Your worst breakdown and how did it happen?

The worse one that did NOT put me on the side of the road with was when I had a transmission go wonky down in Alabama. I was driving a 88 KW T600 that I swear was built for a tanker outfit. Why try all Aluminum parts on the freaking thing including the freaking frame and one 125 gallon tank. Tare weight was under 15K pounds with everything in it. Well the transmission refused to range shift into Low and I called in. The boss said limp it home if you can empty. I was 900 miles out I brought her home empty. They pulled the transmission on Monday after I got in on Saturday. What did they find in the transmission. Try a freaking broken Main shaft that had snapped in half. Boss was ready to dispatch a recovery truck if I had not been able to limp home. Needless to say that one was fun.

 

I drive local and was in an 05 Freightliner Business Class with a a Cat engine. In my 24 mile each way route on a mostly rural 55mph 2 lane it would go into engine shutdown 10 or 15 times each way. I would have to recrank it rolling down the road. To figure it out we had to put a code reader on it and monitor it rolling down the road. The coolant level module was at fault, but a new one didn’t fix it. The only way the truck would run was with the module disconnected, no data gave a code, but bad data would start a shutdown. That truck is now a yard truck thankfully, and I now have a Ryder truck.

 

Broke down in Houston one night after delivering load. Truck all but cuts off in the middle of the interstate. Barely making it to the shoulder of the road, waited 2 hours for a Penske technician to come and half way do his job. I tell him I have a coolant leak. Completely dismissed what I said, tops off my coolant and leaves. Sheesh, get an hour up the road. I break down again. 3 hours for another technician to come out and confirm what I told the first guy. (Coolant leak). 1.5 hours later, wrecker comes and tows me back to the yard. Turned a 12 hr night into a 20+ hr day.

 

I can't remember the year but for a long time, I 20 in Texas between Dallas and Tyler had several miles with only one lane east and west bound. It was about 3 PM I was headed west and I blew a turbo right in the middle of that construction. I was able to inch along for about a mile, but finally, the computer shut the engine down. It took a large wrecker and a father and son both came out and got my tractor on the wrecker the son took me to Dallas and the father got in a pickup and left. I had traffic stopped for over an hour. I was speaking to a Trooper as the men were getting the truck up on the hook. The Trooper was nice, I told him I was sorry about the trouble. He just said something about Murphy's Law. I then asked him how far was the backup. He just said driver it's 4 PM in the afternoon on a busy interstate highway you have had traffic stopped for an hour! How far do you think traffic is backed up?

 

Driving an old FLD with 2.4 mil on it in the oilfields of ND. Just loaded up with production water and was making a right turn onto 1304. If anybody knows 1304, there are no shoulders, just a deep ditch right next to the pavement.

Anyway, I'm rolling from the stop, complete the turn, and hit the 4-ways, as it was immediately uphill. I get to 8th gear in the old 13-speed, and BOOM! The turbo on the N14 let loose. I'm now fogging for skeeters and losing speed, fast. Oil, too. I had to split them down and use the hidden (naughty) gears in the high range while trying to keep every bit of momentum I had to get to where a driveway cut out from the right and I could partially get the unit off the main lanes with enough view for people to safely pass.

Called up dispatch... "Can you make it to the yard? You're only about 10 miles away." Nope. "You sure you can't get to the XXX disposal a mile up the road, unload, then get to the yard empty?" Nope. "Why not?" It won't have any oil left by the time I get there. "How do you know?" Because its no longer showing on the dipstick after about 1 minute of driving. The turbo blew. "What makes you think the turbo blew?" Oh, just all the smoke and all the crankcase oil filling the exhaust and leaking out of every exhaust clamp.

Yeah, they didn't want to pay for that wrecker, but there was nothing I could do about it. Safety showed up (I was only about 10 miles from the yard, remember?), saw the oil everywhere, noted the proper placement of the triangles, and had me get into his truck that he parked in another driveway across the road and back a couple hundred feet. While I was waiting, I pulled out my tools and removed the intake hose. Yup. Bearing blew out of the turbo, it was locked solid, ####ed at a bit of an angle, and was luckily dumping the contents of the crankcase out of the hot side, not the cold side.

The bean counters retired that truck instead of putting a turbo on it. I picked out an FLD in the back lot with a 6NZ to replace it. No way I was going to get in one of those rattletrap Volvo VHDs they had just purchased (basically a Volvo cab on a Mack frame and suspension with an i-shift AMT).

 

Right when I first started driving, about three months in I was in a Cascadia. The coolant water level dropped below the sensor level. Which I didn’t know about at the time. Cascadia‘s give you about 30 seconds warning and then they shut off. It’s ridiculous actually. Happened to me right smack in the middle of a little tiny skinny bridge going over the Mississippi River. Bumper-to-bumper traffic. Luckily the shop picked up when I called and I had a couple water bottles on me. Poured them in the reservoir and the truck started right back up and I took off. With about 3 miles of traffic behind me.

 

As I understand it radiators have two sensors on them. A high and low. The low sensor will cause the computer to red light and shut down the engine. The high sensor can. My last Truck was a new Prostar and it had a defective high sensor. It started throwing codes one day when I was in NJ about a mile from the GW Bridge. I remember being in a slight curve with a wall very close to the right lane. I was able to get about a 1/4 mile down the freeway and was able to stop and get out of the travel lane. I had just started my day at the TA on I-78 and had checked my water. I got out opened the hood and saw no water anywhere. Our roadside people gave the mechanic my phone number and he called me wanting to know exactly where I was. I told him and also told him to bring a sensor, he said he would, and he did and replaced that defective one. I sometimes even today think about that day and wonder what would have happened had that happened while I was actually on the GW!

 

Reminds me of a time I almost got stuck on the 301 bridge going from md to va. Everything was fine until I got on the bridge. Started losing air like crazy. Luckily, I made it beside the sheets gas station after the bridge before the brakes engaged. Some hours later mechanic comes and tells me that the main airline underneath the cab had chafed.

I remember a couple years ago a car broke down on the key bridge. Well that was a sad story all around. Driver did not make it.

 

Going down i90 west near Erie PA hauling hazmat tanker. All of a sudden truck lost power and leaned to the right. Pulled over went out and my jaw dropped- front right set of drives went missing. So i walked east about half a mile and found them in ditch. Rolled them back to truck and cops showed up. Asked if i called mechanic and took off. TA mobile truck mechanic came 1 hour later , chain lifted the axle and fixed the whole thing on next exit. 3600$ all in hub, wheels, labour.