My horse van was a big part of my life for years. We had it instead of trailers during my teens and after moving to New Mexico, the van itself attracted attention because it was not a common vehicle for hauling horses "out West". I drove it all over the country - 10 forward gears, 2 reverses... an engine that heated up in the southwestern summers, so I drove it to shows and clinics at night time (Mr. deKunffy always laughed about the horse "box" that only ran at night). I was taking it and had contracted a rig with tractor/double trailers to get 860 bales of (at the time, rare out here) grass hay. I led the trucker up north and left him at a fork in the road to check ahead if I was lost or not (I was). I started turning around and drove right into an irrigated field! I stopped immediately - ran to the ditch bank and broke off dozens of dry reeds and shoved them under the front tires and the dually tires - eventually, I got enough traction to wiggle out of the mud and went to the right road.
At the hay farm, there were only 2 men to help load - so the truck driver and I set up with them. It took 4 people to load the big rig with an escalator type thing to run the bales up. We filled my van, too and I was EXHAUSTED! Then we started back on the 4 hour drive home (at night). A ways out on the Interstate, my accelerator pinned to the floor! I pushed in the clutch and pulled over, engine roaring, then shut it off. With flashlight, I tilted the cab... there had been a spring regulating the gas pedal that was now missing... I got a new roll of paper towels and shoved them under the accelerator pedal, started her up and we drove home :)
One time, I took a couple of students' horses and my mare to El Paso to a Maj. Gen. Johnathan Burton clinic and just as we pulled in at Fort bliss, the van started making a hideous scraping sound. After unloading and securing the horses, I looked under the box where the sound had come from... then looked under other people's trucks. My driveshaft was missing a part all of their trucks had - a thing that held the shaft and it turned within it ( a "pillow block" I came to know). I got a huge leather strap, covered the inside of it with Mollimentum hoof dressing, strapped it around the shaft and a beam above, then used some baling wire in couple of other places... I rode in the clinic, after, tested the van on a drive around the parking lot. Then loaded the horses and drove the 60+ miles home! I loved that van.