The journey begins - purchased a truck.

Is that the bear you bought from Stearnsy's Bears in Stott City, MO when you were here last?

I haven't seen one of the 'Buzzy Bees' for decades now.

And I'm completely out of Vegemite.

 

Started the week with tank loads. Picked up last Friday, sat on it at the house, delivered it to St.Louis Monday, bounced back empty for another pick up Tuesday AM, back to the house - then up to Westville,IN for Thursday AM delivery.




Spied a load of 'old' windmill blades, cut in half, to be buried in landfill up (possibly in @sawmill ) country - have to love that green energy at work.



80 miles away to Shipshewana, IN - Amish country. Looked like an Amish truck stop over the road, it's a youth center that has volleyball and baseball fields for young ones in the area.

All I heard was 'Clip Clop' for 30 minutes at sunset when activities subsided.











Next to where I was parked - they're leveling off a 20 acre plus spot for another 3 ball fields. They said it was a 'youth sports destination' area so they could hold and host multiple teams for tournaments and what not. Amish guy and his son running the dozer with the fancy transit and this huge beast. Pretty impressive. And worked from dawn till dusk.



My intention for the IN load was to put me close to these guys. I had a scheduled appointment I was 1 hour late for, for a generator 'refurbish'.

 

I was super impressed with these guys - Mr. Wrench in Shipshewana,IN. They're a stones throw from ARI sleepers. I went to ARI and bought a 30' cord with a 'Smartplug' connector (that ARI now uses) for $320. They had plug ins , water and septic dump there that they said I could use, but I went back to Mr.Wrench where they also had an electric plug in to use.

I rolled in at 1pm Thursday afternoon. Sam (56 year old tech) had the unit off the truck in les than an hour. By 3.30pm he was gone - engine out of the box and frame. engine on a stand, cleaned and ready to work on.

He came in at 5am in the morning because he wanted to get off early and start his weekend.

Knocked on my door at 0745, and asked me to roll the truck in - had the gen set back on and out within 45 minutes.

Total labor charged was 10 hours, and IDGAF - dealing with a Cummins shop would have been 3 times the cost. The last time I did, I had to remove the gen myself, take it to them, have their off site generator mechanic schedule a time, . . .10 day process. These guys - wow.

The above invoice is their 'overhaul' price. Pretty much replace everything that could go wrong.

A new 7.5kW Onan runs about $13,000 now.

They have complete refurbished sets at $7,000 - 2 hour swap time.

I had developed a nervous tick with that darned generator. It would throw oil and coolant codes and refuse to run continuously at the worst times.

Like the WORST times. Wyoming at 20 degrees with a 30 mph wind, you can't get it started to run the block heater.

Middle of the summer, black truck and 100 degrees. No AC to sleep with. (The bunk sleeper AC unit quit working this year and I have yet to resolve , it wasn't very efficient anyway).

I asked Sam and Matt a bunch of questions that you can only get a qualified response from people that do this day in - day out, and learned a bunch.

Oil and filter preference and why
Service interval and why
Injector/ECM/Block failure time/hours and why.

The units are more prevalent in the RV industry, and large cars are a slim slice of the pie. The whole business and service model is marketed to part time (more affluent) users, thus - little guys like us, well - if we don't have a bunch of doctor/dentist cash to just throw at problems, then you have to figure it out.

By the way - I asked ARI sleepers, what a 'run in run out' cost was on a sleeper replacement these days.

$1,000 per inch - they said - generator included.

120" is . . .

144" is . . .

168" is . . .

A bit much for me.

 

Forgot to add - have to take a photo.

They added a conversion to put the oil dipstick and fill tube in easy access from the front cover.

Far better than the Onan setup that requires you to remove the cover box to access both with F### all room to fill if needed.