The Red Express

Yesterday I ran to Houston and bought a new truck.



It's a 94 Kenworth W900L has a 3406E and a 13 speed and rides around on 24.5's

My plan is to spend the next couple of weeks cleaning it up and getting it road ready, then I will be setting out on the road to put it to work.

The first step in this process was pulling the bird banger, I did that about 30 minutes ago.

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The next is I am going to take off the cab extensions on the sleeper because they are all beat up. Then I will remove the brackets for the bird banger and fill the holes, then touch up the paint with a rattle can. The paint on this truck is pretty dead so I am not doing anything fancy.

The long term plan is to get another sleeper that is in better shape.

Eventually I will be stripping the whole truck, blasting the frame and painting everything. This is the paint scheme I am going with:



The truck already goes down the road really nice, I am really looking forward to getting it all put together.

When I get the new sleeper I am also going to get another drom from Protech, not sure if I am going to get it as just a bang board or as a cab rack yet, we will see. Under the drom though I have room for a pair of 30" tool boxes, that with a set of full fenders I think the truck will be standing pretty tall.

 

They sure don't, this truck has a totally different feel to it than almost any other truck I have driven except for the first truck I drove which was also a 94, actually an almost identical truck but it had a Cummins in it.

The two other trucks I have owned were both W9's, both 2000's, they were good trucks, but they didn't have the same feel this truck does.

 

(Forgot to update this here, so will be a few posts in a row)

So I have been a busy boy, cut the brackets for the bird banger off the roof, sanded em down, filled the holes with marglass, sanded it down, and painted it up with a rattle can to make it look presentable.







Pretty close to having the truck back on the road now.

In the next couple of months I am going to see if I can source another sleeper for her, there are some other things however going to need my attention first, the king pins are getting a bit of play in them, and its going to need tires on the back axle, but I am probably going to do all of them so I can have a matched set.



Took this picture Christmas Eve with the USS Lexington in the Background.



This pic is from about 5 days ago. Need to get the old signs peeled and my new ones installed. Hopefully will be back on the road by the end of the week.

 

Got signs on the truck today.



Should be hitting the road tomorrow.

 

So the hood on my truck is pretty trashed, has structural integrity issues that is going to mean a lot of glass work to make it right again, I am seriously thinking about buying a Jones Performance hood, they have one that will fit my truck that has the old W900A style headlights, I really like the way it looks.





I think it will look pretty sharp if I go for it.

 

I think I am going to put a mercury sleeper on it.