And here I sit

[Buckrub]

In an Applebee s in Asheville in NC waiting on the Tahoe to get a new fuel pump in the mor. Good thing I didn't have a Ford pr I'd never have made 190, 000 miles and still driving across country. :-)

Mama went ahead in truck... so hope I get to meet new grandson tomorrow
...or sometime.

In a seedy hotel waiting on sunrise. ..

[Captain]

I told you I'd come up there and get you dude! I've even got a spare truck you can use while you are down here.
Be careful there are a BUNCH of lot lizards up there and a pile of he/she's too...
You just think you have had a rough day, staying in Asheville might give you a even bigger story than a fuel pump going out.

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

[Thumper]

Stay there Bucky ... Lynn and I will be there to visit the Biltmore in October. Just hang tight ... we'll pick you up! Don't worry, we'll make it ... we'll be driving a Toyota! (sorry, couldn't resist the opportunity) ;)

Breaking down "on the road" sucks big weenies. Murphey's Law always kicks in ... why can't things break down close to home? Like on a routine trip to the grocery store or sumpin'? Hope they get you going.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Bought my truck in 2000 and the fuel pump started whining (sounds like a dentist's drill when it get below half a tank) in 2003 when I was on my way back from Dogtooth that year. I've driven it that way ever since and ought to have changed it out by now but I'm just to ornery. Fuel pumps in GM products, or at least Chevy trucks anyway, are either a poorly engineered pieces of crap or a sinister functional obselescence designed to make money. I'm starting to believe its the latter of the two. I'm gonna pull the bed off of mine and replace it this winter as a winter project. Still, it pisses me off.

Do they at least have Magic Fingers in their rooms?

BKB

[Buckrub]

Room was awful.

They have it in. It is fuel pump. They have me by the short curlies.

Big bucks....labor. ..have to pull fuel tank. Should be done by closing time 1:00 edt.

190, 000 miles and this is all that goes wrong??? I'll take it. Now it'll go another 50, 000.

[Arty]

I changed the fuel pump in our old 2001 Tahoe. It went out at 120,000.
It was a bitch, for sure. Those straps that hold the tank up are easy taking off, but a complete PITA to put back on.
$389 for the pump at auto zone, if memory serves me correctly. And 5-6 hours of work, on my back, by myself.

[Buckrub]

So come do mine.

Hurry.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Well, I'll tell a feel-good Thump story about the fine folks in North Carolina before I get to my Saturday chores.

In 1976, I was a GI in Uncle Sam's Air Farce and stationed in Tampa, Florida. I had a 74 Dodge b100 that I'd bought from a buddy when he got out and I'd fixed up a bit, namely added headers, Keystone Klassic mags, and a Pioneer sound system. Also got the interior insulated but that's as far as I had gotten. I was about to change career fields, so I took a month leave and my ex wife and I loaded up the van and headed out up I 95 for a tour of the eastern United States. I was 22 years old and when I say loaded up the van, I mean a couple sleeping bags, clothes, backpacks, and a coffee pot. That's was luxury on GI pay then. To this day, its one of the best vacations I've ever taken, except of course for the ex wife part. But she was hot then, and things hadn't soured quite yet, so I had the three P basic essentials covered: pot, petrol, and pussy.
We hit Rocky Mount, NC on a Sinday right as church let out and when I pulled in to gas up I heard the u joint clanking and decided not to risk it until we could figure out a way to get it fixed. I was parked in a lot by the side of main street laying underneath it looking at it when I saw a pair of cowboy boots and then a big smiling face upside down. I don't recall the fellow's name and I sure wish I did because he asked us who we were and what was wrong and when he discovered I was an 'airedale', as he called me, he told me to head on over to his gas station and tell his 'boy' to get started taking this drive shaft out and he'd be there directly. He loaded up and took off in a big caddy in a cloud of dust with his wife to go home and change out of his Sunday clothes and said he'd see me directly. Now, 1976 wasn't the greatest time in the world to be active duty military. I never got outright discriminated against but most folks treated us like second class citizens. It was just the way it was.
We went on down to his service station, full service by the way, and his 'boy' turned out to be a middle aged black guy who was also friendly as could be. He went right to work on it, in between servicing customers and made us right at home in the station. The owner showed up about an hour later with the part (he'd got the parts store guy to open up and sell him one), a couple of balogna sandwiches, and a bottle of Yellowstone whiskey. We visited and ate our sammies and drank that whiskey with a drop or two of mountain dew soda in each cup. The cups were those little thin paper cone cups you use with a water cooler. We drank almost the entire bottle. Come to find out, he was a retired gyrene. And when we left, all he asked me to pay for was the part and half the cost of the bottle. No labor no nothing. I think it was like $50. It was a gift of generosity I've never forgotten. we drove to DC and saw the sites there, made it up to York, PA and stayed with some friends for a few days, followed the old Great Wagon Road to Gettysburg, made our way to the Blue Ridge where we back pack the Appalachian Trail for a week or so, and ended up from in Johnson City, Tennessee where we bought a gallon of moonshine out of the back of a grocery store for $18. Took us a few days of campnig in the Smokies to finish that off, and then drove almost straight through home to Tampa because we were out of money, weed, and were getting tired of each other. We took the vacation of a lifetime on a wing and a prayer, camped under a big awning made out of cargo chute, and generally had the time of our lives.
I drove through Rocky Mount on my way to go hunt with Larke several years ago and pulled off the exit justto see if he might still be there. The station building was there but it was abandoned. Still, thetown was almost the same as I remembered it. Doesn't seem like the people down that way have changed much either!

BKB

[Captain]

I go through Rocky Mount several times a year when I fish out that way. Cool part of the state.
They talk funny out there. Like saying hoose for house and moose for mouse... Good folks however.
The town manage I was working with when I retired was from Rocky mount and I would always give him a hard time about having a moose in his hoose....
That sounds like a hell of a good trip y'all made. What a great time

Sent from my iPhone using Forum Runner

[Buckrub]

This was expensive, and a bit dangerous sitting on the end of an acceleration ramp on I-40 in a driving rain in a curve...........but it worked out and it could have been worse. A grand is a small price to pay considering my wife coulda had this happen AFTER she got on the freeway and not had enough power to get to the shoulder. That woulda been bad. Heck, my fishing poles were in that car!!

One time in 1977, as I left Dallas, TX to move back to Arkansas......I was driving a 1973 Olds 98 with a 455, up I-30 to come home and at the hometown of Dandy Don Meredith, I lost power......first the power windows, then power steering, then it died, and I coasted to a Dairy Queen at that exit. It's still there. Sunday night. Some young guy showed up in a semblance of a wrecker and got me across the freeway to his run down service station. He tried but said it was the alternator, and he couldn't find one that night. I checked into the hotel next door (run down and about to fall down, but still standing there on side of freeway)....and at 1:00 a.m. he knocked on my door and said he fixed it. "Stole" one that matched off of an old Caddy out back behind his shop. I said I'd wait till mornin' light, and he was there! His girlfriend and him the only ones there, and she was ticked off!!! But it was fixed. I asked how much, and he said "Oh, $60.00, that's what a new one will cost me at the NAPA"....and I said "that's nothing for labor". And he said "Oh, that don't matter".

To make matters worse, I had a specialized Texas license plate that says "Go Ark" and it hangs in my office now. I figured "oh man, I'm sunk". But no.

That's been a heck of a story for years, and makes me smile yet to tell it.

Asheville Chevy did me ok, $426 for parts (oil change also) and the rest labor. I wouldn't work for that cheap.

I can't be upset at this.

[Thumper]

In h/s I drove a 1960 Pontiac Ventura (2-door). I hopped it a bit ... it had the same engine as a GTO, but was "detuned" ... so I added a GTO cam, GTO carb/manifold, some headers ... that sort of thing. It wasn't a "racecar", but it would hold it's own on the street. I also had a full blown street racer that I built my senior year of h/s and drove it to college. After a year of majoring in Mechanical Engineering (which I absolutely hated), I was made an offer I couldn't refuse by the second in command at the General Motors assembly plant in Arlington, Texas. I informed my parents I wouldn't be returning to school and was headed for Texas. I parked my "street racer" in the garage, withdrew my meager savings from the bank and prepared to move my happy ass to Texas. Once I checked the tires on the Pontiac I realized I'd pretty well smoked 'em while in h/s. Dang, I had very little cash and needed to get an apartment in Texas, but I really needed tires. I went down to the local Firestone dealer and told them I was basically broke and needed the "cheapest" set of tires they had. They talked me into a set of recaps! I listened to their sales pitch and they convinced me the tire technology had advanced to the point the recaps were within a "c-hair" of being as good as a regular production tire. I figured, "What the heck?" I'm cash poor right now, so I had 'em mount up a set.

I loaded up everything I owned into the trunk of that car and hit the road. Now, back in the day, I seriously doubt I EVER drove under 90 mph on the highway ... and this was before the days of seatbelts. I hit the road and forced myself to stay under 100 mph. This was around July of 1971 and I think it was close to 100 degrees out! Heck, before I even made it to Littlerock, I threw the tread off a tire. I stopped, slapped on the spare and went on into LR to find a Firestone dealer. They replaced the tire free of charge. I got back on the road and before I hit Texarkana I threw off another tread! Back on goes the spare. Now remember, my trunk was loaded with all my worldly possessions, so every time I needed the spare, I had to empty all my stuff out onto the side of the road! I then decided to back 'er down to about 80-85 mph, but before I made it into Dallas, I threw another tread! Crap! At this point, I was already riding on my spare, so I limped in on the carcass to some side of the road tire shop. They sold me a crappy, badly worn tire for $3.00 and mounted it free! I had to keep the torn up tire for credit from Firestone, so it ended up in my backseat! Once in Dallas, I pulled into the Firestone dealer right at closing time with a receipt for the tires I'd bought new in Memphis a few days prior, a receipt for the tire exchange in Littlerock, a torn up tire in the trunk and another torn up tire in the backseat! I told them to shove those recaps up their collective asses! They held a guy there in the shop, took the crap tires back, gave me full credit and mounted a new set of Firestone 500's ('course I had to kick in a hunk of cash to make up the difference, but they gave me a "good deal"). I think I got out of there around 9:00 that night.

I finally made it to Arlington and located the GM plant. Right across the street I saw a sign on a business that specialized in locating apartments (everything was closed by now). I parked right there in the parking lot, spent the night in my car and waited for the place to open at 8:00 am Saturday morning. By that afternoon they had me into an apartment located about 5 mins. from the plant. That same day, the railroad went on strike! I showed up Monday morning to check in at the plant and go through the process of getting hired for my new job, but I was informed since the railroad was on strike, they couldn't get parts for the plant and there would be a temporary freeze on hiring until the strike ended and parts were again moving! Damn! I grabbed a job working the night shift at an Esso gas station. The strike dragged on and the plant started laying people off. FINALLY, after about a month or so, the strike ended and I was informed, due to union regs, nobody new could be hired until all laid-off union workers had returned to work.

Now it was August and time for the draft lottery drawing. I remember being glued to the tv on August 5, 1971 and true to my luck, my number was 51! Damn! Ok, I'd quit school so I'd lost my student deferment. I picked up and moved my life to Texas to start a dream job that so far was non-existant ... and now this! Arrrggghhh! I wiggled out of my lease (the apartment management was very understanding after checking my birthdate against the lottery list and returned my deposit). I moved back home and visited an Army recruiter to see what was in store for me. He said if I waited to be drafted, I'd be drafted into the Marines and sent straight to Vietnam. Heck, I didn't want to be no danged Jarhead! I was then told, if I JOINED the Army voluntarily ... I could request where I wanted to be stationed. Ha ha ha! I fell for it hook, line and sinker and joined up right then and there! Once I finished training, I received my orders for 'Nam!

Now how's THAT for a Thump story that kinda-sorta started out with "car trouble"? :D

[Gunther]

Once I was driving my old Shivvy with my girlfriend beside me. It broke down and we ended up walking. After we walked for about an hour we started the car and drove home.