First time o/o's or buyers read this...

A few more comments. Since september of last year my truck has made ZILCH profit. Been in the red ink the whole time. If you've got car payments, boat payments, house payments, and credit card balances don't even bother with trying to take on a truck note you'll never make it. I was very fortunate to not come to the point of calling it quits or borrow money. I wouldve quit and sold the truck borrow is not in my vocabulary.

 

Hanadarko..I know you did tires, but what else have you done to the truck? More pictures would be nice too! Brag-on my brother.... you've earned it!

 

I will take some new photos this weekend. I plan on spending time bringing the rims back to a nice shine...



I would have to really look at everything I have done. I just keep track of actual dollar amounts..for tax purposes. $9500 was spent at KW alone...

My 2nd biggest expense after tires was fixing the A/C ($1800)...
Next was 2 new Sears Atlas Elite 80 seats. $1500 installed. Thats actually a really good deal as the seat sell for around $925 each w/o install. But the original passenger one had no arm rests and my wife had issues with that. So obviously that issue moved up on the priority scale.
Basically, each week since June 1st, I have ordered parts at KW or TruckPro and then on the weekends spend time fixing it. I have taken a few weeks off here and there too, to stay on top of all of the parts I had coming in.

I just installed a new Delphi radio with Sirius and Bluetooth radio in the dash last weekend. It's nice to have all of that built-in now and working.
I do whatever the heck I can on my own. I have no one around locally to help me though. My wife offers to help and sometimes it works out and other times....well you know.

Once I get my kingpins done, I will pass DOT. Then I can work on the chicken lights my wife wants. She wants this rig lit up like an xmas tree...thats ok by me I guess

PS. Tossed the old mattress out (YUK) and need to get a new one...got some ideas but cost remains a factor right now..

 

So you team with your wife or is she just along for the ride?
Mattress...I've gotten one from a furniture store before, XL single and it worked out fine. I've added some lights to my truck too. I'm only going with LEDs. Have a guesstimate on what your kingpins will cost all done?
Nice truck by the way...

 

Thanks!
The wife? nah..I would love my wife to learn to drive the truck but she thinks at 5' she is too small to get her CDL. I dont think so, but she also has NO interest in learning. Having her get her motorcycle license last year was about the most I have been able to get out of her. She is always up for a ride though at least..especially with the new seats. She didnt do too well trying to learn how to drive a stick in my last pickup (she warped the pressure plate)...so there isn't any encouragement on this side for that..

Kingpins are gonna hit me about $1500 when all is said and done, including a 3-axle alignment. I am likely gonna have KW do it since one of the service managers is known for doing some of the best alignments around here. He isnt a tech anymore but told me if I opted to have it done there, and gave them enough time to schedule, he would actually do my alignment himself. That sort of clinches the deal. KW told me my 5th wheel was out of spec but thats BS as far as I am concerned....
I have a rear/rear axle leak at the yoke but its not bad enough to fix..more annoying than anything else. At least my neighbors are cool about me bringing the rig home to work on it w/o calling the dam cops. My driveway isn't as forgiving and the wife is getting pi$$ed at the drips and sludge marks on it. I figure one good rain and most of it will be gone...

I replaced so much of the inside parts too, even down to the LAMP-ID things. They were $9 each but when you need MANY of them, dam it adds up fast.......I'm out of money right now though, so the kingpins will wait until late 2010 or more likely 2011...

 

Finally found a use for my old seatbelts too...

 

Impressive dash. Looks like you took it apart and detailed the heck out of it. Glad you got a picture of it, they're really hard to keep clean as you've discovered. My wife's got her motorcycle license and her own bike. She's done riding and the bike will be for sale, she's got some arthritis in her hands that makes it hard to clutch.
I need to get into my dash and do some bulb work etc...
I continue to be impressed....

 

yea, I took each switch out and cleaned the hole and then if the switch needed replacement I did that. Some of them were $49 a piece. The LAMP-ID is the little wording strip above each switch. I replaced all of them. At the time the photo was taken I was waiting on 1 and thats the panel dimmer switch located under the speedometer in my photo. You can see it has more of a yellow writing on it whereas the newer ones have white. They both light up amber though. If I had to take a guess..I would say I dropped $400-500 on the dash stuff, between little and big parts I needed. Well over $100 on the little LAMP-ID things alone...

Got my bluetooth mic yest. Mounts in a 1x2 hole. Hmm. Thats a rockerswitch hole and I have only toggle switches, so I will need to get creative on this install..

 

Hanadarko!,way to go!.. i am jealouse!!! i love w900"s but due to a very limitd budget, i found a 1998 379 pete 470 driptroit 13 spd...mechanicly she's sound..new airbags,exshausht,a/c compressor,altanator,2 new steers ,drives 75% headache rack ,chains binders,tarps, and i will be getting my own authity...the man is selling both his trucks...he had a roll-off company till the houseing market took a dump,.... then bought the trucks and now the wife has givein him a choice.....the trucks and th road.....or her...but it will all start comeing together here in the next two weeks......my point of this was one key word you put in here "no payments"...this is the way to go...keep your overhead low as possible.....then all one has to worrie about is genneral maint......i to have to put some elbow great into the truck...but to my likeing..i'm hope to have success with this venture!!!! and i have some help from some old pros...........and to mr.gears you seem to have a positive out look so to both the best of luck and hope to see you out there soon...dino..... P.S it either of you have a line on a cheap stepdeck drop me a line...llol my choice of pioson for a trailer

 

"wife or the trucks"
......hmmmmm let me think about that one for a bit

Dino, once you get your Authority and all set up, I have no doubt in my mind that you'll do fine.
No doubt whatsoever.
Can't help you on the trailer though, tarping and chaining isn't my gig. I'll keep an eye open though. You also can do a trailer search on Truckpaper.com. Lot's to look at.