Wednesday, March 17, 2021 – Trailer Comes Home, Weird Truck Problem

Hey Darlin’,
Woke up early again, same process of reading awhile, then falling back to sleep. Got up and puttered around until Jeff was ready to finish feeding the animals and go. Meanwhile, his friend Tom had a strange noise come from the van he was driving as he was getting to leave, but after a bit it seemed to go away, so hopefully he made it wherever he was going! We finally left the yard about 11:15, though he forgot his phone and had to go back, so we didn’t get there until just before noon. Fortunately, they’d parked it on the street, which was fantastic because I was very worried about getting it out the driveway because it had a steep incline, and that would have created a problem. Anyway, it all looked good, turns out they didn’t use hardly any of the parts except the bearings, and there was so much labor involved it cost nearly $3,000, but at least the job is done now, and the slide is coming in and out perfectly. And since I didn’t have to pay homeowners insurance and property taxes this year, I guess it’s pretty much a wash! We got back and got it back into place with no trouble, and I started to move everything from the house back into my “home.” Then a weird thing happened. I was going to Walmart to pick up a prescription for me and a battery for Jeff’s lawnmower, and I started the truck just fine and moved it up in front of the house, right where Tom’s van had been, and it suddenly just quit! Then it wouldn’t start. It cranked, but wouldn’t start. Then I notice that none of the gauges on my instrument panel were working, the back up camera monitor on my radio wouldn’t shut off (in fact, I couldn’t get the head unit to turn off at all), and my power windows and locks suddenly didn’t work. But my power seats worked, and the computer settings on my dash worked. Really weird! So I started to try to find the problem, thinking it was maybe a vapor lock in the fuel line, which had happened once before when it almost overhead climbing a mountain in TN, but that didn’t seem to be the problem. Then I started at looking at fuses and relays, and everything I could think of. Finally Jeff came out to help, and we still couldn’t find anything wrong. He even put his diagnostic machine on it, and there were no new codes except the one for the glow plug, which has been that way for years. Well, this went on for a couple of hours, and Jeff gave up and I was looking and not finding anything on the internet, so finally I got my electrical meter and started checking all the fuses, inside and out. I didn’t find any that were bad, but there were a couple that were not quite seated properly, but I don’t know if they were like that before or if it was after Jeff had checked them, but I pushed them all back in. I really don’t think that had anything to do with anything, but I finally got back into the truck and turned the key on, and my gauges started moving and my power stuff started working, and sure enough, when I cranked the key, the truck started right up! So weird! I let it run for awhile, then backed it back up into it’s place in front of the trailer, because it was way too late to go out now, it was feeding time, so that’s a trip for tomorrow. I sure hope it was some kind of safety feature or something, though I couldn’t find anything on the internet suggesting that, and I sure hope it doesn’t happen again! I told Jeff I think he’s got a giant black hole in front of his house where everything mechanic suddenly fails, like his own personal EMP! That would explain why he has so many dead vehicles in that area. Anyway, I finished moving my stuff back from the house and settled down for the evening, happy to be back in my little home, especially now that my slide works perfectly! Got awful sweaty out there today, so I’m heading to a shower and bed. Good night, sweetheart! Happy St. Patty’s Day! Love you!