I was in second gear, going up a hill and when I went to downshift... nothing happened. When I stepped on the clutch it was like stepping on the brake peddle when all the brake fluid has drained from the lines (yeah, I know that feeling, but that's a different story...) - no pressure, only a dead, limp peddle.
I gunned the gas and made it up over the hill's crest, started down the other side, and had to maintain a pretty slow speed since pushing along in second gear got the truck whining pretty loud around 3400 RPM pretty fast.
I thought through various possibilities. I could just drive on, trying to keep from stalling going up who knows how many more inclines, and hope I could get "somewhere", or I could pull over and start thumbing to "somewhere". I knew that that area of Oregon was pretty hilly, and I pretty much knew that somewhere up ahead there would be a hill that my truck would not be able to get over in second gear, so I slowly brought my little old truck to a halt along a fairly level stretch of road where there was a wide shoulder. "To a halt" pretty much meant bucking through those last few agonizing turns of the crankshaft before all went quiet.
I took a deep breath, let out a sigh and opened the door to get out. I was in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere? Where was somewhere?
"Well," I thought, "at least it's not raining." I laid down, turned over on my back and inched my way underneath to have a look.
I gunned the gas and made it up over the hill's crest, started down the other side, and had to maintain a pretty slow speed since pushing along in second gear got the truck whining pretty loud around 3400 RPM pretty fast.
I thought through various possibilities. I could just drive on, trying to keep from stalling going up who knows how many more inclines, and hope I could get "somewhere", or I could pull over and start thumbing to "somewhere". I knew that that area of Oregon was pretty hilly, and I pretty much knew that somewhere up ahead there would be a hill that my truck would not be able to get over in second gear, so I slowly brought my little old truck to a halt along a fairly level stretch of road where there was a wide shoulder. "To a halt" pretty much meant bucking through those last few agonizing turns of the crankshaft before all went quiet.
I took a deep breath, let out a sigh and opened the door to get out. I was in the middle of nowhere. Somewhere? Where was somewhere?
"Well," I thought, "at least it's not raining." I laid down, turned over on my back and inched my way underneath to have a look.
No comments:
Post a Comment