Chaos…
Got a call mid afternoon from boss/dad to go get a power converter and make an adapter cable to run a mig welder off of an engine driven welder… not too sure how exactly this setup works but I will see tomorrow… also had to grab some other stuff, all kinda smaller.
Well after I got everything sorted out and gathered up, I drove to the gas station to fill up. Very busy at that time.
Dad calls, says he doesn’t trust the truck I was driving to go 3 hours, which was my service truck, and to go back to the shop and get a company truck. No big deal, half mile back, was gonna be awhile before I could get fuel, so I went back to the shop and got the stuff moved over to the truck he said to take. The time was such that I could make it in time for dinner, and stay in a hotel down there, as per his instruction. So I drove 12 miles home to get a bag of clothes and whatnot. It was there I realized that the 4 prong to 3 prong adapter was still in the service truck… no big deal, stop by the shop and grab it, not really out of the way in that trip anyhow.
So I stopped by, grabbed the adapter, and when I got back out front to the company truck, there was coolant EVERYWHERE. Check temp, not hot, shut down immediately. So phone call, was told to see what the problem is. Had to let the pressure drop obviously… so after a bit, figure out that upper coolant hose has hole near the clamp on the radiator side. This was after the parts store had closed, so no chance of using this truck. Was another truck at the shop, with a load of continuous fence panels on a 40 foot gooseneck. Another phone call, was told to unload the trailer to get rid of the weight, and take that truck. At this point it was late enough he said to just come in the morning. So I got all the equipment put in the other truck.
My mom called me, wondering if I was still in town and if I could give her a ride back to the farm, she was taking her truck to the mechanic across the road from the shop in town, having front driveshaft issues… on a 60,000 mile truck… 5 years old… so I told her that she could drive the company truck back, and that I’d meet her there in my service truck, so that it winds up back at the farm.
The check engine light came on while my mom was driving that truck, dad said to just worry about it later… he’s in charge, whatever he wants me to do, I’ll do it.
The irony of the situation is kinda funny, park your 30,000 mile 7.3 service truck, and take the 300,000 mile 6.7 Dodge… which made it a grand total of 24.2 miles… and hasn’t been reliable as of late.
Had I driven my service truck, I am willing to bet that I would have been down there in time for supper…