So I was sitting at a turn light the other day and I see an older Ford Ranger in the opposing turn lane with its hazards on. Suddenly he pulls a U-turn and you can tell the truck is really trying to make it across to the gas station. All the sudden I see smoke pour out the bottom of the truck and you can see connecting rod fragments bounce off the asphalt. I turned my hazards on and drove over there to give him a hand pushing it. The guy was probably in his 70's and he looked at me and said "I don't know what's with this darn thing today, maybe it needs oil?" Unfortunately the block was completely windowed, so I pushed it into the gas station parking lot and called a tow truck for him. It really sucks that he lost his engine, but I can't help but laugh every time I think about what he said. LOL

I've seen this so many times in my life and it really blows my mind what people are thinking or not doing to keep there truck going.(Shaking my hand...)My friend thing I'm nuts anyways I got my hood open more times out of ten and crawling around my truck. But the funny part is that I've never had a serious failure that required a tow truck yet with my Cummins. Don't get me wrong I've had my share of failures but I stay on top of it once the problems start it got fixed instantly. About 18 years ago I was on my way to a David Copperfield show in Boise, ID with my family. I was driving my 1973 Charger SE. We stopped in Horseshoe Bend, ID for fuel and I popped the hood and checked my oil like usual and notice the weep hole on the water pump was weeping. I told my parents I'm going to have to stop in Boise, ID to get some coolant and limp home. Well we never made to the top of the grade (BOMB! Rattle Scrap!) The water pump gave up and threw the fan into the radiator... 8| Limp over the top and coasted to the bottom to a phone... tow truck time... ` This taught me a lesson for sure. So now I do regular inspections of all my vehicles even the Goldwing, Honda Rancher ATV, both trucks, and even my fire trucks!

Certainly I think all of us that have lived long enough have learned a lesson a time or two. I had a 1993 Ford Mustang that I took out and beat on. One day it started making a rattle when it neutral, but since I was working extra shifts I decided to let it go till my day off. Well my day off came and I decided to let it go one more night to go hang out with some friends when it decided to let go. Turns out the entire time the pilot bearing was bad and the deflection of the input shaft over the course of that week took out the input bearing in the transmission. The result? A bunch of chewed up gears, a cracked case, and a transmission that didn't have a single gear left to select. Had I looked at it when it started making noise I could have easily have fixed it without having to replace the transmission.Now when it comes to the Ram the engine and driveline cost too much to be replacing like I did with the Mustang. So I try to keep a much better eye on things. If a strange noise shows up I diagnosis it, when I change the oil I inspect everything. Its amazing how much longer vehicles last when you get older lol.

The only problem I ever had was with my Ford. I was at work, backed up 10ft, put it in D and it wouldn't do anything. Put it back in reverse and it wouldn't do anything there either. So I was ticked that I now had to rebuild the trans but was also glad it was at work, rather than halfway home. But then it renewed its worth when we got torrential rain for a couple days and had to get something down dirt roads and everywhere. We went through standing water up to where it started coming in the door, which is 2ft up, this was also next to a kinda big creek. The amazing thing was the next day I went back to the same spot and the water had risen about 10ft, across the entire field. Ever since I saw that I know the last thing you want to do is wait for a tractor or anything to pull you out if you get stuck, walk uphill! The only close call with the dodge was when I went out to start it one day and it wouldn't start because the wire going to the fuel shutoff solenoid had corroded off the positive terminal, which wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't happened the next day after I bought it :mad

I blew the tranny out on a Fird Ranger with a 2.2 Diesel (natural dog). (Only built 2 years back during the first oil embargo) The shop who'd repaired the tranny didn't bolt it up right... when it came loose & ate itself, they didn't want to hear it.

Years ago, one of my boat customers had a 32' Chris Craft... twin 283"s flywheel forward (lowest profile). One day, out off Block Island (16 miles off shore) he threw a rod through the oil heavy cast aluminum oil pan. He claimed he was just trolling on that one engine at dead idle. We all thought the heavy oil pan saved him from sinking the boat! When he got in, the pan had a huge hole in it & he had a hardware store in the bilge!Russ