I decided to take the C5Z out for a little run yesterday to get some low speed logging done, so I hooked up all the electronic paraphernalia and headed on out to run up to Tallahassee.
Car was running fine, and I goosed it a little bit when I got onto route 319 heading north. Well, I didn't get very far. The engine died on me with a splutter and I quickly pulled off onto the shoulder. I also noticed a very strong odor of gasoline, so I sat there waiting for the fireball. Nothing happened, so I got out and popped the hood to check for a fuel leak. Nothing under the hood, and I didn't see anything leaking from underneath the car. The odor seemed strongest near the left front fender, so I was thinking something went wrong with the fuel pressure regulator.
Oh well, I was dead in the water. My cell phone battery was nearly dead, so I called Connie and asked her to call AAA for me. She specified that a rollback style tow truck was going to be needed for the Corvette. About an hour later a tow truck shows up and the guys looked over the situation and seemed apprehensive about towing the car. The main guy was worried about damaging the rear mounted turbos when the front end of the car would be pulled onto the ramp. Not to mention the front spoilers likely getting damaged.
So he said there are other styles of tow trucks that might be better suited for the job. He happened to mention that he was the second string for AAA service calls and apparently the primary on the list refused the call because it involved a Corvette. So anyway he calls back AAA to see about finding the style tow truck he felt would be best, and must have mentioned the after market parts (turbos) on the car. At that point, apparently AAA wanted to completely wash their hands of the whole thing. He handed me the phone and I talked to AAA myself and the girl said I would need to find phone numbers of local towing companies and get one of them to help me. She said she could help find some numbers on the internet for me. Yeah, thanks a LOT! I've been a member of AAA for 34 years and rarely used their services. And I've got one of their premium membership levels as well. To say I was agitated by this point is quite an understatement! AAA was pretty much going to just abandon me alongside the road and I would be on my own getting this resolved. So yeah, what the hell am I paying THEM for then? If they aren't going to be there when I need them, then I certainly don't need them at all.
Anyway, the guy that was out there with me (Bobby Roddenberry, owner of C & P Towing out of Crawfordville) wasn't inclined to just abandon me and did some calling around of his own to some places he knew. He said most of them said they wouldn't touch the car "with a ten foot pole". To say the least, this was enlightening.......
But Bobby was trying to help me, even though he was already off the clock as far as AAA was concerned. He said he had a smaller lift style tow truck back at the shop that might be better than the rollback, but he was pretty sure the front spoilers were going to be history. I told him they would only cost me around $75 to replace, so at this point they didn't matter, because my options were VERY limited.
By this time Connie had shown up because she was getting worried about how long this was taking since she last heard from me. I was only about two miles from the house on route 319. So Bobby headed back to his shop to get the other tow truck. Honestly, after several minutes, Connie and I looked at each other and said "Do you think he is coming back?" Probably a lot of guys wouldn't have, but he did. Not sure what I would have done had he not, as I was pretty much screwed if that happened.
Anyway, this smaller tow truck extended a "T" to the front wheels parallel to the ground and right at ground level, and that cleared the front end with about a half inch to spare. Darn lucky I've never lowered the car, otherwise it would have scraped the hell out of the underside of the front bumper fascia. So he got the front tires locked down on the carriage and lifted the front end but not so much that the turbos were in danger of scraping on the road because of the steep angle. And he took his time driving so the car wouldn't bounce around much and we were able to get the car back home without any damage.
He also helped Connie and I to push the car into the garage so I could get it on the lift to take a look at what the heck happened. Seriously, this guy Bobby really went the extra mile to help me out. And when I asked him what I owed him for all this, he just told me to give him whatever I felt was fair, and that would be OK with him. Hopefully I made it more than enough, as I really did appreciate his help.
Well, THAT day didn't go anywhere near like I had envisioned it.
So I got the car up on the lift and checked out what had happened. I really thought something broke on or in the fuel pressure regulator, but when we pushed the car into the garage, there was a pretty obvious gas leak dripping from somewhere, so anything was possible. I saw gasoline dripings on the skid plate underneath the driver's side fuel tank, so I pulled the inspection panel to check out the fuel pump connections. They all seemed to be OK from what I could tell. So I started looking elsewhere on up the line. I looked up at the fuel filter and the problem was then obvious.
Apparently the fuel line connector on the input of the fuel filter had popped off of the filter. Not sure why that happened, but I think I might have loosened it when I was working on replaced those fuel lines with the teflon stuff not that long ago. I remember thinking I wanted to go ahead and replace the fuel filter, but I had trouble getting the connector off and decided to just leave the filter there. So maybe I had partially depressed the restraining tabs and didn't go back to make sure they were tight afterwards. So over time, it just worked itself ALL the way loose till it popped off.
Anyway, I just pressed the hose end back on and heard a nice solid *click*, and hopefully that won't happen again.
Could have been a LOT worse. Thankfully this was an easy fix.
Anyway, here's a video of yesterday's "joy" ride.....
I'm going to double check ALL those OEM connectors today, just to make sure they are all on tight. Really don't want that to happen again.
And again, thank you to Bobby Roddenberry of C & P Towing.
Yeah, I've had my own issues with AAA and no longer use them. They left my wife on the side of the road in Tallahassee for over four hours one night. Long story.....but I didn't renew with them. Actually the original owners of C&P Towing, Candy and Pat Green, (C&P) are good friends of mine and I just decided to use him for all my local tows if I needed one. They were always very fair in their pricing and Pat did a lot of work on my various vehicles. Pat sold out to Bobby a few years ago and went into landscaping. Bobby is good people too, as demonstrated.
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I Have Noticed That A Lot Of People Demanding Free Stuff Are Not Wearing Work Boots.
A solution that was used to get my car on a flat bed truck was this. Like you they were afraid the back might drag when the front went onto the flat bed. What they did was to put some 2x4 between the front and back wheels so that when they pulled the front onto the bed the back wheels were lifted up onto the 2x4. In my case the 2x4 pieces were short and so when the car was on one they took the one in back away so it would not touch the car.
I also had a tow were they used a regular truck to lift the front and gently pull my car home.
Looking at the pictures of the car on the tow truck one thing empresses me. The tow truck is well maintained and not all cluttered up with junk on the deck of the truck. Yet the truck looks to be at least a few years old. I would guess he is a lot like you when it comes to being professional in how he takes care of his equipment. I would say you were extremely lucky to find someone like that to help you out of a bad situation.
I've had to get a tow three to many times over the years. I use the AAA tow company in Venice, Flagship Towing. They have always used 2x6's to lessen the angle on to the roll out bed and also to roll the rear wheels up on when getting my lowered Vette up and down. My front spoiler does drag but my facia has never been damaged.
that type of truck uses an "Eagle Claw" style lift. they are real popular with the repo crowd due to being able to back up to a car, even at a 90* angle (like if a car is parallel parked between 2 other vehicles) to the front wheels and pick up the front end all while staying seated in the truck. they can slowly get the vehicle off of the private property they got the car from and onto public property and then safely and legally attach the wheels to the boom/lift.
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Life is hard. It's much harder when you're stupid.
Fuel system failure - 03/30/2013
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