Break Downs On Hunts

[Stubborn_bowhunter]

Well, my ram 1500 had a no bus error come up about two hours from a paved road leaving from camp today.

Wipers started going off on their own. Eventually the truck wouldn't turn back on when I was trying to read codes.
Garmin Inreach saved our asses. Contacted people at home to get a tow truck sent to us. Got towed the two hours. Too late for any shop to look at it, but found one that said they'll check it first thing tomorrow.
Rented a car so we have autonomy with all our gear. Waiting for a verdict tomorrow on if they can fix it tomorrow, or if I need to have someone drive down here with a trailer to get it five hours back home.

Supposed to start moving into a new house on Monday. Needed the truck for it. Ha ha

Sitting in a hotel room stressing out about all of it. Can't control anything at this point besides my attitude I suppose.

Anyone got a story like this that ends well, so I can have some more hope?

 

[packer58]

OP, hang in there because S$it happens sometimes. Just based on your brief description you could have had 10 tool boxes in the back of your rig and not been able to do any good. Don't stress the things out of your control, make the best of your evening and see what happens in the morning ......

 

[WeiserBucks]

My cummins chucked an injector and melted a piston 3 hours from home after a deer trip. Deer hunt was great, tow bill not so much. Waiting on repair estimate now.

 

[WCB]

Well, my ram 1500 had a no bus error come up about two hours from a paved road leaving from camp today.

Wipers started going off on their own. Eventually the truck wouldn't turn back on when I was trying to read codes.
Garmin Inreach saved our asses. Contacted people at home to get a tow truck sent to us. Got towed the two hours. Too late for any shop to look at it, but found one that said they'll check it first thing tomorrow.
Rented a car so we have autonomy with all our gear. Waiting for a verdict tomorrow on if they can fix it tomorrow, or if I need to have someone drive down here with a trailer to get it five hours back home.

Supposed to start moving into a new house on Monday. Needed the truck for it. Ha ha

Sitting in a hotel room stressing out about all of it. Can't control anything at this point besides my attitude I suppose.

Anyone got a story like this that ends well, so I can have some more hope?

Deer hunting the Gillette area a couple years ago. Drove through the night about 13hrs got to where I wanted to hike into a spot about an hour before shooting light. Hunted 3/4 of the day passed to bucks in the 160s. Got back to the truck and was going to grab my tarp and sleeping bag hike back in and hunt the rest of the area that evening and the next day. Decided what the hell take a quick drive see how many guys if any are at other areas accessibly right around me. started it up and sounded light midgets were beating my truck with hammers. wtf? turned off the truck started it up sounded good got up to like 30mph...same thing. Said F it nothing else is showing up as an issue lets limp it in. I was 60miles north... went about 35mph all the way back. Pulled into the Chevy dealer about 20minutes before the closed.

Walk in service manager says hey and I tell him whats going in. Service Tech instantly says..."lifters are done". My truck has 8,000 miles on it at the time. Service Tech said common issue and with the parts shortage it could take weeks for parts to come in. He went and checked came back with a smile and said I have the exact parts and amount I need to get them done. They were still booked out for service work and the manager was thinking end of the week at earliest. Service Tech mentioned to the manager I was hunting and us 3 talked about deer hunting for 10min or so. Manager stopped and just said we will get it done Monday for ya. Luckily the airport rental place still had a vehicle for me so rented for Sunday and Monday. Got a call Monday evening it was ready...all paper work was in the vehicle and I could pick it up the next day.

Worst part was when the drought of all droughts was going on a couple years ago...I didn't see a deer on public ground for the 5 days after opener. Those opening day 160 class bucks haunt me still. But my line was mid 160s and they were right at 160.

 

[bone collector 13]

Not at all as bad as you. But 6 hours from home, about a hour from pavement, sept archery hunt and hadn’t seen any one in 3 days on this blm piece that was about 40k acres. With a main road and a few spur roads. Well I was parked off a spur road after the morning hunt, and decided I was going to nap in the truck till the evening, about 3pm I went to start the truck and nothing. Of course I had jumper cables, but no one around. So my great idea was I was going to push my truck to the main road. Well I was parked on a rock, and so that was short lived. So I called home, and with them being roughly 6 hours away I knew that there was no point having them come down that night. So digging through my truck I got the bright idea, I stripped 1 end of the jumper cables to bare wire, took 2 havalon blades and put them in a dewalt battery attached to the jumper cables and it was enough to fire up the truck. It started to blue the blades and melt the plastic on the battery. But worked in the pinch. Got home and got the battery tested and it was toast.

 

[browning2480]

Not at all as bad as you. But 6 hours from home, about a hour from pavement, sept archery hunt and hadn’t seen any one in 3 days on this blm piece that was about 40k acres. With a main road and a few spur roads. Well I was parked off a spur road after the morning hunt, and decided I was going to nap in the truck till the evening, about 3pm I went to start the truck and nothing. Of course I had jumper cables, but no one around. So my great idea was I was going to push my truck to the main road. Well I was parked on a rock, and so that was short lived. So I called home, and with them being roughly 6 hours away I knew that there was no point having them come down that night. So digging through my truck I got the bright idea, I stripped 1 end of the jumper cables to bare wire, took 2 havalon blades and put them in a dewalt battery attached to the jumper cables and it was enough to fire up the truck. It started to blue the blades and melt the plastic on the battery. But worked in the pinch. Got home and got the battery tested and it was toast.

This exact reason I switched to the little jump packs. Cables don’t help if no one else is around. Good on you MacGyver lol

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Back in the early 90's I was coming back from a MT-WY combo trip with my dad and a friend pulling a trailer with my old Jimmy. About 400 lbs of meat in tow. Blew a transmission near Thermopolis, WY. Shop said 5 days to get a rebuilt transmission from Salt Lake City. The local grocery store stored all of our meat for us. I had to get back to St. Louis and the guy at the grocery store hooked my up with an older couple who were driving to Casper the next day. Got a flight out and after repairs my dad dropped my buddy off where his van was and drove my truck to St. Louis.

Fast forward to 2013. My pickup blew out the transfer case in SE MT in the middle of nowhere. Had to chain up to get back to camp and one of the chains flew off and severed 2 brake lines. Got that fixed in camp and luckily made it back to WA.

It will work itself out, don't fret too much.

 

[realunlucky]

@Stubborn_bowhunter also having to relay on Chrysler electronics in my jeep I've had the very problem you describe- did you try a hard reset by pulling the master fuse for atlest 30 minutes?

I could fill this entire thread with crazy jeep problems but I'll just use this one as an example-
Elk hunting in wyoming headlights stop working (used light bar so not a huge deal until we hit pavement) ended up having to unplug the compass module in the dash. never the logical problem with canbus computers.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

 

[RS_Non-Res]

Trashed a lower control arm after packing up camp one hunt a long time ago. I almost knocked it off the front bushing. No cell service there. Got down to the paved road and was able to hitch a ride 40 minutes to the nearest town. Found a tow on a Sunday. Nearest service for three hours. Boondocks. 40 minutes back to the truck, couple hours recovery and loading and 40 minutes back to town. Next day I found the new mechanic in town was willing to help. He banged on it for a while and gave me an "alignment". Said "that's all I can do without doing a whole lot more." Three nights in the "nicest hotel in town" and was still worried about expensive stuff getting stolen. Nursed that truck 14 hours home. Spent two more weeks in the shop getting that front end and the other stuff rebuilt. Local mechanic says "You drove that how far?" had pictures on his phone. Still need to replace a couple wheels.

When the following year's hunting rules came out, my first reaction was "I'm not ready to think about that yet."

 

[Stubborn_bowhunter]

@Stubborn_bowhunter also having to relay on Chrysler electronics in my jeep I've had the very problem you describe- did you try a hard reset by pulling the master fuse for atlest 30 minutes?

I could fill this entire thread with crazy jeep problems but I'll just use this one as an example-
Elk hunting in wyoming headlights stop working (used light bar so not a huge deal until we hit pavement) ended up having to unplug the compass module in the dash. never the logical problem with canbus computers.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

I'll try this out. I'm really lucky to have a dad that likes towing stuff. He drove eight hours to rescue us from the middle of nowhere town.
The shop in that town thinks it needs a new PCM, if that's all then I'll be content. They didn't charge me anything to leave it there and get it somewhat diagnosed. So that was nice of them.
The house next to the shop was for sure a crack house, but the shop explained they have a deal with them to watch the cars so they don't get stolen.

We got back to my town a little bit ago. The shop I'll bring it to tomorrow sounded like he knew what was going on pretty well.

I appreciate the responses guys. I found that for the first time in my life I felt actually kind of helpless. The Garmin Inreach saved our asses to be able to get a truck out there. Otherwise it'd have been a ten mile hike in a dust storm to a ranch house that we didn't know if anyone lives in anyway.
Had enough stuff to survive until someone came by at least?

I was pretty much prepared for anything barring a total failure of running gear, but made sure that was all good before we left.
Had a spare, tools, compressor, good patch kit. All our gear to survive out there.

Universe found something I couldn't fix to throw at me. Definitely keeping me on my toes.

It was a nice challenge to figure out how to get out of. The struggle just makes us more resilient I guess. I would've been content with just the struggle of stalking deer in nasty desert cliffs. Maybe next year I'll get more time to put towards that instead of other unforeseen circumstances.

 

[NRA4LIFE]

Glad to hear.

 

[bone collector 13]

This exact reason I switched to the little jump packs. Cables don’t help if no one else is around. Good on you MacGyver lol

Immediately bought one when I got home. And it doesn’t leave the truck