I hear ya. Aside from my 1980, none of my Toy's have left me stranded. Can't really blame the 80 much, that thing had a hard life. I picked it up in trade for a C6 transmission that I got for free, and was able to drive it day one. In the last 100,000 miles before I had her, I'm not sure anyone did so much as an oil change for it. Peeled the valve cover and it was just thick slime, being 16 at the time and not knowing how bad that much was, I just scraped off what I could with a plastic spoon, popped the new gasket on and called it good.
Just as I finally figured out how not to jack up gaskets on install to stop the leaks, she caught fire. Replaced the wires and was happy as ever to how she ran, heard a pop in the front end, both tires felt like they grabbed, then another loud pop and the world went dark. Woke up with chunks of metal in the cab, a gash on the head and sitting in the center divider of I-5 north of Mt. Shasta. Part of the 20r block was missing, the transmission and transfer case were gone, the t-case cross member had peeled off the frame rails and the pumpkin was torn out of the rear axle. The front pumpkin looked good though, and there were some pretty good scrapes on the freeway and a nice streak of fluids along with bits of metal for about 200 yards.
Not really sure what causes that kind of destruction, and the tow truck driver was pretty well flabber gasted at the destruction and the torn sheet metal where the shifter once was. In the end, the remnants were sold for more than I thought I'd get out of it. I think I got $200 out of the little that was left, and I always wondered if it was just recycled at a metal yard.
imp:
