[Atommik]

Now for the bad news. The show was about 20 miles away. By far the longest trip I've attempted with my truck. Obviously getting there was not a problem. However, about half way home I started to feel a weird vibration. I was thinking I would need to get the wheels re-balanced. I thought I remember seeing a wheel weight laying on the ground when I still had my truck at work. A lot of possibilities were going thru my mind.
All of a sudden, there was a huge crunch/ crash noise as my left rear wheel came off while I was going around 40 MPH. I got to the side of the road and stopped as my tire/ wheel passed me on the road. Kind of a "cartoon" eerie image. No injury to me, nobody else driving along side of me hit anything that flew off my truck(brake drum.)
As I was calling road side assistance, some one who pulled over to help, called and got a squad car to pull up behind me with their lights on to avoid any more trouble. Then a guy who was also at the show pulled over to help. Of course I had no jack or spare. He lived near by so he went home and got a floor jack and lug wrench. We managed to get the wheel back on. (I love the "brotherhood" of car guys always willing to help each other.) The tire has a huge cut on the inner sidewall so it's junk, but at least the tow truck could pick the truck up by the rear and get me home.

After a little investigation, I realized the lug nuts that hold my wheel spacers on, came loose. The wheel with the spacer still on it is what came off. Then with nothing to hold the drum on, that came off as well. So when I stepped on the brakes, the rear wheel cylinder blew out with no drum for the shoes to press against. Very happy to have the S10 Master cylinder with dual chambers so I at least had front brakes left!! I was so mad at myself because I was going to re-check all of my lug nuts on the spacers and wheels, but I got distracted by other projects and never did it. Stupid!

The damage to my truck is limited. I'll need a wheel cylinder, tire and some serious rear fender repair or maybe replacement.. I have full insurance coverage but I'm not sure if I'll file a claim. I guess I should, that's what it's there for.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell this part of the story because it's embarrassing, but maybe some will benefit by my error!!
Here's a couple pics of the damage.

Thankfully no one was hurt and the damage not too serious.