Fester the F-150's steering was intermittently getting stiff over the Winter. Initially at low speeds, eventually stiff all around. My guess was a failing pump. No way was I fixing it in 10 degree weather .
Then, this past Sunday, butter smooth. DaFuq? I had slowly gotten used to the high effort to turn the Ford's wheel to the point that I was over correcting. Wildly.
I dunno.
Ever have something fix itself ?
Appleseed said:Ever have something fix itself ?
Not quite, but someone I know has had a rattling plastic undertray dismount itself from the chassis on a back road.
I threaten my old cars with being crushed when they make weird noises. Seems to work 50% of the time.
my F150 seems to thrive on abuse.
I threaten my old cars with being crushed when they make weird noises. Seems to work 50% of the time.
my F150 seems to thrive on abuse.
It's rare, but yes. I had a brake caliper that was sticky causing the pads to drag. I figured it was either a bad caliper or a swollen brake hose, but one day it just magically quit sticking. Of course, it trashed the rotor before it self-healed, but at least I could do a quick rotor swap to get me through.
My 06 Express Van had a couple months where it would randomly act like a dead battery. No corrosion on the terminals, good grounds, 12.7v everywhere. It acted almost like you pulled the main fuse about once a week and the whole thing was completely dead. 10 minutes later, it was like nothing ever happened. I replaced a fried HVAC blower resistor pack, and the problem never happened again, and it's been 2 years. Not sure how they could have possibly been related, but whatever was wrong fixed itself.
My Jimmy had a dead miss about a month ago, fixed itself over night and fine since.
The awful Peugeot transmission in my Jeep stopped making it's death rattle one day.
I sold the Jeep very quickly after that.
My POS tow vehicle (93 Dodge Cummins) had an ill reading fuel gauge. It "Magically" fixed itself.
My logic tells me-Corrosion on sender due to being barely driven, never filled. A few fill ups, some delicious lubricating diesel, Presto! Gauge fixed. The repair has lasted a couple of years, and I make sure to keep it fullish. The 1000 miles a year I drive surely help everything.
I once had a dome light mysteriously turn on while the car was parked.
Stiff everywhere or stiff only in one place or stiff in discrete places lock to lock?
In the older trucks with U joints in the front axles, when those would bind, the steering would do loopy things if the axle wasn't in exactly the right spot.
Ah, the glorious F150. The bumpside(?) truck, circa 1972, had rear steer gearboxes and a solid input shaft. The front cab mount crossmember would rust out, and the weight of the cab would then be supported by the steering shaft. "Stiff" does not begin to describe the steering effort.
Any of them that had kingpin, combined with twin I beam suspension would be absolutely diabolical to keep on the road when the gearbox would wear out, combined with a seized kingpin. "Herding" it down the road was an accurate description.
In reply to Streetwiseguy :
Ford trucks had the same basic steering design and suspension from 1965 to at least 1979, I don't know about newer ones. I had a 1965 F-250 that the front cab supports had rusted out, so it sagged and the firewall bound against the steering shaft. A previous owner partially solved the problem by jamming a steel fence post up through the rust hole, and propping it between the frame and the underside of the dashboard. The steering still bound up, just not as bad.
No, but when the real Christine was in the Saratoga Auto Museum things were weird. Guy walks in, asked to use the bathroom, OK. 5 minutes after he left, State cops comes in and asks if we say this man. He just murdered his wife. Bunch of little things, deliveries not showing up, doors sticking etc. It all stopped when she left .....
A friend of mine had a check engine light on for a few days and was heading in to get it checked out. On the way there, he hit a massive pothole, and the light just turned off. He still got it checked, and the people ran a code, but nothing came up. Sometimes a little percussive maintenance goes a long way.
In reply to Paris Van Gorder :
"Percussive maintenance" is one of my all-time favorite phrases. I really don't get enough chances to use it.
My friend Greg, who eerily looked like Keith Gordon at the time, once stood in front of his "Christine": a 1986 Monte Carlo SS clone, and uttered the words "Show me".
Something actually FELL OFF of the car.
I have an inherent (and rather intense) dislike of any system/part/thing that has "fixed" itself.
That's grounds for a deep dive into said system/part/thing to figure out what the berkeley is going on.
My Power Wagon "self-deleted" a part of the engine wiring harness related to the old EGR Timer box that probably had not worked since 1983 anyway.
It decided on its own that "nope, I don't need this anymore" and the harness caught fire and melted down one night while I was driving. It didn't cook anything else on the rest of the engine harness, just that particular circuit. I cut it off, capped the wires, and it's been fine since. This had zero effect on the truck running better, or worse, for that matter. Does that count?
I've had a lot of the exact opposite of this... haha.
I guess I did have one moment- On my old E36, it'd throw an emissions CEL whenever I'd street drive it, and it'd clear every time I'd autocross or track it... My buddies all used to joke that it just loved to be abused... Maybe they're onto something?
86 Accord's alternator was going bad. Kept putting it off since it's either replaced by removing the intake or the half shaft, neither of which I wanted to do.
And then... it started working fine again.
Even if not the alternator, some other electrical gremlin apparently fixed itself.
I had patched a hole in a tire Monday. Failed on Tuesday, had to fill up a couple times on the way home.
Yesterday, completely flat, fill the tire back up and drive it over to the shop to decide what to do, get distracted and forget about it.
This morning, tire is still full and passes a soap test.
Now, I don't think this is a lasting situation, but I'm baffled at how it could happen.
Crackers (Forum Supporter) said:I had patched a hole in a tire Monday. Failed on Tuesday, had to fill up a couple times on the way home.
Yesterday, completely flat, fill the tire back up and drive it over to the shop to decide what to do, get distracted and forget about it.
This morning, tire is still full and passes a soap test.
Now, I don't think this is a lasting situation, but I'm baffled at how it could happen.
Leak isn't just the hole you patched maybe? Could be a bead leak and how much it leaks while sitting depends on how it's rotated. Or something similar with the patch if it's not quite sealing right.
I can't think of any, but I'm sure it's happened over the years, but I'm a strong believer in ignoring a problem until it goes away, for better or for worse. Just today my new truck developed an odd droning and mild vibration at certain speeds that just magically went away.
As soon as I released the emergency brake.
Every time I've had an intermittent problem seem to fix itself, it turned out to be the lulling calm before the catastrophic failure of whatever part was causing the problem.
P3PPY said:86 Accord's alternator was going bad. Kept putting it off since it's either replaced by removing the intake or the half shaft, neither of which I wanted to do.
And then... it started working fine again.
Even if not the alternator, some other electrical gremlin apparently fixed itself.
It will never fail after I tell you that if you just slide the little harmonic damper on the axle over to the side, the alternator WILL fit through there under the car. I did a lot of those and in our climate even then, the front suspension was unlikely to come apart enough to get an axle out without destroying bushings.
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