An old man's career goes flat, Snackbar moves to open deck

You're not kidding. At 17:15 Arlington time I get the trucks low voltage alarm going off, with the APU running. I look at the inverter's remote display and it says 12.1 volt input power (after running 660 miles)...open up the APU case and the alternator's main mount bolt is broke and the head is rubbing against the brand new belt...and the Valero I am at doesn't have that size bolt, so my APU is down until I get to somewhere that has the bolt...it isn't a grade 8 or even a grade 5, it looks like this bolt came from a Walmart hardware department.

 

I was gonna try Lowe's and put at least a grade 5 bolt on there...if not that, I will go by 2 or 3 T/A-Petros and umteen Love's before I shut down tomorrow, and they should have one...but tonight the main truck will idle all night...and if Arlington doesn't like it...they can yell at me all they want

 

They shouldn't be too unhappy with the idle time, at least in the MPG dept. This 1200 lb load was getting me 9.6 mpg before I idled all night, and the cheapest hotel with truck parking around here is $90 + tax... I bet a service call for repairs would be even higher. I used my hours right down to 5 min on my 70, so I wasn't going anywhere, they would have to come to me, and with these batteries, it wouldn't sit here all night without some sort of charging. I checked the batteries before I pulled the APU cover and one positive terminal has a mound of green, and this is in just 3 weeks since I cleaned and coated it. Supposedly they checked the batteries when I had the APU service done, or at least it was written up for it, not sure if they did it. I guess I could have taken the alternator belt off and ran an extension cord from the generator plug out the drivers door to the shore power outlet, then started the APU...but that would've been too much b.s. for me. I think idling it was the cheapest option all the way around until I get a new bolt tomorrow...which I will install. I swear I am gonna get a tax ID and start charging for repairs as often as I have to fix this truck.

Honestly, right now, the equipment issues are my only gripe with SPD 2.0. My miles so far in 2023 have been great (this is my 4th coast to coast trip out of the last 5 trips), and I am on pace to hit between 12,500 and 13,000 this month if it continues like it's going. For the most part, with these long runs, I might speak to my travel agent once a week, so there is 0 micromanaging...and this is the 1st load in a long time that needed tarped, and it was preloaded and tarped by one of the local Rancho drivers, so I didn't even have to do that. (And it has light weight 2 pc tarps instead of the heavy 2 pc I had been using, so tarping any loads in the future will be a little easier).

 

On top of the APU issue, my Peoplenet went nuts this morning. Started out 1st thing not connecting to the truck... rebooted it, then is was counting down on drive time, but recording 0 driven miles... rebooted it again and then it shows my trucks odometer as miles driven today....






I want my bonus money for running this many miles in 1/2 a day...

 

I have a question. Say I took this boat anchor APU to a truck stop shop...how much labor do we think they would charge to put a bolt in the alternator mount? I spent $3.75 for a grade 8 5/16 x 3 bolt, washer and ny-lock nut, and it would've taken me 10 minutes to fix had I not dropped the nut on the motor mount, and it rolled under a flange...so it took me all of 15 minutes counting fishing the nut back out. I'm guessing an outside shop would charge at least $50-60 labor, $5 for parts, and they always add shop supplies. So I am guessing this job would've cost the company $65-75 for a simple bolt replacement. I need a raise!!!!!

 

For those out there in the cold, I'm sorry...I came thru San Antonio today and it was 94°.