Blew a hydraulic line 40 miles out, took me 6 hours to fix what should've been a 20-minute job

Got a call last Thursday about a load shift on a job way out near Bakersfield, so I drove out there and the second I set up, a fitting on the main boom line just let go and sprayed oil everywhere. The truck had a spare hose in the compartment, but the access panel was rusted shut and I spent 4 hours fighting it with a breaker bar before I realized I could just unbolt the bracket from underneath, then the swap itself took 20 minutes. Anyone else ever burn most of a day on the stupid part of the repair instead of the actual fix?

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rosebarnes14d ago

Rusted panel got me once on an old F-250, had to change the fuel filter and the skid plate bolts were so corroded I snapped two of them off clean. Ended up drilling them out with a cordless drill that kept dying, so I was hand-cranking the bit by the end. Then I realized the whole skid plate could just slide sideways if I dropped the front diff mount an inch, which took about 15 minutes of jacking and swearing. The filter itself was a 5 minute swap after that. I still think about that afternoon every time I see a rust belt truck.