Regardless of how comfortable my recliner is, that is a lot of time on one's backside and I am getting a little stir-crazy. Cyndee was needing to go grocery shopping and I was determined to get out and go with her. I can manage the crutches getting to and from Big Gulp (our truck) but I am going to make use of the electric carts once we get to Walmart. The inside of that place is just too many square feet for me to walk on my hands.
It is a bright, beautiful, fall day as we exit Little Talapoosa Park and point Big Gulp in the direction of our destination in Carrollton, GA, about 5 miles away. We got stopped at the first red light inside the city limits and after a brief wait for the green, Cyndee stepped on the accelerator and....nothing. Big Gulp kind of sputtered and coughed but there was no rise in rpm's and no movement forward. Oh boy, here we go again.
The 6.0 litre engine that was put in Ford trucks the year ours was built have been an absolute disaster. The list of things that fail (again and again) is as long as your arm. We have had multiple head gaskets fail, multiple turbo-charger rebuilds, all eight fuel injectors have been replaced at least twice each, and the exhaust gas return cooler ruptured once. With the exception of the turbo and fuel injectors all the other repairs require that the cab of the truck be taken off. That is a specialized operation with specialized equipment for lifting the cab so the mechanic can get to the engine and so far Ford dealerships are the only place I have found that have the equipment and can do the work.
We know what the symptoms are for a variety of failures and today's failure is not familiar at all. It would seem something new has found a way to break. So it's on to our roadside emergency app to summon a large tow truck. It took our service awhile to find a tow company nearby with a truck big enough to tow us but in about an hour and a half we were getting picked up.
Getting the driver, Cyndee, me and my crutches in the small cab of the tow truck was a pretty good trick but we finally found the right combination of positions to get the doors closed and we're on our way to the Carrollton Ford dealership. While the driver was dropping the truck in a mechanic's bay we were at the service desk arranging for a rental car.
It was the next day when Ford called to tell what was wrong and get the go-ahead to do the repairs. It seems that our exhaust gas return (EGR) valve had failed in the open position. That means no air flow to the turbocharger which explains why nothing happened when the accelerator was stepped on. Luckily this is a repair that could be done without taking the cab off. Still didn't make it cheap or quick though.
We picked up our rent car and proceeded to get our grocery shopping done. For the next week we are going to be zipping around in a small vehicle, burning gasoline instead of diesel. Sounds like a good time to do a few trips to the kids' house about an hour and a half away.
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