Today was a LONG day, my F450 broke down on me today, I blew a High Pressure Oil line on the 101 freeway just as I was getting in the exit lane, it shut down and blew smoke out the back of the truck and oil smoke came into the cab. I ended up coasting all the way up the off ramp and around the corner onto the road. I called the local Ford Dealer that was 2 exits down the freeway. They had the line but not the tool to disconnect it. I made one tool that almost worked but was too big. Then cut down a 1" heavy putty knife into a tool. This is one time it was nice to be driving a mobile shop


It worked great, I had the line off in about 5 minutes after it cooled off enough I could touch it. I spent an hour on the phone trying to get some one to run me up there. Everyone from work left early today. I tried flagging people down, I even tried to hail the 3 cabs that drove by EMPTY.. nothing. I was hating Scottsdale people. I ended up having one of my Store managers come pick me up and run me to the dealer, they ended up cutting me a deal on the hoses. I got both since the one went I figured the other will not be far after it.

They knocked 65 bucks off since I could not get them to deliver the parts to me. Bunch of jerks. I would have spent over 300 with them had I bought the oil from them. I ended up getting 2 gallons of oil from Autozone.


I had it back up and running in under 5 minutes. I ended up putting 5 quarts of oil in the truck. Just in case you are ever wondering... YES a gallon of oil will make one HELL of a mess when it all gets dumped/ sprayed under the hood. I "might" have left a small oil slick on the road where my truck was. I don't think I have much to worry about rust/ salt since I just coated the entire bottom of the truck with oil... Isn't that what you guys up North do?
I will have to wash the engine down tomorrow. I drove the truck up on some bricks and boards tonight so it could mostly drain out the back of the engine.


The worst part of it all is tonight was date night. It has been almost 4 months since I had been out with Momma, the kids were at the sitter and everything. I ended up getting home in time to go out for a nice romantic dinner..... at Wendy's since we had less then an hour till we had to pick up the kids.

 

Yup. Thats why I changed mine on my terms, in my shop, not on the side of the road. Their 13yrs old.

 

I had a small seep at one of the STC fittings on my HPOP, so I did like Jim and replaced both hoses and all the o-rings on the fittings before things happened unexpectedly. I had ~190k miles and about 11 yrs on the clock and didn't want to press my luck any farther. If you haven't already done the o-rings, I'd keep an eye on them and plan on doing them, also.

 

Did it look like this?

One side cleaned up, the other not

Its hard to see but you can see the oil dripping into puddles on the ground off my axle

 

Looks like they upgraded the part. The new one looks beefier than the origional.

 

There's probably one or two other drivers out there who discovered a "mystery film" on their windshields. Oopsy...

Where I live (California), my biggest fear would not be the time/cost/hassle involved, but that they would call out a Hazmat team and bill me for it (BTW nice license plate, I'm originally from MI).

At the very least there is a layer of plastic over the steel braid, but they are quite a bit bigger, and someone on another thread that I recently started on HPOP lines said they are quite a bit more advanced, material-wise.

.

 

Great work on the side of the road Donn. I'm replacing mine in my driveway, leisurely...and re-oringing the quick connect fittings so I don't have to try to match your expertise at road side mechanicing. My wifes eyes have gotten so bad she can't drive, so, if I'm stuck...I'm stuck.

 

Been there done that! You can still see the big oil stain on the side of the highway where mine blew and I had it parked, and that was back in June I think. It dumps a huge amount of oil, and makes a nasty mess. ugh!!

 

Glad you got it fixed, one thing I have to look into, mine has 266,000 miles on it and I'm sure their still the originals.

 

I didn't want any incriminating pictures of the oil spot with my truck there... It was covering the entire lane of traffic though.....

Ya when it blew I was running 70... the 2 lanes behind me looked like a cloud.... the white Mercedes that was right on my butt when it blew, wasn't for long. (It would be nice to have a deterrent like that for tailgaters in the future. ) The oil trail was a good 1/2 mile long by the time I stopped, I didn't want to stop on the freeway. It coasted that far.

 

Hmmm... "Auxiliary" windshield-washer jet, rear-mounted, button on the dash (right next to the train horns)....

 

[QUOTE=Nsaan;12396216 the white Mercedes that was right on my butt when it blew, wasn't for long. .[/QUOTE]

I bet it isn't white anymore! Awesome!

 

Nice work on the homade tools Donn - Can you tell if the old line rubbed through or if it blew from the inside out ? Could'nt tell from the pic.

 

If its anything like mine was it blew from the inside out about centered of the line

 

Looks like Q got a hold of your truck and put in the auto oil slick for those moments.

From now on you will be know as.....the secret agent 007.3.

Tim M