The weekend from hell....

[OrangeCrush]

Friday I decide i'm going to drive the H2 from NC to Tampa to visit my mother. I also decide that since I'm going down there, I'm going to tow a 6x12 enclosed trailer and pick up a Snap On toolbox in Palm Beach.

I picked up the trailer from a friend of mine Thursday night and on the way home the tranny overheated.

I've been running a tranny cooler with it's own fan mounted under the truck on the ladder bar cage but apparently that wasn't working.

So Friday I installed another tranny cooler behind the intercooler and this time I ran it through the stock radiator. (I hadn't before because of fear of the stock radiator breaking where the tranny cooler lines run)

Anyway, I install the new cooler and the truck won't run worth a damn. I spend the next few hours checking it out and found out that the Xdrive box for the 90mm throttle body had a poor connection.

At 7pm, I drive to Tampa. I can't run over 70 because it'll overheat the tranny. At 65-70, the tranny temps run in the 210 range.... anything more than that, the temps climb into the 230's.

Because I'm driving so slow, and it was getting late and I stopped a couple of times to close my eyes for a few minutes, I don't get to Tampa until 10am. 15 fukkin hours... I can make it to Tampa in the mini cooper in 7 hours.

I averaged 5.7 mpg. NOT GOOD at all.

I stay up all day and go to bed by 10pm. At 6:30am, I'm up and ready to drive the to Palm Beach.

I get about an hour away and the tranny line lets loose and dumps everything on the side of the road. As soon as I see the smoke, I immediately pull over and coast to a stop.

I call my mom and she brings me tools and tranny fluid. I fix the truck on the side of the road and get back on the road. About an hour later, I lost 3rd and 4th gear. I had to drive all the way to Palm Beach in 2nd gear at 60mph at 4K rpms.

I DROVE ALL NIGHT until 6:30am this morning. I averaged less than 6mpg, drove 2200 miles and spent a ton of money on gas.

So today, I've got another toolbox, I'm a thousand dollars poorer from gas and now I need another trans. I've had less than 10 hours sleep since Friday... what a crappy weekend.

Tomorrow is another day....


Mark

[Lucky1]

Man that sux bad brother . I have the same story from Monroe La. back to Dallas tho not nearly as far as your journey. Thank God you can damn near fix anything.

[Easy Ed]

Sorry to hear about the weekend Orange, hope all gets fixed and works out well for ya, Ed

[twr]

hi Orange that sounds like it couldn't get much worse. I hope you find a money tree to recoupe some of your lost gas cash. One plus you got to see your Mom. Go get some sleep it will be better when you wake up.

[pteam]

IF you need rebuilt 4L65 trannys call my guy 1-800-474-2415 Tell him Jimmy from First Class Limos sent ya. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180398344374&_trksid=p2759.l1259 is his ebay store. You can get one with hardened and upgraded for less than $1,000 shipped.

[ROUSHDEMON]

Fukk dude, I would have flipped and called a tow truck, you've got a lot more patience than I do that's for sure!:)

[TGCOFTN]

I think I would of called at a tow truck........at 5.7mpg the money you paid at the pump for all the gas, could of went to a tow bill.

Listening to a engine 4,000rpms for that long of a time would drive me crazy.

[OrangeCrush]

I did want to call a tow truck but I had an enclosed trailer and figured I'd end up calling a rollback and hen they could tow the trailer.

I ended up driving home and pulled the tranny out yesterday. I dropped it off at a local shop this morning that specializes in racing trannys. They've got an excellent reputation so hopefully no problems.

The stuff from the ebay ad looks like the same stuff that my guy is doing. It's still costing 950 bucks but I should have it back in the next few days.


Mark

[Big.Z.hummin]

man that sucks bro but man you have way more patience than me!

i would have just said fukk it and put a for sale sign on my truck on the side of the road haha :giggling:

[pteam]

good luck!

[pteam]

good luck!

[OrangeCrush]

Apparently the saga continues. I had my tranny rebuilt by a supposedly good source.

I got the truck back a few days later and within a few days, the check engine light came on with a code saying tranny slipping.

I took the truck back to him and he said the converter was slipping. Though it was a new converter, I specifically asked him if the converter wasn't an excellent product (I'm figuring that these are cheap rebuilt converters they stick in the trans when they rebuild them) that I'd spend the money and buy a precision industries converter.

He assured me he's never had a problem with those converters.

I got the truck back yesterday and within an hour, the CEL came back on.

I HATE doing things like this 2-3 times. I called the guy and though he apologized confusely, the bottom line is he's going to pull the trans again. :rant:

He was kind enough to offer me his own duramax diesel to drive if I needed a truck over the weekend.

Oh well, here we go again.


Mark

[Luv2Camp]

That stinks Mark. Hope it gets resolved quickly for you...

I remember back in the 80's I had an IROC Z-28 and blew the tranny. Had that thing back 4 times and every time I got it back within a few hours the tranny would stick in second gear. The last time the shop got it right but it was not until several weeks later when I noticed the paint on my fender starting to lift and guessing they spilled tranny fluid on the paint and just gave it a fast wipe off!