Well guys, it's been a rough week and there's no end in sight. If you'll bear with me a little bit I'm gonna bend your ears and get some of this off of my chest; try to preserve whatever may be left of my sanity.
Those that saw my steering upgrade thread know that my diesel work truck lost head gaskets last week and that's turned into a battle of wills between me and my stubborn truck. The heads checked out good, bottom end looked good and everything seemed ok. Worked all day Sunday putting that 7.3 back together and til about 4:30 AM Monday putting it back in the truck (that's a tough job by yourself with that big of an engine, she's about 1,500 lbs). Grabbed a nap Monday morning for a couple of hours then got back at it and got her fired up. Immediately blew a power steering hose apart so I had to shut it down and go on a several hour hunt to acquire a new one. Finally got it going again, the alternator quit. Got that replaced and tried again, starts leaking oil from the rear main (brand new factory seal installed using the $400 Ford install tool) got too frustrated and walked away. Tuesday: Started checking, there was a clog up the line the breather system that was far from obvious and I got excited that it might be something simple, cleared that out and tried yet again; no more oil leak The rest of Tuesday and all day Wednesday was spent re-engineering the breather system, flushing the cooling system and tidying things up. It all looked good and I was finally in a better mood.
Yesterday: I decide I'm gonna run over to Elkhart, IN and grab a load, finally make some money... My trailer was sitting in Elkhart as I had loaned it to a good friend to run the loads I couldn't do for the last 2 weeks. That was a mistake. The trailer was a wreck. He tore into the wiring (apparently the brakes just happened to quit the day after he picked it up from me) and he "fixed" it. It's a hack job. Wiring dangling all over the place, connections hanging out it in the open not weather-proofed at all, cover missing off the battery box (that came back to bite me), etc. I wasn't happy but sucked it up and tried to get on my way. Couldn't even get out of his yard, my starter died. When we finally got that going I discovered quickly with the 53' trailer behind me making the truck work a little harder that my serpentine belt was slipping. Changed that in an Autozone parking on a hot truck, minimal difference; the tensioner was maxed out like the belt was too long but they had nothing else in stock so I figured I'd deal with it when I got home, another half hour of banging on the starter and it finally started again. I get to the yard to load and leave it idling while I get paperwork, come back out to a puddle of diesel fuel under the truck, trace it (I thought) to a fitting on the back of the driver's side head that's nearly inaccessible. Couldn't get to it with the truck running and didn't dare shut it off again so I hustled up to load and get out of there.
As I was pulling the winch cable out to get the last trailer on the load (I haul new, enclosed cargo trailers from the manufacturers and I was over 50' from the front of my trailer) the cable contacted the exposed positive battery terminal on the giant deep cycle battery mounted on my trailer and welded itself to it By the time I made it up to yank the cable off it had melted halfway through my BRAND NEW $200 cable
Needless to say by this point I was about ready to hang it up and find a new career but I held it together, ran the 140 miles back home at about 52 mph (due to the slipping belt) and arrived safely. A buddy of mine who's a Ford mechanic brought me a brand new factory belt, tensioner and starter so I worked into the night on that. The starter worked (thank God) but the belt and tensioner did not so I'm stumped there. He has the exact same truck as mine and we cross referenced everything, can't figure out what's wrong. So I decided I'd address the fuel leak, ha, yeah right. It wasn't the fitting that I thought it was. It's a fuel galley plug in the back of the head that's completely inaccessible with the engine in the truck
For anyone who's still with me after that novel of a rant I thank you for humoring me. I'm at a standstill at home with a loaded trailer that was supposed to be delivered today, no end in sight and no idea where to go from here. To top it all off I've gotten virtually no seat time on my newly repaired 120 since I don't have a truck to take her anywhere (my yard isn't big enough to satisfy me so I volunteer to cut grass for a couple of other people who have no other way to do it).
End rant. Time for more coffee.