manual and searching online. After I discovered the “manual retractor,” John figured out the problem. The speed on the boom had been turned down to “creep.” Now that the hydraulics were working, John called Tom to explain what had happened. The deal was back on.
Tom and Laura arrived mid-afternoon with their pickup and trailer. After looking over the Genie Boom and chatting for an hour or so, Tom gave us our asking price. He and Laura said they would be back the next day to retrieve the Genie Boom. Once again, we had our hopes up; the roller coaster was at the top of the track.
The next day, John was outside early once again to make sure the Genie Boom would start. Not surprisingly, it decided to be difficult once again. This time, John assumed the problem must be the batteries. Thankfully, after Tom and Laura arrived with their trailer, the Genie Boom started. Now, however, it refused to move. The conclusion reached by Tom and John was that it was drawing too much on the batteries. With that, Tom and Laura headed to Anchorage to buy two new batteries.
After they returned in the late afternoon, it took a while, but Tom and John were able to install the new batteries and get the Genie Boom started. With John operating the Genie Boom and Tom pulling it with his truck, the Genie Boom, flat tire and all, was extricated from the hole. This was definitely a cause for celebration! Everyone could now all see how far it had settled into the ground. It was no wonder it had not been not possible to move it under its own power, especially with one flat tire.
I also should add, that once, before Tom pulled the Genie Boom out of the hole and two times after that, the engine quit. Each time it took about fifteen minutes for it to start again. My blood pressure (and the roller coaster) went up and down with each of these episodes. I tried to keep myself occupied during these sessions by raking leaves. I felt like I needed to do something productive.
Now that the Genie Boom was out of the hole, it wouldn’t move far with a flat tire. It needed the traction that a flat tire could not provide. Tom planned to return the next day to remove the tire, which was quite deformed, and fix it himself. That seemed like an impossible task. It was been quite the day of highs and lows. At least, if our deal fell through, we knew it would be easier for a wrecker to haul it away.
The next morning, John happily shoveled gravel into the hole where the Genie Boom had been sitting for so long. We then drove to a neighbors’ house to borrow two different kinds of jacks to assist in lifting the Genie Boom.
When Tom arrived later that morning, we celebrated the fact that Scott’s jack raised the Genie Boom high enough that the tire could be removed. Unfortunately, removing the tire provided its own set of challenges. The lug nuts on the wheel were a very large metric size. One would think that between Tom and John’s socket sets, one of them would have had the correct size socket. However, that would have been too easy.
While Tom made a run to the nearest auto parts store to get the correct size socket, John went to our neighbor’s place again, this time to borrow a blowtorch. The blowtorch was required to melt an adhesive used to secure the lug nuts to the bolts. After Tom returned, using the torch and correct size socket, he was able to remove the flat tire. Counting the trip to the store, the whole process had taken another 2.5 hours.
The revised plan was for Tom to come back later that day to reinstall the tire and then (hopefully) drive the Genie Boom up onto the trailer. That plan went awry when Tom called late in the afternoon to say he was still working on fixing the tire.
As we were treading water in the afternoon, while still in the roller coaster and assuming Tom would be back to haul away the Genie Boom, another drama began to unfold after I suggested to John that perhaps we should take time the following morning to move the wood splitter. Not surprisingly, my suggestion was met with “the look” even though we had previously decided we would need an additional parking area for our new fifth wheel after we picked it up in July. The obvious location was a space south of our firewood stacks in a semi-open area where we parked vehicles in a pinch.
The first step in turning that area in an actual parking space required moving the wood splitter that was sitting on the same wooden pallet on which it was delivered a few years ago. Weighing 550 pounds, even though it had two wheels, it was far too heavy for John and me to move on our own. It would need to be moved with a vehicle. Because we planned to move it west of our firewood stacks, both pickups were too large to maneuver it into that space. My Subaru Forester, which already had a hitch installed, became the obvious candidate for that job. The only catch was that I needed the correct size ball for my hitch, which required an hour-long trip to town….
Early the next morning, we went outside with the goal of moving the wood splitter. We were presented with two challenges. The first was moving the wood splitter itself; the second was moving the heavy platform. Rummaging through our pile of “excess construction materials,” we found scrap wood to use to create some temporary steps next to the platform. After hitching the wood splitter to my car, I was able to successfully roll it off the platform and onto the ground. That done, John figured out how to lever the platform up on end and then lay it upside down on a garden cart.
First cutting several pieces of treated wood, we managed to muscle the platform to its new location using the cart. After placing it on top of the treated wood and leveling it with blocks, we built temporary steps along the west side. I then succeeded, with only a few tries, to back the wood splitter onto the platform with my car.
After unhitching the wood splitter from my car and removing the temporary steps, John and I began, by hand, swinging the wood splitter around 90 degrees. As we did, one of the wheels dropped off the platform, which got the adrenaline going. It then took a fair amount of effort and a few choice words to keep it from rolling all of the way off. We managed through shear grit and determination, supplemented with adrenaline, to get all four wheels back onto the platform and situated in its new spot. It had been an exhausting morning, but our mission had been accomplished.
Tom called mid-afternoon to say he had fixed the tire and was on his way, once again, with the trailer. We could only hope that the third time would be the charm and that the Genie Boom didn’t have any other tricks up its sleeve. At least we had succeeded in moving the wood splitter, so the day was not lost. The roller coaster was back on the top of the track.
When Tom and Laura arrived, we still couldn’t believe he had been able to repair what was most likely an original Genie Boom tire, especially after it had been sitting flat down in the dirt supporting several tons of weight for who knows how many years.
Both the resilience of the tire and Tom’s ability to resuscitate it were impressive. However, Tom did have a financial incentive, since a new tire would have set him back at least another $700. We all breathed a sigh of relief when, not only did the tire go back on without any problems, it held after the jack was lowered.
When the Genie Boom started without any trouble, we were almost to the point of being giddy. However, ensuring we would not get too cocky, the Genie Boom had another curve ball to throw at us. While it was happy to start, it now refused to move forward. That was a super bummer!
After Tom and John worked on it for over an hour, it reluctantly moved forward, but only for a few inches. All the while, I continued raking leaves trying to place myself in suspended animation. The roller coaster had taken another dive.
Finally, after quietly conferring with each other, John and I offered to give Tom and Laura their money back and pay them for the cost of the new batteries as well. While Laura seemed to be interested, Tom said he wasn’t yet ready to give up. He had clearly already bonded with the Genie Boom. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that everyone was discouraged.
With few, if any options left, Tom reached for one last lifeline. He called his nephew, who is a mechanic. His nephew said he could meet Tom at our house the following day to try to diagnose the problem. That made us feel a bit better on one level; however, the entire stressful saga seemed to be dragging on for an eternity…and we had lots of other things we needed to be doing.
During the conversation, Tom’s nephew said it sounded like the Genie Boom needed more hydraulic fluid. I immediately offered to drive to town to purchase some. However, that wasn’t necessary after John disappeared into our generator shed and emerged with a five-gallon container of the precious fluid, which Tom poured into the thirsty Genie Boom.
Climbing back into the bucket once again, miraculously, the Genie Boom began moving forward, albeit very slowly. Laura, John, and I immediately jumped into action, getting behind three of the tires and pushing as hard as humanly possible, which helped it move forward or so it seemed. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but at least we were doing something to facilitate the end of this saga. I remember pushing so hard that my body was almost horizontal to the ground, my work boots digging into the gravel.
With us pushing, Tom was able to drive the Genie Boom to the back of the trailer and then turn it so it was roughly lined up with the trailer ramp. The roller coaster was at the top of the rails again. Then, just when we were so close to accomplishing everyone’s goal, the Genie Boom had one last trick up its sleeve. As we were all holding our collective breath, it simply didn’t have enough oomph to drive up the ramp.
Now determined to get the Genie Boom onto the trailer, Tom tried pulling it with a come-along while John operated the Genie Boom from the bucket. Not surprisingly, that didn’t work, given the weight of the Genie Boom. Laura then suggested Tom unhook the trailer and try pulling the Genie Boom onto the trailer with their pickup. It is worth noting that trying this maneuver would not have been possible if we had not moved the wood splitter earlier that day.
It took two tries to get the Genie Boom lined up properly so it could be loaded onto the trailer. There were just inches to spare on either side. John then drove the Genie Boom, while Tom pulled it with the pickup. Once the Genie Boom was far enough onto the trailer that the trailer went from its slanted to horizontal position, all four of us cheered. After Tom tied it down, I took photos of the boom on the trailer and a video as Tom and Laura drove away.
John and I were extremely happy campers and so were Tom and Laura. They were under no illusions of what they were getting and everyone felt good about the deal. Laura texted me when they arrived home safely. I thanked them for all their work; they thanked us as well. I had given them both a hug before they left. After all of our trials and tribulations, they almost felt like family.
It was about 5:30 p.m. when they left. We then walked over to our neighbor’s house to regale them with stories of our adventure, still amazed that, in fact, the Genie Boom had moved on to a new home.