Beep Beep Roadrunner

Home now,so I will be kidsitting my son for a few days. He was sick a couple times at school this week and had to come home early plus the ex has a meeting for a few hours on Saturday so this will work out that I'm home to spend the time. Will have to do the Roundtable some other time.

I was reading the feature article in 10-4 magazine about this dude's tricked out working dump truck with Dynaflex black coated exhaust. Looks hella boss, will be seeing how much to have that put on.

Anyway we are home now. We have A/C up front but heat blowing in the sleeper. If I didn't have a dog I wouldn't even worry about it. Monday (today is Thursday) will take it to the local KW store to check and advise. Chances are they won't be able to get to it til Tuesday or Wednesday but it should only be a few hours to fix it up. Been down this road before, probably heater control valve. $1400 last time will see what it is going to be this time.

Ohh almost forgot, I had bought one of those short cans of 134A refrigerant in Arizona and put it in, did seem to chill in the front more but was registering as too low on the gauge. Tried to buy some more while in Los Angeles, the manager told me it is illegal to sell in Cali now lol. Picked up two more cans in Oregon this trip, sometime this weekend will put them in and see if it starts pumping out cool air in the back otherwise we are going to the shop on Monday...

 

OK we are back at Livermore CA about to be loaded for first stop Cincinnatti OH and final in Detroit MI terminal.

Been home for a few days watching the solar guys get everything hooked up. Today they flipped the switch and it was cool to see the meter running backwards, in other words we were sending power back into the main grid and getting paid.

 

Arrived up here to the Detroit terminal 0100 Monday morning and went to bed backed up to the dock. No freight out Monday night. Blessing in disguise as it turns out, red stop engine light came on so took to local Peterbilt store for check and advise. They say DPF filter needs dropped and baked but they cannot even take the truck til Friday morning (this is Monday night). So trying to work out some possible solutions right now, one is to just sit here for a few days another option might be to rent a truck and keep rolling while truck is in shop and work my way back up here to get it in a week or so. Depends if the rental place allows dogs or not.

 

I have visited shops off and on for several months just passing by and popping in and asking how long to do a DPF bake. Every shop I go to says 3 to 4 days turn-around minumum. I even went to a different shop this morning and the write up guy acted like he was extremely annoyed that my truck was broke down. My take on it is these shops all across the country are swamped with DPF and DEF problem trucks stacked up on their workboards.

Anyway looks like I'm gonna rent a yellow truck for a few days rather than sit in a hotel for a week.

Edit:

just googled it and the only other shop was the rude guy one I visited this morning lol. I don't feel brave enough to venture too far away from Peterbilt 1.5 miles away in case the truck decides to up and derate.

That and the yellow truck rental place is about 10 miles away so coordinating that now rather than trying to move 50 miles and start all over and risking a tow truck etc.

 

I guess some places can do it in-house. This Peterbilt shop is going to drop the DPF and send it out to be cleaned. But they do more than that, they will service the DOC and Doser, test the whole system thoroughly.

I don't have a whole lot of time to wait for them to get it done. Have to be 2600 miles west of here next week and with the dog makes it difficult to just catch a plane home. Pick up the yellow rental truck this morning and get laoded and keep on truckin'

 

Quick recap and update. Monday night took truck to Peterbilt for check and advise on stop engine light. So they schedule me for Friday at the earliest. Spent Tuesday trying to line up a rental truck- could write a whole book about that comedy. Picked up the rental truck this morning (Wednesday). Get a call tonight from Peterbilt, they already pulled the DPF filter and sent it out for cleaning. Oh back up a moment, I added a check and advise on the turbo occasionally squealing. Turns out an exhaust leak caused by a broken bolt on the manifold at the head. Have to pull it off and drill/tap blah blah blah etc but if the DPF comes back OK they might be able to get me rolling out Friday night. Of course that's the big IF. If the DPF cannot be cleaned then we have to order a new one.

Any case I was able to inform my planner dude that I have a truck and ready to roll. Never got a call before he went home regarding outbound freight. Chances are always better for outbound terminal freight on Thursdays and Friday nights. Not sure I can sit through another nonproductive day just waiting for a if/maybe/hope so terminal load. Been getting calls and texts from a RR agent for months, will have to see what he can do for me in the morning.

If I had known Peterbilt would have been this quick it would have been money ahead to just hole up in a hotel for a few days. Even if I turn in the rental truck tomorrow (1 day) they charge me $700 bucks. That's a lot of nights in a hotel....

 

So got up this Thursday morning after a night in the rental truck, nice deep dreams-- usually don't sleep well in 'new' places. Went in and got a big fat breakfast and shower shave. Thought about calling an agent to book me a load as I had not heard a word from the terminal planner all day Wednesday but something told me not to go looking for a load today-- think it was this concept called laziness. No calls from terminal planner all day Thursday either. Eating dinner and phone rings, 'yeah your load to California will be ready in a couple hours....' Great wow thanks for letting me know. So I'm walking through the docks to check it out and stop the forklift guy and ask him if he loaded any hazmat on the trailer. He says 'yes, 11,000 pounds up front in the nose', the trailer is 2 pallets shy of being done now.

Reason for the concern-- Penske rental agreement stipulates no hazmat. So now they are scrambling to get another driver to take my trailer to California and I will take a Roadrunner trailer to California tomorrow night. Not upset at all, will be able to catch the Mayweather vs Pacquaio fight-- very excited to see it.