This is definitely a meet for the record books. Unfortunately, I don't
recall everyone's name.
Most of the Jeep crew departed at about 8 PM Saturday from the ice cream
shop. Patty (Green '97, Tweety Twuck) led the way, with her sister Mary
(Black '97 TJ, "Who needs roads"), Don (Teal YJ, 1 Bad YJ license
plate), the "live" Cherokee (he found a replacement I assume down in
Fredonia), the guy with the Willys being pulled by the F150, and maybe
one or 2 more.
Patty quickly discovered that her tranny wouldn't move out of 1st gear.
She decided to ride it out, hoping that it would break free finally.
Didn't. At the first rest area after the I-90 on-ramp (Angola, I think;
about 10 miles), they pulled off. She was towed by Don *the entire rest
of the trip*. Her alternator was also dead; the needle dropped quickly.
Just past Buffalo (Exit 50), they came to the realization that they'd
misplaced the F150. Didn't know where they lost him, when, nothing.
Couldn't raise him on a radio. Pulled into the next service area and
frantically tried to make contact. No luck. Even had the few truckers
they could raise on CB looking for him. Everyone was getting pretty
upset at this point, then Mary called home to get the cell number for
Rob Quonce (owner of Q's towing and the guy who snapped his axle) to
have him keep eyes peeled, as they were being picked up by the flatbed.
Rob's brother's Cherokee was being towed by the flatbed because he fell
victim to the alternator curse as well, and the only one he could find
was a 2 hour drive from Jon's; no point in driving 4 hours round trip
when home was just as far AND he had one waiting for him that his mother
had picked up for him.
Turns out Rob & Co. had just left the F150 *back at the Angola rest
area*. Seems the F150 ingested some muck into the alternator and
suffered the same fate as Patty and the 2 Cherokees. Happy to know
everyone was at least safe, the forward crew kept rolling. Got home
about 2 AM, but didn't sleep well knowing that some of their guys were
still out there.
The F150 was stuck. They untrailered the Willys and all 3 of them piled
in for a drive to the next exit. Figured that if they could find a
battery they could make it home. Or maybe an alternator. Well, even
the 24-hour battery store was closed. They found a kind soul who let
them make some calls from their house, then they rolled back to the
F150. *They spent the night sleeping in the truck in the rest area.* 3
people sleeping in an F150 extended cab...not comfortable, I imagine.
Come morning, one of his sons said "hey Dad, since Coke seems to eat
away at stuff and clean things, what if we try it on the alternator?"
Hell, it was worth a shot; the alt. was dead anyway if a Coke cleaning
didn't fix it. Doused it with a can, let it soak a few minutes, then
rinsed it with the runoff from the cooler and reinstalled.
The truck fired up right away! Put the Willys on the trailer and headed
for home. Got home at 11:30 AM SUNDAY.
Back to Patty's TJ. Turns out Mary had to get a new tranny last summer
for some reason, so they called the same shop down in Texas; the woman
working there remembered Mary as "I think you're the only person we've
sold a transmission to in NY! And you were so nice! Not like most NY
people I've talked to!" Told her what she needed, she called back 30
minutes later. Patty now has on the way to her a USED, not rebuilt,
tranny out of a wrecked '97 with only 12K on it. Her Jeep has 86K on
it, so for $500 plus shipping, she's getting basically a new
transmission and gets to keep the old one to rebuild. Since Rich
(another SCORE member) is a DC tech, he can do the install for her.
Now, her alternator was dead too. She found out about the Coke trick
and tried it. Worked great! Lesson? Always take a can of Coke in a
cooler w/ ice on the trail.
Jon, I'm going to pass this to Patty to fill in the names and make any
corrections; she and I both thought this should be part of this
weekend's story.
-- -andy andylevy@yahoo.com Maintainer, DML FAQ - http://www.dakota-truck.net/faq/ http://home.twcny.rr.com/andylevy/dakota/ '99 CC 4x4 318 auto
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:05:03 EDT