Warning: the following contains a fair amount of mechanic's talk. If you skip the whole thing it's OK.
Last Saturday's post referred to my discouragement over events of the previous day. Things are beginning to move toward resolution and I've calmed down enough to write about what happened.
As I'd already written, the trucking company bailed on their commitment to pay for the repairs being done by a body shop in Junction City, 15 miles north of here. I accepted that as the reality I had to deal with, so Friday afternoon Pam and I went up to pay that $550 bill and get the truck home.
I took up a new battery from O'Reilly's to replace the new one I'd put in the truck a couple of months earlier - a battery that wouldn't hold a charge. O'Reilly's did a swap without charge, although after I got there and tried to install it I discovered they gave me the wrong one, and the posts were on the opposite sides. That required a trip to a parts store to get a longer positive battery cable for about $10. (I could change the attachment point for the negative cable to make it reach.) After getting the battery installed and disconnecting the speedometer cable I knew did nothing but SCREAM, we started home.
I made sure each of us had one of our walkie-talkies just in case, and it's a good thing. About halfway home Pam told me my left rear wheel was wobbling. I immediately pulled over, got out my lug wrench and discovered that both rear wheels were scary loose. Those lug nuts were tight the last time I had a wrench on them, not long before the truck left AZ, so that seemed weird. However, in the back of my head I thought about the axle problem.
In May of '14 I took the stock rear end to Arizona Differential and had them build me a new differential and axles to the tune of $650. A few months later when I installed the wheels and tires I discovered they bottomed out against the brake shoes. Never mind the specifics, AZ Diff responded that they had put in the wrong axles that are 3/8" too short. I put in washers as spacers as a temporary fix until I could take it back to them for the right axles...then forgot about that in the rush to move.
So, is that why the wheels were loose?
Three miles from home - three miles - I got a terrible buck. Scared me! Felt like something underneath the truck was going to break catastrophically. Then everything was fine. Huh?
Kept driving - two and a half miles from home - a worse buck. Help!! This cannot be good!
So I pulled over to make sure I didn't have a drive shaft twisted like a pretzel. Or worse. Pam pulled over right behind me.
I never got to the point of looking under the truck because as soon as I closed the door I could see steam pouring out from under the hood. I opened it to find coolant spraying out of the radiator at several points along the bottom half, including three holes at the very bottom. It took about three minutes for all of the coolant to come out.
AAA hauled me home. I was scared, depressed, angry, and beyond discouraged.
A year ago I paid $450 to Sun City Radiator to rebuild the one in the truck when I got it. They attached a new core to the "wings" by which it mounts to the truck. Wanna see the job they did?
This morning I ordered a new radiator from Classic Parts for $450. It will be here in about 10 days.
The bucking? The lug nuts had loosened again because my temporary fix couldn't do the job, especially as I went through the curves on Sheffler Rd. That allowed the brake drums to twist and grab the brake shoes.
Today I called AZ Diff. "You should have taken care of this before you left for Oregon."
So the fact I've got the wrong axles and the truck is scary dangerous is somehow my fault??
I'm to remove the axles, ship them back to AZ, they'll ship me the correct axles, and I'll install them.
I'll do all of this laying on the dirt outside in Oregon in November. Barnett isn't wide enough to get the axles out with the truck in there.
Oh, and I've never done that task before and don't know how. If I did I would have DONE THIS MYSELF IN THE FIRST PLACE!
I hope that by the end of the month to have the radiator and axles fixed. In my dreams I'll also have the carb, speedometer, carb, gas gauge, and wipers fixed. By December 15th I might actually be driving this thing.
There's a theme here. I paid the professionals to transport my truck from AZ to OR. I paid the professionals to rebuild my radiator and to build me a new axle.
My paint job looks like it was done by a rookie, but the paint isn't falling off the truck. The engine runs well and the wood bed looks - dare I say it? - pretty darn good. And the things I paid the pros to do are costing me more and more money.
Yeah, I was pretty discouraged Friday night. I knew I had major problems but hadn't yet figured out the causes. Now I know why those things went all wrong. And now our budget is taking the hit.
No comments:
Post a Comment