What Saved Your A$$?

24/7 I keep a 12v tire inflator, a flashlight (several of them actually), jumper cables, and a small tool bag with basic 3/8 and 1/4" drive sockets and pliers and a few wrenches and stuff, and a 24" breaker bar with a 22mm socket on it (which is the size my lug nuts are). Whenever I go on a road trip, I have some additional tools with me, including an electric impact gun. These tools proved to be a life saver during one of my many road trips. My wife has a rare neurological disease called Huntington's Disease, and I have to bring her about every 4-6 months to see a Huntington's Disease specialist who is located in New Orleans. That's over 300 miles from here, or about a 5 and a half hour drive. This disease is so rare that no doctors here specialize in it, that's why we have to travel. Anyways, one time on the way home I had a major failure on my truck while cruising at 75mph on the highway. I was about an hour from the nearest town, and over 3 hours from home still. I heard a metal clinking sound, then that was following by a metal scraping or grinding sound. I tried to pull over to investigate, but as soon as I put my foot on the brake pedal I heard a loud BOOM immediately followed by the brake pedal going ALL the way to the floor and the rear of the truck slamming down. I quickly realized that I had a blowout, but I was confused as to why the brakes went out as well. Thankfully I didn't panic, (even though my wife and kids went into full panic mode) and I IMMEDIATELY let off the brakes as I grabbed hold of the steering wheel firmly with both hands and I guided my truck on to the shoulder. Even after seeing that I had a flat tire and brake fluid EVERYWHERE, I was still confused about what happened to my truck. After I finally got it jacked up took the wheel off, I realized what happened. A bolt came loose on my rear brake caliper bracket as I was driving. (That was the pinging or clinking sound I heard) then the caliper pivoted down and rubbed against the inside hoop of the wheel, which is what the grinding sound was that I heard. Then when I pressed that brake pedal, that's what finished it off and the brake caliper literally dug into the wheel very hard at that point which basically caused my wheel to be cut open just like a can opener cutting a can open. Thankfully, a good Samaritan stopped to help right as all this was happening. He looked at the damage as I was looking at it and he offered to drive me to the nearest parts store to get parts to fix it. I needed a new brake caliper hose, caliper bolts, the crush washers, the banjo bolt, some brake fluid to refill the master cylinder, plus when the wheel exploded it busted the shock as well.
Thanks to smartphones, we quickly found what parts stores were somewhat close, and called them to see if they had the parts I needed, the only store that had the caliper bolts and hose that I needed was about a 50 minute drive away. This gentleman didn't hesitate and he said "C'mon let's go!" My wife and kids stayed with my truck and I took a ride with this guy to go get the parts. The parts store didn't have any 3/8" copper crush washers in stick, so I had to get 1/2" and hope they sealed (which they did). We get back to my truck about 2 hours later and I had no problem installing all the parts because I had all the tools with me that I needed. I even topped off the brake fluid reservoir and bleed the brakes right there on the side of the road. Then I got the spare mounted on and I was ready to roll. I limped it the rest of the way on on the the busted shock, and hoping that the brakes held up with that wrong sized washer on them. Thankfully we got home safely and I was able to order some new shocks and stuff to finish fixing my truck properly. Even though I had the tools to fix it, if that guy had not stopped to help me, theres no way I would have been able to get to a parts store before 6pm that day (it was a Sunday).
Here are a few pictures of the damaged wheel. In one of them you can clearly see brake fluid all over the tire and inside the tire.

Smrtss1 said:

Pole climbing gear and a butt set.
I was driving to the upper peninsula of Michigan in the middle of the night using a few back roads that I knew to save time when my OJ Simpson era Bronco just flat out died on me at about 2am in between Nowhere and You're ****** Wisconsin. Normally it's no big deal but it was one of those stretches of winter when the high for the last 2 weeks was around 6*. Waiting it out until morning would've turned me into a popsicle with no heat in the car, the blanket I always have in my car was taken by my recent ex-girlfriend when she moved and I couldn't get a fire going due to the wind and blowing snow. I remembered seeing a pole lead maybe a mile back (working on utility poles I ALWAYS look at them now) so I figured I'd grab my gear and go make a phone call. That mile was more like 2-3 miles but the walk in my heavy work gear and heavy duty work clothes got my core sweating and although really REALLY cold my hands and feet were still working, face in the other hand was getting a bit of frostbite from walking into a 20mph wind. I got my hooks on and started walking to the pole only to realize that in this area of Wisconsin there are 6'-8' ditches between the road and poles. Dug myself thru the snow while trying to not stab my legs with the 2" metal spikes by my ankles only to get to the pole and realize that I lost the hammer I was going to use to break the ice off the pole while I climbed it and praying to God that there was a terminal up at the top on the cable. Climbed up while chipping ice off with a small screwdriver and channel locks (only tools left on my belt after falling in the snow covered ditch) and got really lucky to find a terminal to open up and clip the butt set on. I found a working pair in the terminal and called 911 while trying to give a good description of where I was. I have the splice number to the dispatcher and told them to wake up someone that works for the phone company to pull the number so they could find me faster. They told me to stay put but not moving meant getting cold and I was ok to make the trek back to my truck with the wind behind me I'd stay warmer and I needed shelter. Luckily the wind died down and snow stopped halfway back to the truck and when I was about 100 feet from my truck I saw something my brain couldn't make sense of, my truck was lit up like someone was shining a light on it and I kept hearing loud POP POP noises, which I thought was me losing it after being outside in the snow and cold for so long (2-3 hours). What I couldn't comprehend was that there was a car coming up the road from behind me and a snowmobile coming up from the side and the guy on the snowmobile was shooting at the wolves that were following me about 60 feet away. The big warm Suburban was being driven by the sheriff and the snowmobile was a guy that works for the phone company that lived a few miles away and took out his sled because he could get to me faster on it. The sheriff in the car said the wolves were tracking me from the time I came down the pole all the way back to my car. Got to sleep on a couch at the police station after the really nice sheriff made me some food and let me drink a shit ton of whiskey he had in the car and got my truck back and fixed the next afternoon.
Now there I one thing I ALWAYS have in my car which is a telephone butt set and a blanket once it gets cold out.

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Now that's a story! Hunted by wolves!? Damn....

Jumper Cables! Always used them to help someone else. Also used to keep a little black zippered tool kit in the truck from Sears.

HiHoeSilver said:

Now that's a story! Hunted by wolves!? Damn....

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Apparently, and I didn't even know nor did I want to check after they told me. Something about essentially being a walking popsicle makes you not give a shit. Even if I had a gun on me (I always have a knife) it would've been pretty useless since I was shaking like a leaf and couldn't feel my hands by the time they got to me. The thought of being a midnight snack for a few predators never even crossed my mind because at the time there weren't that many wolves in the area because they had just been reintroduced to the area.


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kwOH said:

Not really what was in my truck that saved me, but traffic the first time it was good for anything, was in area im not familiar with yesterday, there was a local festival going on, there were about 6 highway patrols directing traffic and i was casually cruising at 55 in a 35, had no idea, when an officer passed me he was starring me down, i looked at the wife and said he was looking pretty damn hard, then came up on the speed limit sign, oops doin 20 over lol, so much traffic he couldn’t have turned around if he wanted to.

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I did 80 this entire week I was in OH. Freeways with more than two lanes is INCREDIBLE and will be sorely missed when I get back home. I'm gonna miss the multiple lanes, people signaling before turning and/or changing lanes, slower drivers getting over to the right...

cash

A badge. I used to live in Pa, but I still worked at the prison in Newark Nj. It was a 200 mile round trip, and I did this 5-6 days a week. At the time I had 5 cars. Doing 1000-1200 miles a week, you're always running into a car problem. If I had an issue, I'd usually just grab a different car and sort out the problem later. Once I was having ALOT of car issues, and I was down to my gray Chevy that sat on the side of my garage, unstarted, for about a year. I didn't want to, but I had to get to work. Put a battery in it and it started right up. Who cared that it wasn't registered or insured! I just popped on a plate from my black GN and off I went. The first day went fine. Made it there and back no problem. Second day was a little more eventful. This Chevy looked like it escaped from a crusher. Car looked like hell! Every panel was dented or rusted and was held together with duct tape. But this thing ran like a tank! Unbelievable how good it ran. I was on rte 80, minding my own business, trying to get to work. I wasn't speeding either. In my mirror I see a trooper coming up slowly on my left. I didn't look at him, which probably seemed a little suspicious. You always know when you're going to get pulled over, always a sick feeling in your gut. He pulls behind me and lights them up. After pulling over, he walks up and says "You know this plate comes back to a black Buick ". I think I blew his mind when I said I knew! Lol, he didn't know what to say at first. I then told him that I needed to get to work and that my insurance company told me to do it. It was a 1/2 lie, or a 1/2 truth. Insurance companies in Pa actually can issue you a license plate, not only Dmv. This whole time I'm still sitting in the driver seat. At the time I'm wearing my PBA jacket, which is the same as FOP. He leans in and pushes my jacket aside and sees my badge and uniform. I always wore a jacket while driving, sometimes people get stupid. He asks if I have any ID for the job, which I do. Can you believe he let's me go!! Tells me to take care of the registration and insurance and takes off. I could've gotten so many tickets, towed, fined and who knows what else!

Tonyrodz said:

...my black GN

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Still have that money pit?

swathdiver said:

Still have that money pit?

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Yup. Told my son I'd give it to him. I'll let him have all the fun!

One other thing I always keep in my truck that I forgot to mention. I have a first aid kit sitting in the rear side panel. Has basic first aid stuff like several different sized band aids, gauze pads and gauze rolls, medical tape, elastic wound wrap, some rubber gloves, wound cleanser, peroxide, and a few other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. I can't tell you how many times I have had either myself or else the wife or one of the kids get a cut or scrape and need a band aid. I also keep some Tylenol and ibuprofen in there as well.
This reminds me of something else I need to add to my kit, some insect sting relief gel. I don't know the name of it, but it comes in a plastic tube about the size of Chapstick and helps tremendously when stung by a bee or any other stinging insect. Last time I was camping I wish I would have had that.
OH, and I also have some Epi-pens in there. My daughter has a SEVERE peanut allergy so we need to carry epi pens everywhere we go. We get a new set every year, and I take the expired ones and just put them in my truck. Yes, they are expired but they will still work. The new set is usually in my wife's purse, and we have to keep a set up at her school. If my daughter is with me and my wife isn't and for some reason my baby girl has an allergic reaction (like say we eat somewhere and we don't realize they cook with peanut oil) then at least I have some epi pens that I can use in an extreme emergency.