Dammit... I searched the Archives but can't find the post. I know I posted the long-winded version on here right after it happened, but can't seem to find it. Must have been deleted. Lemmie see what details I can remember...
The story starts the night before (Wednesday night), where we find our hero in Doug Brown's driveway in Rockland County, NY. We replaced some front-end parts including ball-joint flips and a coupla other things. This all in prep for a trip to Uwharrie on Friday night. Now, here's where it starts to get funny already. We finished up at about 3:00am, at which time I still had to drive an hour home, then get up for work at 7:30... That being said, we were exhausted, which generally means that the latter parts of the project tend to get glossed over without paying too much attention to detail. Note the foreshadowing...
So morning comes, and me and my exhausted <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/butwiggle.gif" alt="" /> get up and head to work. Mind you the very last thing we did the night before was put the tires back on (more foreshadowing). Anyway, I get about 20 miles into my trip, and the truck is really shaking something fierce. Of course, in my usually "already late" mode, I figure I'll check it out at lunch, in the meantime, I'll live with the shimmy for the next 30 miles of my trip to work.
So much for that, a few miles later, I'm banking a left-hand exit ramp onto another highway, at about 65 MPH, mind you, when the steering wheel actually shakes back and forth uncontrollably for a second or two, followed by a loud bang, followed by a severe drop on the passenger side of the vehicle -- maybe a foot and a half or so. For those that weren't quite paying attention, that's the OUTSIDE on the 65mph exit ramp, quite disconcerting to say the least.
Anyway, at this point, I was still able to steer even though the front end was sunk down so far... But wait, hey, look at that, that's a big tire bouncing down the road there. Nice beefy M/T, too... Oh, wait, that's MY tire!! No wonder... So I cruise over to the side of the road driving on the ball joint... By the way, you can still steer quite well driving on the lower ball joint, and you won't even land on the rotor cause the ball joint will break the fall before it gets to the rotor...
Anyway, this whole time I'm watching the tire. It's still bouncing. Now, I'm on an entrance ramp that puts you onto the fast lane of an interstate... And it was the passenger side tire that came off... So now as you can imagine, it's bouncing over the divider between me and the fast lane, and out into oncoming traffic... Cool...
Thank my lucky stars, the tire proceeds to bounce across FOUR (yep, four...) lanes of rush hour traffic without anyone so much as skidding out of control, let alone hitting anyone. Then it bounces into the shoulder and up about 7 feet high, and thankfully hits the fence... Cause if the fence wasn't there, it would've dropped about 50 feet onto 8 lanes of traffic on the interstate below!!
So anyway, now I'm kinda screwed... But I guess that's why they tell you to check the torque on your lug nuts after 100 miles... And given the fact that we did it at 3:00am the night before, there's a good chance I never even re-torqued them when I took it off the jack... I know, I know, bad, bad, bad...
So I call up Pep Boys and ask if they can do the front-end stud replacement same day (since I'm leaving for Uwharrie the next day, remember?) and they say sure, they can do it, but they don't have the studs. So I call up AAA+ and tell them to tow the truck to Pep Boys, around the corner from where I broke down. Then I call my father, and he comes out to pick me up to take me to the Isuzu dealer for the studs... Anyway, by the time he gets there, the AAA+ guy is there, and he says he can't pull it up the flatbed without the tire on there. WTF? What the hell is the whole POINT of a tow truck, I mean, really???
So anyway, I ratchet-strap the tire back onto the truck good enough to get it up on the truck anyway, and send him on his way to Pep Boys. I go get the studs, drop 'em off at Pep Boys, and they say, "No problem, should be done in about an hour." Wonderful, best news I heard all day. Anyway, so I go to work thinking my truck will be all set by the time I get back... About 4:00 rolls around, I figure I'll call just to make sure it's done. I call, they say, "Well, we had a few others ahead of you, so we're just bringing it in now. Should be about an hour." OK, they're jerks, not really a big deal though, since I don't get out til 5:00 anyway. 5:00 rolls around, I call, "Oh, yeah, sorry, we didn't get it in there yet, bringing it in now. Should be about an hour." Can you actually hear the blood boiling in my ears about now?
So fine, I head up there. They're about an hour away from me anyway, by the time I get there, it should be done. I pull up about 6:00, and the truck's outside. Wonderful, must be done. I drive up next to her, and the damn ratchet strap is still holding the wheel on! Sonsabitches!!
So I run inside just about ready to kill someone, and after several techs trying very hard to calm me down, they finally say they'll bring it in right now, it'll be about an hour. Gee, have I heard that before??? Ok, fine, do it up, I'll be here waiting. If I can be of any help or somehow make this ordeal get over with a little easier, let me know, I'll be sitting right here.
About 5 minutes after they pull the truck in, the manager comes out and tells me that since it's 4WD, they can't do it today! What the hell is that?? There's no difference idiots! I mean, OK, there *is* a difference, but not enough to mean they can't do it today! At this point I didn't even argue. I said, "Roll the truck back outside and I'll do it my damn self." Now, mind you, I was wearing a suit at the time, had to for my old job. So Pep Boys got a few bucks of my money that day anyway, cause I bought a coverall from them for cheap...
So anyway, you basically know the part about the manager coming out to scold me for working on the truck in their lot, and you know the outcome of that, so I won't rehash it....
That's not quite the *end* of the story, tho... All this for my weekend trip to Uwharrie. Unfortunately, I cranked the front end way too high that night in the driveway with Doug, and ended up tearing both side boots before the first trail even started. Additionally, the idle was all screwed up on the truck, and I had such trouble wheeling it on Saturday morning that Saturday afternoon and Sunday I just parked it and rode along. So make a long story really short, I went through all that trouble to get the truck to Uwharrie, and ended up not really wheeling it at all...
So, that's the long version.... Hope you enjoyed...
-Chris
