Broke Down 69...The Adventure Continues

Are you going to stick around close to the house for a while with that beast? Make sure you find someone you can trust to work on her. My advice is you have to run an old truck a little diffrent then you did when you were in that new company truck.

Slow, steady and ever vigilant!

After you get to know each other a little better then you can start to venture out farther.

If you find you need a hand along the way home don't hesitate to give a shout if your anywhere around the state of Illinois. I'd be there as fast as I could gather up the tools.

 

So, yesterday I delivered to a Lowe's in Wichita. Sat with my clock ticking, after an hour, I message my dispatcher on the Qualcomm. Half an hour later I call. Miracle of miracle, he actually picked up in the first ring. Amazing choices in loads when you're in Kansass: hay or more hay. Neither of which would allow me to make it home this weekend. So he pitched me a load for North Dakota, or if I really wanted to stay out, a trip to Baltimore. Well, I didn't (and still don't) want to, but by god I'm gonna make all the money I can. So I took the load to Baltimore, since I will make nearly a grand off of it.

This is where it got fun. I passed up the only Flying J on the pike to make it to the customer so I wouldn't have an hour and a half drive first thing in the morning. So with a quarter tank, I drove the 90+ miles to the wallboard plant, then 175 miles back to mentioned Hook. Pretty sure I was on the last of the fumes when I pulled into the pump. Lesson learned. Thankfully not the hard way.

 

Start tracking your MPG.
At some point when you can. Fill the tanks to the point of amlost over flowing. Use this as your zero point.
drive the truck a set number of miles. like 750, then fill the tanks like the first time. Record the gallons and your MPG Do this like 5 or 6 time, you could even go 10 times. This should give you a solid average MPG to work from.
Then you can do some runs to about 1/16 of a tank the same way.

Sounds silly, but it can come in handy to know this.
If you have a load that you need to play the fuel tight, you have the tools to make decisions with.

Should you see a significant change in MPG, you know that you have something going on.
could be filters need changing, maybe due for oil change.
depending on miles, the overhead may need to be run.
Turbo going out or EGR valve starting to fail.

More problems will first show up as a declining MPG. Even a bad alignment will take MPG down.

Ok, that sure did come off sounding sort of harsh. was not trying to be an ###hat

 

I wouldn't do it down to 1/16th... The one and only time I ran a truck out of fuel, when I filled it up, counting the fuel I put in trying to get her started, I only got 200 gallons in. She had a 255 gallon capacity. You never know when it's going to run out until you actually do it.

 

Not at all, brother. I'm running about 6.7 mpg, and I was 96% sure I had the fuel to make it. But you know how companies are with wanting to keep fuel in network. If I thought there was no way, I could have called our road repair office and gotten an approval to write my one EFS check to an out of network fuel stop. When I pulled into the terminal where I'm spending the night, I went ahead and topped off my tanks so I won't be sweating it when I hit Appalachia tomorrow. Anywho, it's late, and I need slee....

 

You did good. You don't want to go to North Dakota ever! And food for thought....on the 579s they had a issue with the fuel lines. Some times they would not draw fuel from both tanks. One time my gage showed 3/8 fuel and the next thing you know I was on the side of the road waiting for road repair. I still had 30 gallons of fuel in the right tank. You can't look to see how much fuel you have due to the screen. When I sitting around for full service I talked with driver who had the same issue.

 

I estimated 1200 miles on a full tank. If you look at the tank capacities I thing the drivers side is 90 and the passengers side is 100 or 120. As the weather declines and winter sets in you want to fuel every chance you get. Fill those tanks up every time unless your heavy then that's a fun game. Road Repair does not like out of network fueling. And they will let you know it , even if you were to pay yourself.

 

I've noticed that with mine. Gauge said I was done. Left tank took way less fuel than the right, which was bone dry.

 

Hey @Broke Down 69 you still want the info on that truck? It's an 03 Pete 379, 6NZ, 18 sp, @1.3 miles. Wants $65,000.