New to the forum, planning for O/O

Hi Bill. Lately, I have been driving whenever I get the chance to hop on my friends truck. I was rigging/moving machinery for a while and learning to drive a Mack R model with a lowboy, and also an R model boom prior to going in the military, but never got the CDL. After completing active service, I drove on occasion, but recently I get to drive more often and and am grateful to be doing so. Right now I am working full time, but get a long stretch of days off, which I normally dedicate to trucking. Still, I consider my experience as wannabe. There are so many more folks out there with so much more knowledge and experience than I, that I couldn't see rating myself as anything more than a wannabe.

When I get to drive, I'm #### lucky to be running a pristine Kenworth W900L with an 18 speed and Cat power. I am thankful to my friends and family, and many of you folks here for the knowledge passed on, and helping me to pursue my goal of buying, and operating my own rig. It's a rough road ahead, but I am very determined and set on accomplishing this goal. I have been saving for the rig and other associated, along with catastrophic costs for a while. My cousin always calls me and jabs at me "you didn't buy that #### K-Wopper yet?" Though I know he is itching to get back on the road, and will be driving while I'm working the other job.

Thanks for the reply BigBadBill.

 

Thank you for your support sir, it means a lot.

Great advice. You made the stepdeck more appealing. I'd like to learn more about them. My friend and I are going to sit down and go over a bunch more stuff. He's got a boatload of paperwork he still need's to show me. I went through one of his books and went over all the taxes, fee's, surcharges, unpaid accounts, bids and so on. He want's to make sure I'm as prepared as possible. While going through alot of this paperwork, and being his sidekick when I can, I helped him reduce some of his overhead costs. He owns all kinds of equipment from dozers to backhoe's, to excavators, and told me since I've been around, he's been out trucking much more. Really great person.

Are you running a W900 as of now Dairyman? You're avatar is too #### small to see what rig you're drivin' .

 

You should post a bigger photo. Sure sounds like a nice truck. It wouldn't matter if you were runnin an old Mack B model. So long as it's making money, and makes you happy that's all that matters.

 

Here is that link from Cummins power spec if anyone is interested.

http://www.powerspec.cummins.com/site/gearing/gearing.htm

You can use it to match the operating RPM of other diesels as well. It would give some general numbers that probably can be applicable to Cat or Detroit. I'm looking around on the Detroit site to see if they have a similar tool.

 

Hi Chasendreams, this forum is great. Bunch of great folks and great info on here. Congrats on your 31 years of truckin. Any lessons and advice sure would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Vampire