THE TRUCK THAT WOULDN'T QUIT

Yesterday afternoon we loaded up all the trash so we could take it to the landfill before Carl takes off on his trip to NC tonight. Now I know that looking at the picture of the truck you probably think that we had mounds of trash. That is not the case. We purchased the truck to use for our upcoming move in the spring and it needs to be started and driven every now and then so it stays in top running condition. Being a diesel truck it has a mind of it's own. We load our 3 cans of trash and start merrily down the highway headed for the land fill. It's about a 15 mile drive and as usual we are out in quitting time traffic. We pull up on the scale at the landfill and since the truck is a 'little noisy' Carl reaches to turns it off so he can hear what the lady in the booth is saying. However, he turns the key and the truck keeps running. He looks at me with a preplexed look and says, " It won't turn off". After several tries, we decide that we'll both do the unloading in the building really fast since we can't turn the truck off, and beat feet out of there before anyone has a chance to notice we left the truck running, pouring out that lovely diesel smoke in the enclosed space. We looked like a fast forwarded t.v. commercial.On the drive home we discuss possible causes of our problem. Carl figures the ignitation switch is broken and will have to be replaced. We arrive home and I get out of the truck and go in the house figuring that Carl will get it stopped and be right in. He drives the truck down to the lower end of the property and unhooks the cables to both batteries. The truck is still running. So he unhooks the cable to the alternator - the truck continues to run. He comes up to the house and tells me, "You need to come down here while I try to stop this truck in case it decides to run over me you can call 911". By this time it is getting dark so I drive my truck down with lights on and face the 'diesel monster' so Carl has some light to cuss by. He calls the boy (Kyle) who works for Ford and askes him to talk to the service people and find out how to get the truck to quit running. The boy calls him back with suggestions, none of which work. The truck meanwhile keeps running perfuming the air with lovely smoke. Carl gets the phone book and calls a Diesel Mechanic whose answer was," with only a quarter of a tank of diesel it should quit running in a couple of days". So now we call the mechanic about a mile down the road who has done work on our Honda and he suggests crimping the fuel line. Carl gets the pliers and crimps the line and in seconds we have quiet. The monster truck is off. Turns out that once a diesel engine gets warmed up it is going to run no matter what. The rest of the evening was peaceful.

Anita