Car Talk 4: Full Wrong Ahead
Posted: Wed Nov 13, 2019 2:19 pm
Ok, story time.
It was actually the same incident where we had the truck stuck in a mudpit that we left overnight on Drummond island.
Going to get that truck unstuck (with a remote mount winch and battery we managed to borrow from some hillbilly in a barn)...it was me in my truck and my buddy in his driving down the trail. We were maybe 1/4 mile from the stuck truck when we got to a deep water crossing. We crossed it the day before, NBD. I was leading and as I was leaving the middle (starting to emerge from the water), I felt the front right wheel come up on a rock and as it came down a big BAM. I chucked and thought "that's what skid plates are for har har" and got to the other side of the water. That also happened to be where we decided to stop and consolidate into one truck to rescue the stuck one. Fortunately, my buddy's truck had the winch and stuff in it, so we took his.
We got the mud truck unstuck and upon return noticed a pool of something shiny under my truck. Buddy asked "is that what I think it is?" I knelt down, smelled oil, put my finger in it and confirmed...my engine oil evacuated from the oil pan...it looked like all of it. Panic set in, I grabbed a flashlight and peered underneath. The rock hit right on the portion of the skid plate that's weakest. There's a hole punched in the skid plate for the diesel oil drain plug (mine's a gas, GM decided to cut cost by using the same skid plate for both engines), leaving a somewhat puny portion of the skid on the outboard side...the rock pushed that into my oil pan and cracked it enough to let the oil out. I had a simple socket set...enough to get the skid plate off, and assessed the damage. A crack roughly 2" in length was all it took.
We were 45 minutes in on the trail from a main road, an hour from civilization. We had no supplies. It was Sunday at about 11am on an island with a full-time population in the triple digits in November when the sun sets at ~4:30pm.
My buddy with the truck we unstuck wasted no time and jumped in his truck reminding us that we had no time to get into town. As we drove down the trail, we developed a strategy. JB weld putty, a case of oil, and some degreaser...we got this.
Well, we would have if it were a normal area with population. We went to the dude we borrowed the winch from and told us what happened. After he got done calling us dumbasses, he admitted that he didn't have JB weld, but did have some oil. I didn't even ask what it was, it was in a 5 qt jug..probably used but it was free. He said he knew the owner of the hardware store that would have what we needed, but warned that he went to church off the island on Sundays and he might not be around. He called him, and sure enough he had just gotten out of church. It was noon, and he was planning to be back at 2 (the ferry to the island only runs once an hour). Winch dude asked if he could come back early to help, and he agreed. Told us where the hardware store was and said to meet him there at 1:30.
We sat there waiting. 1:30 came and went. 1:45...then 2:00. I started to panic when a dude in modded to death XJ pulled up. "Y'all need some supplies?" He opened up the store, and we bolted in like we knew where we were going. "JB Weld is in isle XX" he yelled as we ran. I bought 4 tubes of JB Weld underwater quickset putty, a few cans of degreaser, some rags, and sandpaper. I gave the owner $50 and told him to keep the change for his time.
We hit the road at 2:15...with an hour of rural roads and rough trails to get to my truck. I read through the instructions on the JB Weld tube indicating a 30 minute set time. Assuming we could get the oil pan clean within 15 minutes, we'd be ready to go by 4...giving us enough sunlight to get mostly off the trail.
Got back to my truck, and oil was still seeping out of the crack...it clearly wasn't empty, and the JB weld wouldn't adhere to oil. So I pulled the drainplug and threw some rags down for the oil to drain into, put a farmjack under the driver's side rock slider, and jacked the truck up to drain the oil. While that drained, the crack stopped seeping and I was able to clean it and sand it while one of my buddies kneaded the putty to activate it. The crack was staying dry, so I smeared the JB Weld putty over the crack, asked my buddies to take a look at it to make sure they didn't see anything bad, they confirmed it "looked good enough" and we waited.
We watched the sun touch the horizon as we sipped on some half-frozen beers and at the 25 minute mark, I poked the JB Weld and found it to be mostly hard. we lowered the truck back down, reinstalled the drain plug, and let it sit for a few minutes before dumping the oil in. I didn't see any seeping, and at the 30 minute mark, dumped the questionable oil that our homeboy gave us into the crankcase. Waited a few minutes, saw no seeping, and started the truck. Oil pressure built, it was ready to go.
To leave, I had to drive right through the same water that caused all this. One of my buddies had wadders in his truck, so he threw them on and walked out to find the destroyer rock. He stood by it as we drove by him, making sure none of us got hosed. I pulled over to check the oil pan as he got into his truck, no sign of oil.
The JB Weld got me off the island, and on my first gas stop just north of the Mackinac Bridge, I noticed a drop of oil on the JB Weld. I checked the level, which was still full...threw in an extra half quart of oil, and checked the owner's manual to see if there was a low oil level light. Confirming it came on at a quart low, I drove. It's a 6 hour drive home, and I just motored, waiting for the light to shine in my very groggy sleepy face. Pulled in home right around midnight and passed out.
TL;DR: Airboat engineering FTW. Deep water crossings FTL