Anyone Working a W900a or 359

The Canadian A cab has a lot more steel in it. Mine has a steel firewall and the lower frame structure is all steel as well. Cab insulation was very mediocre on mine. I bought a daycab though.

Mine was going to be an RV hauler or maybe a service truck but The Bug forced a few major changes in my life and I haven't even looked at it in over 4 years. Just a pile of parts behind the shop.

 

I have no idea what red seal engineer is , but if you can fix most of the smaller problems on your own truck , that’s a huge money saver and time saver .

if I got back into trucking I’d get a rig with zero computers .

I got out of trucking g right when the computer stuff was making its way into the used truck market , I had exactly one truck with computers on it and I hated it .

it didn’t have DEF or EGR or any of that garbage, but the coolant over flow bottle sensor would go bad and shut down the engine . In the middle of the lake ponchatrain bridge etc .

always some sensor or another acting up .
My full mechanical big cam Cummins and 3406 B cat was much more reliable .

And you don’t need 500 or 600 HP

I grossed 80k for years with a 350 Cummins and a 9 speed cabover .

yeah , the guys with 650 HP will pass you on the hills . Whatever . I made more money because i didn’t burn up the engine by messing with the injector pump and melting the pistons .

 

You’d just want to keep some spare parts .
Both with you and accessible at home .

organized so one of your friends or family could grab them and overnight them to you if you need it and couldn’t get one local to where you broke down .

If , say you had a 1980s or 90s big cam Cummins , just go ahead and find a new water pump and fan clutch and injectors etc , and all the gaskets and small stuff that you know is going to need to be replaced at some point, if they are not available from the usual parts suppliers.

when you run across a new in frame kit , just buy it and keep it at home , if you keep your rig long enough , you’re gonna need it ,



if you have a rig with any computers , you should just keep a spare of every sensor
With you ,
You KNOW it’s going to fail , you just don’t know when , but it ain’t gonna fail in your driveway , it’s going to fail at the most inconvenient location possible .

you’d be surprised at the drivers that don’t even carry a spare set of gladhands , they Will break , and it won’t be in the truck stop parking lot , it will be at 3 AM in the middle of an intersection or something.


One of my friends had a brand new 2021W-900 with I think the X15 or whatever is the 600 HP engine , and the engine started skipping , they limped it to the nearest KW stealership who first said it would be two days before they could look at it , after a few phone calls they got it in in a couple of hours and evaluated it and discovered the injector harness was bad , and said it would be 7-10 days for a new one to arrive .

The truck owner got the part number and made some calls and found a new harness 8 miles away at a Pete stealership ,

and after some more phone work , the KW dealer reluctantly sent someone 8 miles to get it and replace it , and had them back on the road later the same day .

but even with a brand new truck under warranty , the stealerships and mechanics are lazy and don’t care how long your rig sits in their parking lot losing money.

 

Education and hands on long way apart……good luck