Sunday eve I met a friend for a few beers, but we ended the night early since both of us had work the next morning.

He takes off, I go to start my truck, loud click of the solenoid but nothing else. I fiddle with things for a while but since all my tools are in the truck of my car all I had to work with was a lighter, two halves of a broken needlenose plier, and a 3-5lb sledge hammer.

Thinking maybe the solenoid was not engaging all the way, I shorted the two posts with my house keys, and it clicked as did the solenoid on the starter itself so that clearly wasn't the issue.

Called a tow truck, and of course mentioned what I drive - an F350 crewcab, long bed, single rear wheel. This way they don't send over an F350-based tow truck 20 minutes later which would be utterly useless.

Sure enough, a huge International flatbed arrives, they hitched up my rear axle and yanked my truck onto the flatbed.

Except it didn't fit. The front wheels were about two feet away from the edge of the flat bed. Okay.

Lots of wiggling and pushing to get my old girl turned around was required, and the flatbed was fairly useless in all this because the nose of the truck was against the bar's brick side, and the street wasn't really wide enough to give the flatbed any manueverability at all. Narrow street with cars parked on the other side.

Pushing the truck out was tough, because the parking lot is gravel but saturated with water, mud and dirt so rolling was tough. Also, trying to wrench the steering wheel was quite difficult because there's no power. Doable, but not without tremendous grunting.

Finally we got it into the street but introduced a new problem - we turned the wheels the wrong way so now once again the *** of my old girl is facing the flat bed, who can't get by because my truck is in the way, blocking the street

So he took off and drove around trying to find another way in to this street from the other way, then came back the way he came and we had to push the truck back into the spot, turn the wheels the other way, then push it back out. We were smarter this time because we put the flatbed down the road a bit which of course was now blocked in by my crewcab. So now my crewcab is in front of the flatbed rather than behind it. Yes, "smarter" was sarcastic.

So we pushed my truck back into the spot a third time, and the driver pulled past, and we pushed the truck out again. He hitched it up, I turned the wheels straight, and he winched my truck onto his.

With "superbumper" flat against his headache rack, my rear tires were 1/3 off the back edge of the flatbed, dimpling the tires nicely. Clearly it didn't fit this way either, but only by a few inches.

So the flatbed was lowered once again, my truck dropped onto the road, then the flatbed was put back up and the wheel lift was extended and he'd try towing it that way.

No problem hooking things up, a little fiddly with the tire straps and winches because of the tire diameter so the bars are extended further apart but things were tight and seemed to be good. Because of "sumper bumper", the wheel lift had to be fully extended so the bumper wouldn't hit the truck during a turn. Okay. I get into the flatbed as does the driver, and he pulls away slowly. At the first stop, he struggled to actually stop and ended up blowing through the stop sign at 15 miles per hour. His steering was also very limited because of the weight of my crewcab and how far behind his rear wheels it was while hitched.

He does in fact get me and my truck home, but struggled to back it into my driveway since there are trees on both sides, and one across the street, and obviously a long flat bed with about 8' of wheel lift and a crewcab hanging out the back isn't exactly easy to manuever in narrow, tree lined streets. But he did it, and kudo's to him for his driving ability.

But at this point it was 4:20am and I called the tow truck at 11:50pm, and the whole trip was 38 miles. He definately earned his $95 hookup feel and $4 a mile, that's for sure.

Took things apart today, and discovered that the starter was shorted and the power wire that feeds it burned up in the process. Not sure why I didn't smell that sunday night when I was poking around, maybe the freezing cold wind took the smell away, who knows.

But the old girl is running at this point. Unfortunately the power steering cap popped off during the trip home so I need to replace that and refill the tank as the groaning sound is louder than the engine. Obviously, not a good thing

But at least she started... I was worried that the 498K truck wasn't going to make it to 500K. After all, that is critical, right?

 

hmm so the oil was power steering fluid guess i owe ya a six of corona
if ya really wanna be cheap about it some plastic wrap and duct tape will work for a cap lol
glad to hear you wont have to swap motors to keep it going
now did you check the olds and find out why its spitting codes?

 

The reason why I couldn't turn the crank with the breaker bar was that it was hydro-locked somehow. As I removed the first spark plug I heard the fssssssst so all I can think of is that the engine hydrolocked when I parked it, then when I tried to start it the starter couldn't do it, and fried since it couldn't rotate at all. That's my best guess.

I replaced the Fram oil filter with a Wix today as well to be safe, though it wasn't leaking. It was swollen however.

I think the "oil" on the ground was PS fluid. Probably a long trail of fluid dots up route 9, all the way into my driveway. It's the only thing not at the dipstick line so I'm hoping

Anyway, refilled the PS tank and the whine went completely away. Yay.

The olds gave a few codes which make no sense, so I'll have to swap the original ECM back in and see if I get codes.

See, my olds thinks it's a Buick

 

its ok that your olds thinks its a buick.. ive got tons of customers who think im a contractor

 

LOL.

That's okay, some customers think I'm an electrician, car tuner, welder, fabricator, or all around monkey depending who you talk to.

 

that's great news Fred.

i guess you don't need the 302 afterall, huh??

 

lol he needs the 460 hes building lol that will take a half hour off his 35 minute commute lol

oh btw my truck made it home from the tranny shop today

 

thx for offer of 302 tom much appreciated but 351w runs so im good for now. bobs right need to do 460 up only time and money.

glad truck fixed bob shifts better i bet. how sue doing? fevers still killing me. blurry blurry blurry cant even sit here long and cant see what i'm typng lol

 

i made her go to the doc and they gave her tamiflu and shes feeling better but they said it can take a week or so how about you??
Anne said shes gonna make you chicken soup lol
truck shifts better now onto the rear end and the motor lol shes leaking oil out the exhaust that cant be good lol

 

Fever broke finally, though I'm still fairly weak. Bob, I'll be in on Thursday to do as much of the wiring/cutting/installation for Ann's kitchen as I can, until I'm exhausted at which time I'll head home and get some sleep.

Also threw your ladder brackets into the trunk of the car so they can be installed once Ann's kitchen is done and I go back to finish the small job at your house (flipping the wallbox, stapling the phone wire, etc). Make sure you have staples. I found my staple gun but I don't have that many staples. Standard Arrow stuff.

Thursday I have to cut two more ceiling holes and slot the wall with the existing wall switches, so you may want to leave Sue at home until that's done as the dust will once again be fairly bad, at least for a short while. Just a warning

Also, I tend to poop out fairly early because I'm still recovering, maybe you could toss her keys out the window earlier than our usual 10:30 start time if that's ok. At least I could get some work done while functional.

 

yeah no problem im going to be up there too tomorrow . I have to get some other stuff done too.. friday you will be in too right? im going to try and get some of our deliveries in like the tile and wood if not friday then monday

 

I will be there both days. Thursday I expect to be dead mid to late afternoon and depending on how I sleep that night, friday shoud be better.

Supposed to rain thu/fri so.... the wood might want to arrive monday?

Tomorrow I'll be at HD picking up all the materials for this job, assuming my son's better. It's his turn for fever/headache/sleep/barf. If that doesn't work out I'll pick it up thu morning on the way in - I'll just get at HD at around 8am and I'll still be in at a reasonable time.