What's the worst you've been stranded?

[loud2004marquis]

Was out with the wife looking at houses in the boonies yesterday and we started smelling something...Drove a little more, kept watching the temp. gauge and sure enough, it started to rise more and more. Was able to pull into a small corner store and noticed some smoke. They were nice enough to give me their last gallon of coolant, a gallon of water and also borrow a screwdriver.

We were driving our 1999 F-150 that I just replaced the heater core on this time last year. I used those quick connect fittings on the heater hoses that connect onto the heater core under the hood. One of them broke right off.

I was able to use a hose clamp that attached the fitting to the hose to hold the hose onto the heater core.

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/997590/fullsize/dsc02933.jpg

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/997591/fullsize/dsc02934.jpg

We drove back in the car after getting the truck home and paid them back and then some extra. Just makes you stop and think...It could've been a lot worse of a scenario.

[lji372]

Glad you made your way out of a bad situation lightly scathed.


I was once on my way to a week long camp outing 4 1/2 hours away. Truck loaded to the gills with supplies, two adults four children, towing a pop up. Oh yeah!!
After a hotel stay 90 minutes from the house the nearest dealer diagnosed it as a converter but didn't have one. Another 40 minutes down the road it died again, tow truck ride (yep 7 in the tow truck cab) to the dealer who had the part. 3 hours later we made it 10 minutes down the road :( My brother came two hours to get us and the camper in his bronco. My dodge went back to the dealer. Two days later and a lot of phone calls it wound up being a fuel pump and NOT the catalytic converter.

And trust me, that was the shooooooort version of that escapade. But, it was a trip I will NEVER forget :lol:

[IwantmyMMnow!]

Almost 20 years ago to the day (Oct 7th, 1993), I deployed to Saudi...was the only one in my career field going on this particular deployment. Spent about 72hrs in Dhahran before they figured out where exactly I was supposed to be (Riyadh).:depress:

I wasn't 'stranded' so to speak...more like in limbo. My shop turned it into a joke, saying I was roaming the country looking for a bar...:confused:

:lol:

[lifespeed]

Had a fuel pump in my '97 Crown Vic leave me stranded 200 miles from home. The in-tank pump is no minor job to change, and of course you can't get one on a Saturday night. Paid some guy with a dually truck and trailer $350 to drive the car, wife, kid and I home at 2 AM.

[gdsqdcr]

Worst ... This past summer. I bent the small 2k axle on the trailer outside of the North Rim Grand Canyon. It was a Friday. They could order the parts and they would be there Tuesday/Wednesday. Yippie! They had a used 3500k axle that they could out on for me and I could be on my way home. Including the tow, $1000 out of pocket. Ouch

Of course, just remembered .... there was the time I blew the motor in my 94 SHO at the SHO convention, while I was leading the convey into the city, 6 week before my wedding. Now THAT was a fun day ...

[jsignorelli]

Eight years ago, the Mustang Club of America was having a national show in Fairfax Virginia. I was driving my 1993 Mustang GT to the show. I was in stop-n-Go traffic from exit 15 on the New jersey Turnpike all the way to the beltway. The clutch cable finally melted from the heat generated by the traffic and my ceramic coated headers. I was towed onto the show field. A good friend, who was also at this show, took his Saleen out of the trailer and we pushed my car into the box for the ride home to north Jersey. Nothing like getting stranded 400 miles from home.
Another time, the turbo let go on my T-Bird Turbo Coupe at the Nashville Motor Speedway (SAAC weekend). We left the car at a Denny's and got a ride home. We went back the next weekend with the F150 and a trailer to rescue the Bird.

[boatmangc]

Lets see,....SSHS 9, 5 holes in the block, 900 miles from home.....

Before that, probably around 1978 or so I went out shooting with a buddy, 20 miles or so from home, running through 5+' tall grass haulin a$$, heard a big thump under the car, stopped and tried to look but the grass was so tall we couldn't see anything. Continued our trip to a good place to fire 1000 rounds or so.
Walked back out to the car (1967 big block Comet), to find a huge puddle of oil, I had hit something and stripped out the oil plug so there was no tightening it, not that it mattered I had no oil..

[VMARAUDER]

Stranded on I-57 in a sub zero snow storm in 72 because my sister's dumb boyfriend did not put gas in both fuel tanks on a hertz rental truck. It draws from both tanks and sucks air if no fuel is in only one tank. 6 hours and never got into another car with him ever again.

[Haggis]

I was sitting on the toilet one time taking a good old fashioned crap. You know the kind that no matter how many times you wipe your butthole will not come clean. Well I ran out of toilet paper and called for the wife that I needed more, she told me to get it myself. I kept yelling and yelling and all I could here was her giggling about how I was stuck on the toilet with no paper to wipe. Women.....HUH!!!!!

[Blackened300a]

Marauderville 7, I was towards the end of Pennsylvania around 3am when I felt a vibration in the wheel and the floor. I thought it was the road at first til I pulled over and felt the engine thumping pretty bad. I saw a sign that said "rest area 20 miles". I limped the car the 20 miles to the rest area, opened the hood and saw this black goo all over the passenger side cam cover.
All I had was this cheapo basic tool kit so I popped the coil cover off and saw #2 spark plug backed out and the coil completely shorted out and melted the rubber boot.
I have the hard coil connectors so it held the plug down until the boot wore through then it must have looked like a lighting storm under the hood when it was arcing against the walls of the cam cover. I had a spark plug socket, but no extension long enough to reach down the cover. The rest area was nothing but vending machines with a small area where they had basic hand tools and nothing would work. I started asking truck drivers in the lot if they had anything. One guy had a box of thread taps, I got the idea that I can jam a tap into the back of the spark plug socket as a extension and then use a smaller socket on the top of the tap to try to thread the plug back in.
Lucky for me that worked out thst the threads in the head weren't destroyed and I was able to thread the plug back in. I had a crown vic daily driver at the time and someone gave me a set of extra coils that I happened to have in the trunk. The coil head was different and I couldn't modify it to work so I used the melted coil, replaced the boot with the 2V coil boot and put it back together. Lucky for me it worked and I was able to drive to Indiana smoothly with no further issues. I replaced all the plugs and the melted coil that morning when I arrived.

[Ms. Denmark]

___________________

[cashmonkey38]

Mine's not the fault of my car....
But when I was 15 I was in a foreign country hanging outside the hotel and this American comes up and is like hey bud hop in this unmarked cab with me!! Long story about how I need help with something! My combination of naivety and BAC level led me to say......OK!! Five hours later I get dropped off in the boonies at 4am with no phone, no money, don't really remember what hotel I'm staying at, no one speaks English and no one likes Americans. With the help of some local shady characters pointing me in opposite directions, a homeless guy, and an angry bus driver I made it back to the hotel (which ended up being over an hour and a half away from where I got dropped off) 10 minutes before my family met in the lobby to leave. And I told no one

[fastblackmerc]

My original post from my first ever Marauderville, Marauderville IV in Orlando, Fl. 2006.........

****************************** ****************************** ****************************** ****************************** ****
My MMIV Adventure or What did you do this summer?

Where to start....

Day 1 - Start of MMIV
Changed the oil & filter in the MM and loaded it up the day before. Left the house @ 0500 on Wednesday, planed to meet other MM's along the way. Picked up Marauderman, SC Cheesehead & Pantheroc at the I95 / I26 interchange. Collected Haggis and someone else in Ga. Truckers were all over their CB's about the 6 "smokies" goin south. Picked up a couple of others along the way. Nice to see 7 MM's at the Fla. welcome center on I95. Lost a few MM's at the turnoff to go to Orlando. That's OK, we'll see them at the Seralogo.

Got to the hotel, checked in, registered and got the goodie bags. Lotsa good stuff inside. Unpack MM, off to the car wash for a much needed cleaning. Dinner in Old Town.

Day2
Hosed off MM before the car show at Old Town. 20-something MM's together for the car show... very impressive. Back to the hotel to get ready for Arabian Nights. Very enjoyable dinner and evening, better than I expected.

Day3
Gas up the MM before breakfast and Gainesville. Another impressive sight.... 15 - 20 MM's lined up outside the restaurant ready to go to Gainesville. After leaving the first toll booth on the Fla. Turnpike, this is where things go bad for me, I speed up to catch the MM in front of me, motor doesn't want to rev above 4200 - 5000RPM, I get off the go pedal, all hell breaks loose, feels like I'm running on a flat tire. Coast to the right hand shoulder.... 15 other MM's follow me.... 10 - 15 fellow MMer's come by to see what's wrong. Can't see much except lots of oil underneath car, on the rear bumper and on SC Cheesheads car behind me.... sorry about that big guy. I'm not to worried, I have AAA and car still under warranty. Everybody was concerned and offered to do anything to assist. I was just about to call AAA or Ford when Bob Mathis comes up from the back of the caravan. After he hears I'm calling AAA he says we'll just take his MM off the trailer and put mine on in it's place. I can either ride with him in the truck or with Jean in his MM to Gainesville. Who would refuse that offer? When we get to Gainesville there are more offers of assistance. Bob got a couple of new t-shirts from a
SSM member who wouldn't take payment from me, since Bob's shirt had some oil on it from tying down my MM in the trailer. I decided to call Ford and have them come tow the car. Car gets towed to Gainesville L&M. Right before the flatbed leaves, Dennis Reinhart asks what happened and to contact him in the AM. I was fortunate to get a ride back to Orlando With Steve (Steve_NC) & Jane.

Day4 - End of MMIV for me
Marauderman takes me to Hertz to get a rental for the ride home.... it's a ricer... ugh! Driving thru the parking lot at the Seralogo DR stops me and we agree that my MM will be towed to his shop and then to a dealer he works with in Jacksonville. Uneventful ride home.

** found out I did fairly well in the MMIV raffle - 10 tickets bought - 9 prizes won!

DR has my MM towed to his shop, I send my stock pulleys & TB to Orange Park so DR can put my engine back to stock. A day later the dealer, Mike Davidson Ford, calls to say they have my car and that they'll look at it in the AM. DR calls me the next day to say claim was submitted to Ford and zone rep will have to OK warranty repair, service manager calls shortly after, tells me the same as DR told me. I get a call once a day from the service manager. Two days later DR calls and says that Ford is warrantying the motor. Service manager calls and tells me the same thing, I ask if Ford will cover a rental for the duration of the repair.... 2 hours later service manager calls back and tells me to go to my local L&M dealer (whom I bought the car from... BTW) and see the Enterprise person there. I end up with a choice of a Mazada6 or for $5.00/day more I can have a Town Car.... guess which one I took!

Flash forward a week.... DR calls and says my car is finished! Service manager calls and tells me the same. I make arrangements to get to JAX the following week. Next day DR calls says he going to pick up my MM. Fine with me.... he'll check it out, add all the non-stock
items back on and a few more upgrades (PI torque converter, rear cooling mod and Art Carr trans pan) and he'll dyno tune. DR saw my old motor says there were 2 holes in the block, cams were blue from the heat generated by running with no oil and a hole in the intake.... boy I'm glad I changed the oil before MMIV (Mobile1 5w30 & K&N filter)!! Pics of some parts to follow.


Many thanks to all the folks that put on MMIV. This was my first Marauderville and I'm sure it was the best one!

Also my heartfelt thanks and appreciation to all that offered assistance:

(in no special order)

Bob Mathis & Jean
jimlam56
DR
smokie
MarauderTJA
Marauderman
magindat
SC Cheeshead
Steve_NC & Jane
SoulRioT

Sorry if I didn't mention anyone, it wasn't intentional.

[Baaad GN]

My Son Brad and I drove to Washington Island, Wisc. to stay at my summer home for the weekend, (300 miles one way) with the idea of picking up a boat on Sunday we purchased on the way home at Sister Bay, Wisc. (280 miles) from home. everything went well for maybe twenty miles out of Sister Bay when his dash lights ALL came on! We are pulling a 26ft Chris Craft that weighted at least 4,800 lbs. What the hell? At first we looked for someplace to check his dodge truck computer, but Sunday!
We finally found someone to look at it and it said bank 2 was running rich! Of course we have no idea what the hell is going on or let alone to fix it! Then while driving around we keep hearing this pinging noise? Looked behing us and realize that the boats Radar tower which stand's a minimum of 27 plus ft from the road to the top is ripping Cable TV wires off the houses as we pass by them in this little town. Now the issue is we are in the center of this little town and wiped out half their TV's and still have to get outta there before they figure whats going on. I bet we got 30-40! Another problem we now realize we had to worry about bridge's! We are barely clearing them on the Toll Road (294). Well after destroying that little towns lifes and getting the hell outta there as fast as possible we are now running down the road at a high rate of speed (50mph) until we get to any kind of hill and speed drops to like 40-35mph, speed limit is 65 and everyone on sunday night is running 70-80!!!!! GRRRRRRRRRR. In order to keep that speed Brad had to get a running start floored with hopes no one rammed us from behind.
A trip that normally would take 5-6 hours was now pushing 10-11 hours plus we went through 4 tanks of gas for the 280 miles. Another issue was all these damn gas station's had 28 foot roofs over the pump's thus cound not go to just anyone, Had to search for pumps we could get near without ripping up their roof's. I can not begin to tell you all the sounds that dodge V8 engine made but we thought it was the death call! The truck actually sounded like a loud turbine wissssssssss.
You gentleman have idea how low hanging street lights there are but we found them all I think.
Hoped to get home around 10 PM but eventually made it around 2:30 AM.
The next day we took the truck to a local garage and found the problem, a blocked Cat! I think there had to be 2 gallons of gas in the oil and it was changed and the truck turned out okay. Surprized it didn't blow up!!!!!!

[Micahdogg]

Last year on the Power Tour, one of the guys in our group broke a valve spring in the middle of nowhere Michigan (Milford to Muskegan leg). It was his wifes supercharged 3.8L Cougar. Had a friend who lived 45 minutes away bring us a pile of custom valvesprings since these head were worked.

Luckily there were a couple houses on this desolate 2-lane, and a guy let us borrow some rope, so we snaked the rope in that cylinder, bumped the starter to smash it, pulled the valve cover and changed the valvespring on side of the road. Took about 3 hours and was a pita to pull the rope back out - but that car continued on the power tour and ran like a top.

[Peteyg]

Went offroading one New Year's weekend. We took a wrong turn and wound up cutting a new trail in the middle of the desert in an extremely hard rock canyon. Broke just about everything on both Jeeps. Spent 36 hours on that trail, and finally got rescued from our friends who had been searching for us all night. I had to hike out 4 miles through the desert just to find them and guide them back to where we were broke.

That trail has now become of of the premier hardcore rock trails in Johnson Valley, the home of the King of the Hammers off road race held in Feb. every year.

[Vortech347]

Buried my front and rear dif locked lifted Explorer up to the frame on a sandy beach. That was hell. Took a back hoe to lift it out.

Broke a half shaft in our old Cobra 450 miles from home at a car show/auto-x. Made it home because one of the guys in our group was kind enough to drive his car and let my car take its place on the trailer.