Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums - A fun "adventure"!

O.K. IL Chapter members, here's the story(this is a long one!) of a fun "adventure" that Carol and I had on the way back from the Chapter meeting yesterday. Well, we were on 75th street heading towards IL Rt. 53, and steam started pouring out of the front of the 77 flareside. This was not good, so we pulled into the nearest gas station. We got out of the truck, and I opened the hood and the smoke was just pouring out of the engine compartment, and there was anti-freeze everywhere! By this time I was starting to panic, luckily Carol was there with me to calm me down!! We waited for the truck to cool off, and then I started looking for the leak. It turns out that one of the heater hoses had blown. Carol then went into the gas station to ask where the nearest auto parts store was, and they said it was 3 lights down on 63rd ST. It turns out that was much too far to walk, so we decided to try and temporarily fix the hose with some duct tape and electrical tape and drive there. Besides, this wasn't a really good neighborhood, and we didn't think it would be wise to leave the truck unattended. Well, we tried for about half an hour to tape the hose, but that didn't work, so finally I stuffed a rag into the split hose, put some antifreeze in the truck, and we decided to drive to the parts store. I gave Carol the keys and let her drive because I was still kinda panicking. So, we started off in the direction where the gas station attendant had said the parts store was located. When we got to the third stoplight where the parts store was supposedly located, there was nothing there but an apartment complex, and the truck was overheating really bad again! So, we pulled in by the apartments, and let the truck cool off for a few minutes. On the way from the gas station to where we were at now, we had passed a Home Depot store, so we decided to go back there when the truck cooled off a little. By the time we got to Home Depot, the truck was overheating again, so we got out, opened the hood, and went into the store to look for some heater hose to fix it. Luckily, we were able to get the heater hose and tools we needed, but unfortunately they didn't sell antifreeze. So next we went back to the truck and I started working on it. Meanwhile, Carol went looking for somewhere that sold antifreeze. Unfortunately, she didn't have any luck, so we decided to just fix the truck and then drive back to the gas station and get antifreeze there. Well, it took quite a while to get the truck fixed because the hose that blew was in a very hard to reach location. Finally, we got it all fixed just as it was getting dark, and we headed back to the gas station to get the antifreeze. I bought all the antifreeze the station had(3 containers) and filled up the radiator. Luckily, everything was OK, but the truck was covered in antifreeze. We decided to take the truck to car wash and clean it up. Man, it was cold out! We finished off the day with a nice dinner at Steak 'N Shake. Actually, it turned out to be a really fun day! Thank you so much, Carol!! I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there for me!--John