I am a driver not a mechanic...!!

Ya know, sometime we just fixed the thing the simplest way and
rolled on. I was trying to get on at a company, staying in their
bunkhouse and ready to work on and up. This was in 1955 .

Was told to hook #? old IH L190 gas to #? cattle trailer, go from
Starkville, MS to Macon, MS sale barn, pick up a load of cattle
and deliver to Armour & Co. in Birmingham, AL.
So I walked around, found the 2 pieces and trucked on down to
the barn. ln backing up to the chute I noticed my trailer lights were
flickering. Went on and loaded, pulled out on yard to examine.
A little eliminating and substituting left me with a bad ground in
the pigtail at the trailer.
So I tightened the piece of baling wire I had been using as a
jumper/ground around the flap on the trailers socket, laid out a
length of wire to reach and twisted it tight to a thread sticking
out of a frame bolt and "hauled cattle" to B'ham.
Got back in and walked thru the shop. Told the lead mechanic
tractor #? needed the pigtail replaced. Why he asked. Cause
it ain't making a ground, I said and walked on to bunkhouse.
It was 2 days later when the owner told me they had told him
about that new guy using baling wire to get lights.
Check this old post for background:
New company giving me old truck.

 

I stopped at the Flying J in Sioux Falls today and while I was waiting for my shower some guy was on the phone whining that he had to wait over 4 hours to get a mud flap replaced on the trailer because the Boss Shop was short handed. That’s about 3 hours and 55 minutes longer than I would’ve waited to find a solution to do it myself. Roughly 240 miles given up for the day just because.

 

Kind of wished more CCs offered some "basic repair classes" for heavy duty trucks. They offered a basic auto repair course that covered most things people could handle back in my old town. But out here, the nearest college that had a Diesel tech program had to suspend due to annoying retirements of staff. That rant said, I usually try to cover what I can if I find something wrong. I don't carry an armada of tools on me. But if a YT video and my two multi-tools can handle it, I'm game.

And if you don't want to touch it, no shame in calling breakdown and getting road service either.

 

I know if I'm going down the road and my engine explodes, I'm stranded. I'd hate to feel that way about everything else on the truck. I'd be a nervous wreck. The only reason I don't have tire spoons yet, is because I keep forgetting to buy them.

 

I'll change wiper blades, lights, mudflaps, paint license plates, grease a fifth wheel, add fluids, replace fuses, and do minor repairs on trailers but I'm no mechanic. I did change the air filter on my truck the other day because the shop was backed up but that's about as involved as I want to get under the hood.

My company will pay for minor repair work but I only message them about it when I have to send an invoice for some item I purchased to do the repair. I just want to get rolling, because I'm paid to drive, not to be turning a wrench.

 

Well it is just very few, maybe one in 300.

the point is I don’t hire a driver to work on a truck, I hire them to drive.

cheap owners, which there are a lot, expect a driver to save money on the road by being a mechanic. That’s just wrong.

unlike other fleet owners, I let them deal with finding loads and delivering them, it isn’t their problem to figure out how to fix anything.

 

Once worked for a large citrus processor and just about every driver in an eighty man crew would crawl under their trailer to adjust brakes if needed.

 

1) if you WERE to be an owner, then you SHOULD fix what you are capable of fixing.

2) if you are a company driver, you can (or not) adapt my philosophy that did me well for my 48 years as a COMPANY driver, and that is......call the company. either they sent me to a shop, or a service truck came out to me, or it went into the company repair shop.

other than a "simple" light bulb, that takes like 4 minutes to replace, i get dirty for NO COMPANY equipment, other than the usual hooking up air lines, electrical line, and sweeping out my trailers.

enough of this crap, where we are made to make repairs on someone elses' equipment.