The Adventure of SHE

The Adventure of SHE.

Hi my name is Brandon, and I want to tell you about my miracle that happened over Christmas break. This miracle is about my 1996 Dodge Ram 1500. We named the truck SHE. That has a 318 (5.2) gasoline engine… with 180,000 miles on it. I had 4 to 5 inches of play in my steering and I almost had to have my brake pedal on the floor to stop my truck. My wife and I (and the dog) drove the truck to Pennsylvania because my family offered to have it repaired as a Christmas gift. I had thought the truck needed inner tie-rods and rear brake pads. Multiple people had thought the truck wouldn’t make it the 285 mile journey without falling apart on the way. I had confidence in my truck. She had never failed me before, so I knew she could get us there. And SHE did! We had even caught the tail end of a snow storm. The only issue we had was stopping in the snow. I had even stopped at a rest stop to do doughnuts in a snow covered parking lot. SHE survived speeds over 100 MPH! When we had got to PA the snow started melting and everything turned into mud … really deep mud. The mud was so bad I was ankle deep in it trying to walk across the yard to the garage. I was incredibly proud of my truck. I felt safe in her because I knew she would do her best to keep us safe.

When we finally started working on the truck we found out she didn’t need a tie-rod. All she needed was the drag link castle nut tightened. She still does have a driver front bearing that has a little bit of play but is within tolerance. The issue with the rear brakes was the adjustment stars were frozen. The rear brake pads are still good for now. This meant I had been stopping with just front pads. I also had a stripped out lug nut stud. We found one that fit my truck in a drawer of the toolbox. So during this trip all that needed purchased for She was a handful of lug nuts to replace the bad one and a few of the cheap ones that were on her. We ended up saving around $135 in truck repairs. We still need to put $120 into her to make her run the best she can.

On the way home from PA, we drove probably 1 1/2 hours in nice weather conditions, but when we got to Ohio the blizzard like conditions were upon us. At one point I was going 10 MPH (with a speed limit of 70 MPH) on the interstate. Things were going ok … except when other cars stopped faster than I could. At one point I had tried to stop behind a car that was 2 car lengths ahead of me but my truck didn’t want to stop. I ended up stopping beside that car on the shoulder of the road. Once I had gotten through the snowy road conditions the roads were just wet. There was a drizzle coming out of the night sky. SHE was going around 70 MPH when all of a sudden both of her head lights went out at the same time. My park lights and my fog lights stayed on. I immediately pulled over and opened the hood figuring a wire had come loose, but I found nothing out of the ordinary. I started wiggling the headlight switch and the lights came back on. I assumed they would stay on the rest of the way, but I was wrong. Before too long they had shut off again and didn’t turn back on. So I ended up having to drive close to an hour with park and fog lights. I had just finished parking my truck in my driveway, when my headlights turned back on. I said “Really? Now you turn on?” to the truck. And shut the truck off.

The next night I drove to go see my grandmother, but had no headlights for the full 30 minutes there and 30 minutes back. I went to bed that night and the first thing I did in the morning was head straight to the part store. I paid $87 for a headlight switch. I hope to have many more adventures with SHE, but maybe next time I won’t be so far from home.