Encounters with your GMT-400

[k1500 97]

Hey. Whats everyones close call encounters with there obs. Whether it be out of gas. Natural disaster.

Mine was the when i replaced my belt the belt was split the whole way up and down each rib. I had 6 peices of belt that was connected.

Sincere: Hunter

 

[The_Family_Tahoe]

I'd be interested to know the mileage on that belt.

No close calls here mechanically. Though there have been several brake checks initiated by other drivers on these Houston roads.

 

[GrimsterGMC]

I was driving my daughter to her friends farm when I noticed a loss of power on the long straight out of town. Drove for a while and it wouldn't clear so just before I turned off onto a rural road through the forestry, with no cell phone coverage, I decided to turn back for home. We just made it into the driveway when it stalled. The fuel pump had died just like that.

 

[someotherguy]

Too many to list. Some highlights..

My '92 ECLB giving up the water pump in the middle of nowhere, Alabama, on a trip from GA to TX. The bolts were left loose by previous "mechanic" and the RTV on the gaskets finally had enough and the water pump came right off the engine, causing a little bit of carnage along the way, as you might imagine. Took a few hours for the wrecker to show up and of course even longer to get towed back to ATL.

My '94 C2500LD transmission crapping out in small town Louisiana while moving from FL back to TX, had my Harley on a trailer behind it, and my cats inside the truck I was still about 8 hrs from my destination. Buddy showed up with his truck and a tow bar, I'm sure we were a sight headed from Ponchatoula to Corpus Christi.

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'94 3500HD had an engine fire due to a failed oil cooler hose (hacked hose by my own admission while waiting for my new radiator to arrive; the radiator I had in there had damaged oil cooler fittings so I just looped the hose), when I saw the smoke I stopped dead in the street and popped the hood, was under there literally trying to smack the flames out with my hands but the oil had got down into the spark plug boot heat shields around the exhaust (454), ended up running across the street to a shop hollering "fire" and a guy ran up to me with a fire extinguisher. Fortunately pretty much no real damage and got my buddy Polo to tow me in after a quick trip to the car wash to hose all that mess off. I thought my HD was gonna break his poor 3500 in half.

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Probably a lot more than that but those are the ones that come to mind right away. Been playing with these trucks since 1999.

Oh yeah.. bought this parts truck that was about 45 mins or so away from my shop. Buddy of mine and I are towing it in (I didn't have a shop wrecker yet) and just before we're getting off the toll road we feel a weird little wobble, as we approach the toll booth *BANG* - I thought my buddy was gonna jump backwards through his ******* but I didn't flinch at all, it sounded like a shotgun going off, but I knew it was a front tire blowing out. Driving big trucks even a short while gets you sort of "used to" the sound of a blowout. We pay a the toll booth with the tire literally on fire. Hurry through to pull into a dead shopping center and he starts digging for a fire extinguisher only to find there's not one in his wrecker. Again here I am trying to beat the fire out, this time with my boot, and some kid comes over from a car wash tent with a 5 gallon bucket of dirty water. I grab it and throw it on the wheel and out goes the fire, with this amazing "SKKKKRONNNKKKK" sound as the water hit the wheel. Thanked the kid, threw him a few bucks, flipped around and grabbed the truck from the front and popped the shift linkage out so I could get it in neutral. It was this raggedy POS wouldn't have been a huge loss but it still had plenty of good parts to give up..

This pic is with a spare wheel mounted up so I could move it around after we got it off the wrecker.

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The tire/wheel (now separate entities) that had the fire.. clearcoat browned from the heat and of course the wheel destroyed from high speed Flintstone action on the toll road.

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How did I forget about the time a tie rod completely let loose on my '96 C3500 dually wrecker, right after I got off the freeway? Pulled into the parking lot of the place I was going to and was turning to get into a space, and all of a sudden steering had a mind of its own..

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Richard

 

[grampadirt]

We were coming back from camping from the desert and about ten miles from home the steering got a little wobbly.....made it home though.After parking the toy hauler at the storage lot got home and jacked up the front end....I about **** myself when I checked the front wheels...right front bearing was about to seperate from the hub,that was close.

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[HotWheelsBurban]

I was driving my daughter to her friends farm when I noticed a loss of power on the long straight out of town. Drove for a while and it wouldn't clear so just before I turned off onto a rural road through the forestry, with no cell phone coverage, I decided to turn back for home. We just made it into the driveway when it stalled. The fuel pump had died just like that.

That's what happened to the Burb, when the fuel pump went out. We'd been driving around a lot, running errands and such, and drove it to the shop building. Going to swap trucks (we can only keep one at the RV park or they charge for "extra vehicle"). Came back out a couple of days later, to swap trucks again, and it won't start. Just sitting there cranking, but no fire. Spent a couple of weeks troubleshooting, hoping it was not the pump, but that's what it was. Amazed how much better it started and ran(and it didn't run badly before!) with the new pump. But if we'd tried to get the ten miles back to the park, it probably wouldn't have made it. And that ten miles is freeway, that everyone speeds on, so we probably would've gotten hit when it quit running.....

 

[Erik the Awful]

My '99 Suburban blew the upper intake manifold gasket outside of Lawrence, Kansas while towing my race car through a construction zone with concrete barriers on either side. For two miles I limped that truck, shutting the engine off downhill and restarting it to go uphill. Finally the barriers opened up on the right and I was able to pull off. I let the engine cool and drove into town. We got a hotel room and the next morning I limped it around town until I found a shop that replaced the gasket that day for $700. I'm pretty sure that's when the block cracked. It sipped coolant after that, and three years later my son nuked the motor.

 

[TexasRebel]

Two days after I bought my '96, I was headed home from work which was only a 15 minute drive. I was coming up to a bus that was stopped on the highway to let about 10 kids off. I started pushing the brake pedal and it went straight to the floor. I was doing about 55mph. Couldn't pump any pressure into the brakes at all. Started manually downshifting it on the column as the bus was only maybe 75 yards in front of me. It still wasn't slowing down fast enough and the parking brake wasn't grabbing hard enough. I got lucky that there was a parking lot about 50 feet behind the bus to the right. I yanked the wheel as hard as I could into that parking lot and the truck spun around a couple times before it slowed down enough for me to jam it into park. Needless to say, that night the whole brake system was inspected and mostly replaced.

 

[k1500 97]

I'd be interested to know the mileage on that belt.

No close calls here mechanically. Though there have been several brake checks initiated by other drivers on these Houston roads.

Idk prob the original. I still have the original altnator dated 2/97. And when i changed the sparkalators it had a briggs and stratton plug in there. Luckily the heads not stripped. I wish i took pics. No lie a lawn mower plug in cylinder 7.

 

[GMCTruck]

I thought that this thread would be about extraterrestrial encounters with our trucks.