The Christmas Jam that never was (for me that is)
well I should be somewhere around NC right now but that never happened. I left last night around 6:30 and was making good time, drove until 10 or 10:30 and still wanted to do a lot more driving before sleeping. I stopped at wendy's looking for a place to piss since there were like no rest stops the whole way yet. As I pulled up to the window to ask if the inside was open I saw smoke pouring up from under my hood and since I knew my oil cap was on, I knew it was trouble. I popped my hood, saw oil everywhere and then started it back up to see what was up and smoke/oil were just pouring out of the breather on my valve cover - very bad sign. I took the breather off (little filter thing) and cleaned it all off, put it back on and started it - wasn't leaking oil but smoke was pouring out. I didn't think this would be a good idea but I tried to plug it anyway since I was desperate (I would of listened to how it sounded for a while before hitting the road) but I immediatley discovered that my instinct was right - sealing the whole will do more bad then good.
I fucked around with it for a few hours and eventually decided my only option will be to find an auto garage that's open saturday morning. We went to sleep around 2am and it was damn cold out! my original plan of letting the truck run for heat wasn't an option at the time since I figured with it smoking like that I shouldn't be running the truck. I was all warm except my feet - should of brought some wool socks but I have this sweet carhartt hat with the ears that fold up if its to hot and it's got this pull down face mask - my bro said he was all warm in his sleeping bag (I had blankets - next time ill bring my sleeping bag to) but we just slept in the Wendy's parking lot. I asked somebody about a garage and went to the place they told me - closed saturdays but somebody else recomended one that was open. On my way down to it I was so busy trying to find the spot that I apparently ran right through a stop sign - got pulled over - got a $110.50 fine.
So I went to the garage and the guy said it definitley looks like something inside the motor. When I told him about our travel plans and asked how unsafe to drive it was he said "it's really a coin toss, if it's not leaking anymore and just smoking it could possibly last to NC and back home, or it might last until the end of this street" so I took a gamble and started heading south, stopped about 10 miles later and popped the hood to check - fucking oil leaking everywhere again! At that moment there was no 2 options, I had to turn my ass around and try to make it home, I was probably still 9 hours from Asheville and was way behind schedule even if I was going to go. it took a few minutes to take it all in before I had to turn around and head home. I stopped every 10-20 miles to soak up all the oil and add more as needed. Luckily the oil was following a channel in the valve cover back and not leaking onto the exhaust manifold which would have been a big fire hazard. As I got near home some oil started to reach the manifold and it was slightly smoking. The truck probably would have made the trip, with maybe a half dozen extra quarts of oil but it certainly would have been all over the exaust manifold by the end of the trip, plus it wasn't to good by the time I made my way close to home.
I thought my "friends" that did work to my truck were doing me a favor at the time but they really did hack some shit and I believe I totally over paid them to support a pill habbit I didn't know of at the time. I'm not just saying that cause this happened, it had problems starting and a wicked vibration when idleing ever since they worked on it, and I had more then 1 (probably quite a few more) garage tell me that whoever did this work was a hack. Despite the problems, the truck has been running pretty damn good since then, this last Furthur tour especially. Also, despite the massive oil leakage and smoking today, it still ran like a champ all the way home - you couldn't tell anything was wrong driving so hopefully it's nothing major cause I love this truck to death! ..... I havn't talked to my "friends" who worked on my truck since they never contacted me back once I stopped selling pot (go figure) and I really didn't want to ever try to contact them again but last night I was desperate and sent a few text messages, which I can almost guarentee he just looked at and then laughed his ass off at me being stranded but I wasn't expecting a response it was just a shot in the dark.
Anyway I'm home now
and just popped the mush capsules I had packed for tonight before righting this 
there starting to come on nice but I'm really not sure if I should have in the frame of mind I'm in now 
but ill make the best of it 
2 wasted x-mas jam tickets
$110.50 fine
A wasted day
A bunch of wasted gas
A night with terrable sleep (kept dreaming about my truck breaking down and feet freezing like hell)
another problem with my truck
A bunch of wasted hopes of seeing an amazing 1 off show
but at least I'm home safe and my truck isn't a few states away from home broke down - I'll have to make up for this one eventually, that's for sure.....
well I should be somewhere around NC right now but that never happened. I left last night around 6:30 and was making good time, drove until 10 or 10:30 and still wanted to do a lot more driving before sleeping. I stopped at wendy's looking for a place to piss since there were like no rest stops the whole way yet. As I pulled up to the window to ask if the inside was open I saw smoke pouring up from under my hood and since I knew my oil cap was on, I knew it was trouble. I popped my hood, saw oil everywhere and then started it back up to see what was up and smoke/oil were just pouring out of the breather on my valve cover - very bad sign. I took the breather off (little filter thing) and cleaned it all off, put it back on and started it - wasn't leaking oil but smoke was pouring out. I didn't think this would be a good idea but I tried to plug it anyway since I was desperate (I would of listened to how it sounded for a while before hitting the road) but I immediatley discovered that my instinct was right - sealing the whole will do more bad then good.
I fucked around with it for a few hours and eventually decided my only option will be to find an auto garage that's open saturday morning. We went to sleep around 2am and it was damn cold out! my original plan of letting the truck run for heat wasn't an option at the time since I figured with it smoking like that I shouldn't be running the truck. I was all warm except my feet - should of brought some wool socks but I have this sweet carhartt hat with the ears that fold up if its to hot and it's got this pull down face mask - my bro said he was all warm in his sleeping bag (I had blankets - next time ill bring my sleeping bag to) but we just slept in the Wendy's parking lot. I asked somebody about a garage and went to the place they told me - closed saturdays but somebody else recomended one that was open. On my way down to it I was so busy trying to find the spot that I apparently ran right through a stop sign - got pulled over - got a $110.50 fine.
So I went to the garage and the guy said it definitley looks like something inside the motor. When I told him about our travel plans and asked how unsafe to drive it was he said "it's really a coin toss, if it's not leaking anymore and just smoking it could possibly last to NC and back home, or it might last until the end of this street" so I took a gamble and started heading south, stopped about 10 miles later and popped the hood to check - fucking oil leaking everywhere again! At that moment there was no 2 options, I had to turn my ass around and try to make it home, I was probably still 9 hours from Asheville and was way behind schedule even if I was going to go. it took a few minutes to take it all in before I had to turn around and head home. I stopped every 10-20 miles to soak up all the oil and add more as needed. Luckily the oil was following a channel in the valve cover back and not leaking onto the exhaust manifold which would have been a big fire hazard. As I got near home some oil started to reach the manifold and it was slightly smoking. The truck probably would have made the trip, with maybe a half dozen extra quarts of oil but it certainly would have been all over the exaust manifold by the end of the trip, plus it wasn't to good by the time I made my way close to home.
I thought my "friends" that did work to my truck were doing me a favor at the time but they really did hack some shit and I believe I totally over paid them to support a pill habbit I didn't know of at the time. I'm not just saying that cause this happened, it had problems starting and a wicked vibration when idleing ever since they worked on it, and I had more then 1 (probably quite a few more) garage tell me that whoever did this work was a hack. Despite the problems, the truck has been running pretty damn good since then, this last Furthur tour especially. Also, despite the massive oil leakage and smoking today, it still ran like a champ all the way home - you couldn't tell anything was wrong driving so hopefully it's nothing major cause I love this truck to death! ..... I havn't talked to my "friends" who worked on my truck since they never contacted me back once I stopped selling pot (go figure) and I really didn't want to ever try to contact them again but last night I was desperate and sent a few text messages, which I can almost guarentee he just looked at and then laughed his ass off at me being stranded but I wasn't expecting a response it was just a shot in the dark.
Anyway I'm home now
and just popped the mush capsules I had packed for tonight before righting this there starting to come on nice but I'm really not sure if I should have in the frame of mind I'm in now but ill make the best of it 2 wasted x-mas jam tickets
$110.50 fine
A wasted day
A bunch of wasted gas
A night with terrable sleep (kept dreaming about my truck breaking down and feet freezing like hell)
another problem with my truck
A bunch of wasted hopes of seeing an amazing 1 off show
but at least I'm home safe and my truck isn't a few states away from home broke down - I'll have to make up for this one eventually, that's for sure.....
