the breakdown that saved my hide
My wife qualified for the National Dressage finals in Kentucky and we live in Northern California. That means we were doing a 5000 mile round trip hauling the horse. It also means we were going to cross the Sierras and the Rockies twice on I80. The truck was running great I had the Lance 1062 well stocked, trailer had been serviced so off we went. We crested Donner Summit of I80 in the Sierras with ease. As we were descending into Truckee on the east side the engine overheat warning flashed on the dash so I backed off and exited the freeway. As luck would have it the offramp exited onto a side road with a huge safe shoulder for both the truck and horse trailer. US RIDER got the horse and trailer towed to a stable and a medium Wrecker towed my and the truck/camper to Qualitly Automotive in Truckee. I had to dismount the camper in their lot so the truck could go up onto their lift. The hose that blew was maybe 4 inches long and the diameter of my index finger and was buried at the base of the turbo. They were going to have to take the top of the engine apart to reach it. we explained our destination and timeline for reaching the Championships and they moved some repairs around to get us to the front of the line Parts got ordered and work got started. they had everything pulled and were waiting on the arts to arrive so the mechanich started checking everything while the truck was on the rack. He found that the frond rotors were under spec for wear so I said replace them. when they pulled the calipers to get to the rotor chunks of caliper piston fell out. New caliper time. They had the truck finished by Wednesday afternoon, abut 6 hours of shop time. We were back on the road Thursday morning and made Kentucky on time and had a successful competition. If the shops mechanic had not gone the extra mile in checking out everything on the truck we may have lost our front brakes descending one of the steep grades in the Rockies. He literally saved out hides. We sopped in on our way home to Drop off Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale for the staff as a thank you. Quality Automotive Service in Truckee CA. good folks. FYI I had had the brakes checked a year ago. truck is a 2011 Ford F350 Diesel CC 4x4
