Well today I was to go into work early, 5 am, and take a truck and drive it for 6 hours to break it in. I do my pretrip and I did 3, yes three walk arounds on a straight truck. Sometimes I am just pariniod. The truck was a new type of hybrid. It took me a while to get use to driving it. Engine stays at 700 rpm up till about 15 mph, then the engine transmission combo takes over. So now I settle in for 6 hours of driving. I get on the interstate and try the cruise control. Ok so the cruise doesn't work. No big deal, I will just keep it as close to 65 mph as I can. Twenty one miles down the road a semi passed me and the truck pulled a little to the left. No big deal it was just the draft off of the other truck. The other truck finishs passing me and the truck straightens out a little. Then it tugs hard to the left again. Except there was no other truck there. The the loud squeling starts. So I dive for the shoulder and hit the brakes. As soon as I stoped smoke starts rolling off of the front left hub. I try to go for the fire extingusher but it is a no go. You see the passenger seat rattled pretty good so I lowered it all the way to stop the rattle, except it wedged the fire extigusher against the middle consul. After five second I say screw that I am getting out of this truck. I get one step down and I remember I forgot my wallet and cell phone. I reach back in and grab them and look real quick at what is smoking. The plastic hub cover had melted, the center rubber plug was missing, and oil was all over the rim and tire. Great I have a seized wheel bearing. So I call the boss at 6:15 in the morning to tell him I need a wrecker. So I had some time to kill so I watched the traffic roll on by. I thought this morning that I was going to get a drink at the turn around point of my choising so I did not get a drink at home base. Five hours later I finally got something to drink. Two hours of watching traffic go by I see this truck coming and he hits the jake brake. As I am thinking what kind of idiot hits his jakes like that on the interstate on a flat section he hits his lights, whoho the wrecker is here. It took four hours of beating on the hub with a sledge hammer, hammer chisel, and the trusty old smoke wrench to get the baering assembly off. So I broke the truck in with 65 miles on it and it is going to cost $1600 to fix this little mistake. I know I remember seeing the plug in the hub, It was not leaking, I really don't know what happened. So on the other hand I got to notice how busy I-65 just south of Indy really is. Oh and a state trooper will go by you 4 times before he stops and asks you if you need any help. But it is ok the trooper was nice and had a good sense of humor about my situation. So in my job I have got to the realization that no matter how new the truck something can still go wrong. I have taken trips where I have broke down in every state I have traveled though on the same trip. I don't get too worked up about them any more. Stuff can be fixed, just look at it as a vacation on the side of the road.

Jeez that sucks. I live near the northern section of I-65 toward Gary, IN its pretty bad here, broke the front wheel cross member on my dads work van over the winter, that was scary, no fire though.

Horrible way to take a vacation though! been there done that. Especially when the wrecker shows up, and theres 2 of you, and 2 of them, THATS CRAMPED

Probably not enough oil put in at assembly plant due to:

Failure of the lube providing system (man pops a hose end to the hub, triggers it 3 times for that particular model, pops in plug, next truck) and the feed system to his hose was out of grease. Prior 4 or 5 trucks will have the same problem as they did not get the full charge.

Or he could have been busy discussing his weekend plans with the next worker anmd missed the "grease it" step and popped in the plug.

Or busy as above and did not seat the plug properly.
You had some lube for it to make it that far and burn/smoke going down.

Somewhere in the world today are a few trucks prior serial number and a few later numbers with a similar problem.

Your company should inform the dealer who sold it and be sure the dealer informs the manufactuer. It might prevent a more serious situation on breakdown and a lawsuit against them both.

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Truck was probably built on a friday or a monday.

I-65 isnt that bad it travels through my home town if you ignore the pot holes and idiots that come out in the rain. just watch out around the gene slider i mean gene snyder interchange you can expect to see three of louisvilles finest and the same in vehical enforcement not to mention the state boys who pass through

The truck was delivered straight from the factory and never got to the dealer for an incoming inspection. We were talking to a factory rep about the issue and sent him the whole front left hub assembly so that they could look at it better.

They want to see the hub, but were more interested in the trucks production date/time/line set.
I worked a while for two different forklift dealers in sales of new equipment. My commisions were cut as selling price, less invoice cost of machine, less freight, LESS GET READY. Get ready was a nice round allowance. Supposed to go down a check list, observing fluid levels, gov rpm, idle rpm, brake fluid level, park brake stalling the TC at top RPM, etc.
Lots of times I know the sheet was checked by the shop forman at his desk and sent back as done.

Clark Equipment Co. used to number their machines thus:
( EG) C500 355-108-1290...
Broke out to Clark C500 model (like Impala Chevy) 3000 to 5500 lb lift capacity, and the 108th truck coming down the line in production run 1290. So, somewhere in the world were machines number 001-1290 to
108-1290 and all were built with identical components. If they ran out of Delco distributors, or Delco alternators, and changed to PresoLite, this was production run number 1291 -OR they might end that 1290 run, build another type machine, the resume building this one with the different components as #????.
The trick was, they knew what was installed on each machine and could go back and find its earlier and later sisters. Who they were delivered to and when. They would sometimes pay for a dealer field rep to go and actually inspect a machine in service, get tracing of SN and the present hour meter reading. Then request copies of any repair orders dealer had completed.
Somewhere they had encountered a problem and were reviewing prior and later machine histories to determine their position.

Incidentaily: Up to 1979 I know Clark's dealer parts people required a serial number for the machine you were buying for. Partially for correct part
location, but mainly for theft recovery. They kept a database of SN of machines reported stolen by their dealers, and when the thief needed a hard Clark part it was curtains. Also did this with Michigan line for the while they owned it. A few "cheap" loaders were returned to their rightful owners.

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