Well today I was to go into work early, 5 am, and take a truck and drive it for 6 hours to break it in. I do my pretrip and I did 3, yes three walk arounds on a straight truck. Sometimes I am just pariniod. The truck was a new type of hybrid. It took me a while to get use to driving it. Engine stays at 700 rpm up till about 15 mph, then the engine transmission combo takes over. So now I settle in for 6 hours of driving. I get on the interstate and try the cruise control. Ok so the cruise doesn't work. No big deal, I will just keep it as close to 65 mph as I can. Twenty one miles down the road a semi passed me and the truck pulled a little to the left. No big deal it was just the draft off of the other truck. The other truck finishs passing me and the truck straightens out a little. Then it tugs hard to the left again. Except there was no other truck there. The the loud squeling starts. So I dive for the shoulder and hit the brakes. As soon as I stoped smoke starts rolling off of the front left hub. I try to go for the fire extingusher but it is a no go. You see the passenger seat rattled pretty good so I lowered it all the way to stop the rattle, except it wedged the fire extigusher against the middle consul. After five second I say screw that I am getting out of this truck. I get one step down and I remember I forgot my wallet and cell phone. I reach back in and grab them and look real quick at what is smoking. The plastic hub cover had melted, the center rubber plug was missing, and oil was all over the rim and tire. Great I have a seized wheel bearing. So I call the boss at 6:15 in the morning to tell him I need a wrecker. So I had some time to kill so I watched the traffic roll on by. I thought this morning that I was going to get a drink at the turn around point of my choising so I did not get a drink at home base. Five hours later I finally got something to drink. Two hours of watching traffic go by I see this truck coming and he hits the jake brake. As I am thinking what kind of idiot hits his jakes like that on the interstate on a flat section he hits his lights, whoho the wrecker is here. It took four hours of beating on the hub with a sledge hammer, hammer chisel, and the trusty old smoke wrench to get the baering assembly off. So I broke the truck in with 65 miles on it and it is going to cost $1600 to fix this little mistake. I know I remember seeing the plug in the hub, It was not leaking, I really don't know what happened. So on the other hand I got to notice how busy I-65 just south of Indy really is. Oh and a state trooper will go by you 4 times before he stops and asks you if you need any help. But it is ok the trooper was nice and had a good sense of humor about my situation. So in my job I have got to the realization that no matter how new the truck something can still go wrong. I have taken trips where I have broke down in every state I have traveled though on the same trip. I don't get too worked up about them any more. Stuff can be fixed, just look at it as a vacation on the side of the road.
I-65 is busier than I thought
Discussion in 'Road Stories' started by Sportster2000, Aug 19, 2008.
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Jeez that sucks. I live near the northern section of I-65 toward Gary, IN its pretty bad here, broke the front wheel cross member on my dads work van over the winter, that was scary, no fire though.
Horrible way to take a vacation though! been there done that. Especially when the wrecker shows up, and theres 2 of you, and 2 of them, THATS CRAMPED
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