It's about 2:00 and we're back in Covington at the truck site. Jim's already under the truck starting work. Hmm...taking a hacksaw to the underneath just seems scary.
Okay, 3:00 and both lines off and repair pressure hoses on. That's some quick work! Yay!!! It started!! And both the lines seem to be holding with no leaks.
That celebration was a bit premature. The power steering line didn't hold and blew. So Jim put 3 clamps on each side and we were heading to the store for another set of clamps and power steering fluid. But our buddy here that helped us last weekend came through again and gave us both. So Jim will try again.
Well, adding another 2 sets of clamps didn't help and the power steering hose still blew. Scott (okay, now we are on a first name basis with these service station guys!) recommended a place up the street that could make him a hose. So off we went in search of this place. After a few miscues, we found the place but they couldn't make a flexible pressure hose like Jim was hoping for. They sold him a steel line with connectors that he could hopefully make work.
But, when we got back to the truck, the connectors weren't the same size as the line already on the truck that he needed to tie into - a metric vs English issue. Then came the fun part. For probably at least 3 hours, Jim tried various filing methods to reduce the size of the truck's line to fit the connectors. One end of the line was already off but the other was still attached which just added to the fun. Scott gave us various files in not so great condition (Jim said my fingernail file might have worked just as well!) and tough grid sandpaper. Imagine doing that for 3 hours. I felt so bad for Jim. All I could do was try to hold the lines while he filed away. But eventually he got all to mate up and connected everything. He started it and the line held - success! Then it was just a matter of putting power steering fluid in and getting the air out of the line.
But here's proof that we got it running - check out this video!
Then we had to check out some basic driving things - do we have lights that work? Windshield wiper blades? That would be a big no, so thankfully no rain.
By this time though, it's 8:00 and getting dark and we had a 4 hour ride home - that's with good vehicles going the speed limit. Jim ventured nervously up the street to the gas station. At first, there was a ton of smoke but it got better and better as he drove off. We got some diesel fuel and decided to try heading home. For the most part, the truck did really well - much better than our nerves probably did! However, he discovered that the oil pan was leaking so we stopped every hour or so and put more oil in it. One bad part of that was that since I was following him and oil was dripping out, oil was making it back to my car and soon my windshield was all freckled with oil. I wasn't smart enough to figure that out at first...it looked like slight rain drops and I tried cleaning the windshield with my blades and the wiper fluid. A nice smeary windshield was the result of that. So then we had to clean my windshield at each stop too.
However, it was considered a major success because the truck is now sitting in our driveway (well, the gravel turnaround so the oil doesn't ruin the driveway!). We stopped once to eat too about 10:00 and got home around 2:00. Tired but happy. No more trips to Kentucky!
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