Wow, EVERYTHING LEAKS, did I hurt her?

[yARIC008]

Okay, so here's my story.

I am moving, and recently have been very busy with life and I drive the company vehicle 95% of the time and the Mercedes other 4% of the time. The batteries in the van have been running down over the last couple years and recently, if it sat for more than one day it wouldn't restart. So... while life has been happening the van sat without being touched for 4 MONTHS!

Seeing I'm moving I had to move the van with me. I bought new batteries the other week and have had them sitting around. Finally went out there today and tried jumping the van off the work car with the old batteries just to see what would happen. The solar charger has been on it these 4 months so was thinking maybe it would have been charged. So i jumper it and try to crank, just a bunch of clicking and the starter sounding like it wanted to kill itself. So, I get out and put in the new batteries, jumper it over to work car and crank. That thing cranked at like.. 500 RPM! I can never remember the van cranking that fast. If I had just put it in drive I could have just driven it off the starter no problem. Was pretty nuts... Anyways, crank for like.. 15-20 seconds total in 5 second bursts to get fuel flowing and oil flowing. And she fires off, rumbles a little then levels out. So... I think, mission accomplished, NOT!

I let the van idle for like 5-10 minutes while i finish cleaning up and loading the rest of my crap in the van and car. I get in the van to drive off and brake floor goes to the ground, no resistance. ABS light is on and E Brake light lights up. So i get out and look at the master cylinder tank and completely empty. Never seen that before. Find some brake fluid in the van, but not much, pour it in, no difference.

So i drive to a nearby gas station in the car and get a couple more bottles of fluid, dump it in, and now I guess I just have lines full of air, it'll pump hard, but then just immediately get soft again after a few seconds. So I decide to see how they actually work, put the van in reverse... nothing happens, drive, nothing happens either. I get out and check the tranny fluid, nothing on the dipstick. DAMN!

So... can't move and can't stop, guess I'm good! lol

Do you think I could have done any damage to the tranny idling it for five minutes without any fluid in there? I didn't feel like driving to the gas station again to get more tranny fluid because the brakes need to be bled now and be repaired apparently. I figured I'd get the tools to bleed the system tomorrow and refill the tranny, but just wondering if anything thinks any harm was done.

Guess truck is showing her age

Time to do some serious leak repairs to everything. Even under the hood wreaked of diesel and I could see it all wet in there from either a return cap or the filter somewhere. Didn't have very good light, so don't know. I didn't even check the rad but it's probably empty too, lol.

Thanks

 

[OLDBULL8]

Not really funny, just hilarious. Holy Chit.

Nice to know what tranny you have C6 or E4OD.

You prolly didn't hurt the tranny since you couldn't drive it. All you can do is fill the tranny and try it. Just don't overfill it. Put a quart in at a time, see if it will move, Keep checking the level, must be HOT for correct level, only takes a pint from Low to Hi on the stick.

The brakes, fill the MC, run a tube off the wheel bleeder into a jar, crack the bleeder and just let it gravity bleed til all the air is out. Start at the right rear, left rear, right front then left front. Don't reuse any fluid drained out again. Keep the MC full, might take a couple of quarts to do the job.

Check radiator.

Check Power steering.

Check engine oil.

 

[yARIC008]

It's E4OD. Yeah, maybe tomorrow in the light I'll have more luck... It's like everything just decided to crap out all at once.

 

[Alex S]

Well i know yours is a ford not a chev but my brother diesel suburban once blew a tranny line and the transmission emptyd it self out the line but he was way up some mountain somewhere. He coasted down the switch backs with the engine idling for the power assist to the brakes. When he got to a service station he fixed the line filled it back up and it was fine, lasted years after that

 

[towcat]

eric-
tow your van to it's new home and fix the brakes properly.

 

[icanfixall]

The above posting makes lots of sence... Don't take a chance of wrecking your van or hurting someone else. Its too easy towing compared to a wrecker towing off your ruined van and someone sueing you up the butt....

 

[trapper]

up the butt he says =P

 

[OLDBULL8]

Tough towing with a Mercedes. Where are you moving to from Orlando?

On Edit I see you have a 2005 F350, that should tow it.

 

[yARIC008]

Only moving a couple miles away. Only way I know how to tow without a tow truck would be with a tow rope. And only way that has ever worked that I know of is if your vehicle being pulled has brakes... Gonna go mess with it tonight see what I can find out. One of the rear brake cylinders must be leaking... The tranny I knew leaked but didn't think it'd leak itself empty.

 

[itsacrazyasian]

thats a bummer man. Like Cal said, tow it to your new place and work on it there. I'd help ya if you need a hand towards the end of Feb. Gonna go up to O-Town and see some old friends.

 

[yARIC008]

Okay, well this whacky story got whackier tonight. The van was behaved but the GF was well not... I have no idea...

Well I went over to the van with fluids of all sorts. With the GF's help we bled all of the brake lines including the RABS valve. Got air out of all of them and got clear fluid running. Didn't see any leaks anywhere so not sure where all the fluid had gone. I had let the fluid tank get low because I was using it as my gauge for brake pad wear which is essentially what it is designed to do so maybe it just got too low on it's own and maybe leaked some too? Anyways... got everything bled and brakes nice and tight. Went and topped off all other fluids, added two quarts to tranny and she started moving again.

I decided it was safe enough to drive as everything seemed to be working fine and I was only driving a short distance at 11pm on low speed roads. So... long story short, my gf and I are moving seperate for a while for a bunch of reasons but we're still together as couple technically. So after the van is repaired we had to play musical cars. I had to take a bike to her place, and then from there go to my new place drop the van off, then back to our old place and get my work car then she goes home and i go home to new places.

Anyways, we go to her new place, unload the bike, then she gets in her car, i get in van to go drop van off at my new place. I get to my new place, park, and then wait...5 minutes she should be here by now... I call her, no answer of course. She never answers her cell phone, and most of the time doesn't have it with her. Call her home, no answer. So another 5 minutes pass and now I'm worried I have to go on some rescue mission to find her and figure out what the hell happened to her. Was thinking she got in an accident or something....

So I wait another 5 minutes while calling her phone over and over while trying to come up with some sort of plan... then she finally pulls up at my place after me waiting about 20 minutes total. It's only about a 5 minute drive max from her place to mine... especially at night. So I get in to her car and ask where she's been and what took so long.

At this point fire is coming out of her ears and she is BLAZING MAD and she's about ready to murder me. I am just completely baffled as to what the hell is going on. Apparently, she had sped off in front of me when we left her place. There are two ways to get to my new place from hers. The short way with slow speeds and the long way with high speeds of 60 MPH. I decided it was safer to go the slow route home and she had already sped off in front of me so I wasn't sure where she had gone. Apparently she took the long route and had stopped and waited for me to come along to make sure I hadn't broken down. She didn't see me because I had gone the other way, so she goes back to her place, drives around looking for me, doesn't pick her cell phone up to call me... and then drives around looking for me longer then finally decides to go to my place to look for me.

None of this had been discussed that she was going to wait for me, and if she was going to do that, why didn't she drive behind me??? I had my cell phone as my backup plan to call for help and hadn't even planned on her waiting for me.

So anyways, through absolutely no fault of my own that I can possibly see, she is super duper pissed off at me now. I'm just chalking this one up to women making no sense what so ever...

Sorry for the long story. But the van is functional now, going to get tranny leak fixed first then work from there... UGHHHHH

 

[Diesel JD]

Failure to communicate.... sorry things aren't working out so well for you with the IDI or the gf. Better luck with both!

 

[argve]

Eric... buddy.... welcome to the joys of wemmins.... it's not funny but it is because I know that others get to experience what I have in the past.... YES!!!! oh sorry....

now for tech....

Brake fluid should never be consumed as you know so that means if it went MIA then you have a leak or a brake fluid thief... I'm going with leak as I never seen nor heard of a brake fluid thief...

Tranny fluid - same thing... you have leak somewhere....

you need to inspect the brake lines really really close because they could be rusted and on their last legs and will blow out when you are trying to stop. I was lucky and found mine when I was changing my calipers last summer and doing the bleeding. I replaced both lines to the front. Not a high cost at all just a pain in the butt because you have to bend your own lines - you might consider doing that as a safety item since you know they have to be leaking somewhere and you have another vehicle to drive.

You shouldn't have hurt the tranny and I would say without a doubt that she is fine.

 

[pafixitman]

Eric, can't add anything about the van...can't add much about the g/f either since after 16 yrs of marriage and 19 being together my wife filed for divorce! Communication is soooo over rated. wait...maybe that is why I am getting divorced?

But...if you do figure out women and how they think, I will pre order the book you write!

Give her a couple hundred and send her shopping. All will be better in the morning.

 

[yARIC008]

Brake fluid should never be consumed as you know so that means if it went MIA then you have a leak or a brake fluid thief... I'm going with leak as I never seen nor heard of a brake fluid thief...

Well I guess I wasn't saying it was being consumed. I was just saying that as the brakes wear the level in the little tank goes down because of more space in the system for the fluid to go. I read that is how you are supposed to know when to change brake pads. Supposedly a little sensor that will detect the fluid has gone below it puts on the ABS/Brake light like it did the other night to tell you to change out pads, except in my case it had gone far below that little sensor. As for how it actually got air in the system while sitting, yes, has to be a leak...