Broke Down 2.0

[Fixer 166]

So I'm driving my Big Diesel Truck along when I look in my mirror only to see white smoke billowing out the pipes.
300kms to go I pick up 12l of coolant and off I go. Smoke screen pouring out the back (didn't have to worry about tailgaters) I limp it into the shop. In goes a new EGR cooler, new oil cooler and new head gaskets. Wicked.hopefully done by Tuesday.
The curse of the Ford 6l lives.

What's your breakdown story?

[netfreak]

I had to replace my fuel pump on the side of gordon drive once.. I also nuked a valve on more than on occasion while heading out of town requiring me to limp back on 3 cylinders. My own fault for not noticing the 6 degrees difference in timing between my motor (from a different model car) and the stock ECU.

[kgcayenne]

Car makes I've had:
Acura, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, Mercury, Mitsubishi, Volkswagen. Only two of those hasn't left me on the roadside saying "oh &*%£".

Fortunately, I've been close to home for all of them. The most costly (and lengthy) repair of all of them was a fuel pump.

Roadside, I've done: the pantyhose-fan belt switcheroo; beat a solenoid with a broom handle, wrecked a hairbrush cleaning battery posts; used an emery board to spiff cap and rotor contacts; had to pour a bit of gas in a carburetor (can't remember why); drove 35 km with a broken clutch, and managed to drive home from town once (18 yrs old & stupid) without properly working brakes.

[Queen K]

I love Alberta in the Fall.
And so do mechanics.
More accurately they love my cars.

2008, we're pulling into Fort McCloud and I hear a "ping" and a feel a tug, and the Tauras dies going in.
It's 6:30 pm, in a small town. The tow truck driver drops the car off at Scougalls on Fri. 8 pm.
We stay at the RedCoat Inn for two days for them to tell us it'll cost $6,000 for a new rebuilt transmission to replace mine.
Tow car to Lethbridge, National Transmissions charged me $5,000.
Three days at the Best Western overlooking Fort Whoopup well wasted.

Four years later.

Crows Nest pass, 8 km outside of Colemount.
Subaru Outback dies. Transmission hose busted. I'm on the side of the road screaming, "NOT again, not again..."
Cold wind is howling and transport trucks scream past us at 130 km/hour.
Fours hours of waiting for the towtruck driver. Lloyd was one heck of a great driver, even showed us the backroad into the Frankslide area, took us right up to the front door of the Quality Inn in Lethbridge ( I HATE Lethbridge at this point).
Subaru dealship said, "if we have to replace the trans, it'll be til Friday before we can do it."
"No prob, we'll rent a car."
After calling ever car rental place in town, no one has anything, not even a Smart car.
We kill a day at the Japanese Gardens where an English woman in a Kimono explains how the Japanese avoid the number four. (Fours years apart in the same area of Alberta).
The Subaru dealer calls, "car's ready."
$250.00 later we're headed down to Writing-On-Stone Prov. park
Nothing goes wrong after that.
Whew.

[xjeepguy]

What's your breakdown story?

Brand new 427 build in my Chevelle , couldn't wait for steel valve spring retainers so used alums just to break the engine in then change later . Young + heavy foot and old retainers = swallowed valve = total destruction ! NOT a good day .







Sorry to hear about your 6 .

[French Castanut]

2 months ago, going somewhere then changed from the 90 to 50 zone... my brake line suddently broke. Didn't take the chance to keep going on the highway without brakes... had to be towed, call a friend 100km away to come pick me up because there was no bus to come back home on the weekend, & no car rental shop, had the repair done in another city facility... then took the bus to get my truck back and drove back home.

[HoboJo]

I loved my Chevy S-10 pickup. After several attempts to fix the clutch cable I finally gave up and simply removed the dangling pedal. It was my daily driver for another 18 months although the congestion crossing the bridge every day was a hassle... what with no clutch and all.

[Bpeep]

You drove your little pickup for a year and a half without a clutch?

[HoboJo]

Yup. The starter held up to it fine. It wasn't until I had to weld shut the front brake lines that I started looking for a different ride.

[xjeepguy]

Yup. The starter held up to it fine. It wasn't until I had to weld shut the front brake lines that I started looking for a different ride.

Sweet .

[Verminator]

Another Ford story....

In the summer of 1996 we were on the Yellowhead somewhere between Valemount and Blue River when the engine in our ever-dependable Ford Tempo began bucking and losing power. I pulled onto the shoulder and poured some cold water on the fuel lines in the engine compartment, thinking the problem might be a vapor lock since it was a pretty hot day. That seemed to do the trick, but another 20 or 30 minutes later it happened again, and again, and again. When we finally got to Blue River, the damn car died completely and we literally coasted into the last service station for miles around. They said the fuel pump was toast and managed to find a replacement part after phoning around, where I have no idea since we were pretty well in the middle of nowhere. About four hours and five hundred bucks later we were finally back on the road. When we got home, I found out that the same job would've cost around $300 at the dealer, maybe less. Needless to say, the poor Tempo wasn't long for this world....

[goatboy]

Power steering went on the way back from Whistler coming up Hwy 99 just outside of Pemberton. That is one long and twisty drive with no power steering!

[Queen K]

I was headed out to the last client of the day when my tire becomes completely deflated.
At Lakeshore Place, I have an utter flat at 2:30 pm.
I go in. Help the lady out. Get in the hallway and begin to make calls.
"Mom, can you pick up Mr. QK to bring him here to change a tire for me"?
Luckily I had a donut tire in the back, but no know-how to do it.
How bad is that?

[kgcayenne]

It's worth knowing how. I would like to point out that DH bought a better tire iron for me because the ones that come with the donut/jack combo are often not long enough to give leverage to those of us who need it in a pinch.

I had to stand on my POS iron last year doing the switch to winters because the shop put the nuts on so damn tight.

[Alvis]

So I'm driving my Big Diesel Truck along when I look in my mirror only to see white smoke billowing out the pipes.
300kms to go I pick up 12l of coolant and off I go. Smoke screen pouring out the back (didn't have to worry about tailgaters) I limp it into the shop. In goes a new EGR cooler, new oil cooler and new head gaskets. Wicked.hopefully done by Tuesday.
The curse of the Ford 6l lives.

What's your breakdown story?

Perhaps the clouds of smoke should have been an indication to stop and not push it another 300km?
I had a frost plug blow out the side of my old Dodge pu many years ago. I limped itback to the gas station and left it there over night until I could get it home. Luckily I was only 5 km from home and it was Novembr. The idea of adding 3 gallons of coolant after seeing clouds of smoke billowing out of your engine and pushing it another 300km is beyond foolish. I have o sympathy for people like. I make no apologies.

Just like the doofus I saw many years ago in Vernon, with a semi new (at the time) Ford Tempo, with thick, acrid clouds of clutch smoke and burning up engine screeching through the intersection at Vernon Square. They were revving the hell out of the car, slipping the clutch because they'd run the poor car out of oil and didn't get the hint the engine was seizing up. It was unbelievable. The poor Ford Tempo was maybe 2-3 years old by the time they got it of the road, the engine and clutch was burnt to a crisp. I know, I stopped to help but really it was morbid curiosity.

The guy with the white Firebird who had pools of ATF under his car asking if it was OK to drive? Sure, see how far a hydraulically operated transmission gets you without oil. He did a lot of coke as you can imagine a guy with a white 77 Trans Am would.

The guy with a puke yellow Mercury Comet who lost his muffler and used Duct Tape! To put it back on and couldn't understand where all the smoke and flames came from.

I won't even get into the backyard mehanics who bust up perfectly good parts becasue they are too ignorant to look in a book or use proper tools. A screw driver is not a chisel and you shouldn't be using a hammer and chisel on an aluminium surface anyways.