Guys with pre-emission trucks what are your typical breakdowns?

They are pretty much impossible to find nowadays in good condition. Prepare to big money

 

All engines have failures, we just don't have the emissions crap to deal with when your asking what puts you on the side of the road. Older trucks that have 1.5 million or more, things like spring hangers, rears, drive shaft splines go bad. Steering axles need to be replaced, or new king pin sleeves installed. Steering shafts and Steering boxes. The key to trying to avoiding break downs with any truck is MAINTENANCE!

 

I owned trucks for 7 or 8 years and a couple of things left me on the side of the road

I had zero trucking experience, I had a CDL but had never driven other than in the class at the community college.
I did a no money down lease purchase , 24 months and she’s all mine.
It was supremely dumb, but I didn’t know it was dumb and just went out and worked my butt off and made some good money .
I was working at a state park mowing grass and cleaning toilets for $950 a month in 1988
The first month with my overpriced used cabover , II took home $5000 after all expenses , after my payment and fuel and insurance. When I got a check every week, I would set aside 10% for maintanance and 10% for the IRS and 20%for savings ,



one breakdown was a fitting on the air compressor cracked , and one time the air compressor just stopped compressing, that time I drove it 110 miles back to my mechanic, by planning ahead and hearing down and not using the brakes,

and one time when I was climbing out of a paper mill full throttle in second gear the nut on the turbo shaft came off , shredded the turbo and got sucked into the engine ,
The intercooler caught the big parts but the oil that feeds the turbo bearing now had no bearing to limit how much oil went into the engine , I felt a couple of thumps and shakes and thought I had run over something in the road , but didnt back off the throttle immediately, then the truck started speeding up !

I took my foot off the throttle , and it got faster , pushed in the clutch and wheeeeeeeeeeee BOOM !
Engine exploded all over the road .

I should have just stepped on the brakes and choked the engine down , but didn’t realize I had a runaway engine until it was too late .
And I should have just went out and bought another truck the next week, instead of having the engine rebuilt and losing for weeks revenue . But ya live and learn …

One time , the front drive axle center chunk just exploded.
And one time on a different truck, the pinion bearing on the front drive went bad and the pinion got pushed out and lunched the differential .

one time the starter Selenoid shorted out and having the juice from all four batteries shorted to ground caused the starter to get white hot , and I thought the rig was a goner.
Was bobtailing on a city street , and the engine started running funny , I pull into a parking lot smell something hot ,
I hop out and see smoke under the hood ,
Spray my fire extinguisher under the fender ( I know better than to open the hood if the engine is on fire )
Wife runs to the Waffle House and gets their fire extinguisher, which we use , then a police car stops and we use his fire extinguisher,
So the wire and I start throwing my tools and clothes out , I yank out the CB and anything valuable , and a fire truck shows up ,
Then we pop the hood and can see the starter is white hot , and has melted the fuel line above it so the diesel is dripping onto the white hot starter.
they use a tool to cut the battery cables and the problem is solved.
I wasn’t far from home , about a mile . We walked back to the house and I picked up a new starter and cables and was back on the road the next day.

I never had a new truck , always older ones , none had any emissions , and only one had any kind of computer .
I didn’t have that truck long because the computer and sensors were always going bad and leaving me on the side of the road , having the engine just suddenly stop running on the Lake Poncatrain bridge because the Coolant sensor thought the coolant was a little low in the reservoir , was very frustrating .
I dumped the water out of my cooler into the reservoir tank to get it back running .

I always carried some spare parts , like a full set of belts , a full set of lights , headlights marker lights , trailer lights etc , a full set of air line fittings and 50 feet of air line, a spare set of glad hands and a spare wiring pigtail and a box of O ring seals for the gladhands.
A test light and plenty of wire and butt connectors and wire nuts and heat shrink.

at least one brake can , and a spare tire , a couple of tow ropes , an extra set of triangles , and after the electrical problem, a large fire extinguisher mounted on the catwalk ,
And after one roadside repair, a extra length of the tiny air line for the shifter switch and plenty of those tiny fittings

I did a lot of preventive maintenance.
I would have the alternator rebuilt every 100k miles , and I did a extensive pre trip at least once a week , and about every six months I’d drop it off at my mechanic and have him go over the truck and inspect everything inside and out trying to find stuff that could be a problem later on.

these were always old worn out trucks that I paid cash for .
Most of them cost me under $15k and in the late 90s you could easily make $15k profit after your fuel and insurance in three months without working very hard.
I think I paid $20k for a really nice cabover I bought from Ryder , and think I foolishly paid $40k for a two year old FLD freightliner with the computer engine .



I’d have my mechanic check them out before I bought them , and every used truck will need tires and brakes and batteries . And usually wheel seals , and maybe a air compressor and water pump, Just bake that into the purchase price .

I bought plenty of old trucks with an inspection by my mechanic and hit the road and got to making money . After several weeks I’d take it back and have my mechanic work on the stuff that needed fixing .

I recently while moving alot of old boxes in the basement found a ton of old receipts from the late 90s
Some of My trucks did get alot of maintaining, and repairing , some more than others, One of my cabovers I bought with 709k on it just needed an alternator and a clutch and tires , the entire time I owned it .

one of my Ford LTL 9000s was in the shop every few weeks for a non working air conditioner .

 

You need to go over every inch of the truck assuming it’s about to break down all the time then you’ll have a chance of catching what is about to break down and hopefully not be stranded.

 

Well the thing is you talking about a 25 year old truck. Put that truck brand new side-by-side with a brand new truck now and absolutely hands down that truck is more dependable the old one.

But you're talking about a 25 year old truck. Now if you buy something that has all service records and you see was in framed and you see they kept up with the brakes and the s cams and it has new brake cans and slack adjusters and they changed all the accessories on the engine has a new radiator okay you're on the right track.

But if you're going to tell me that someone is going to just look at a truck that is 25 years old no records great I'll buy it hey I'm going to work tomorrow...

In that case it's a roll of the dice. Some guys do get lucky. Some guys go broke. I would say certainly less are lucky than unlucky if you're talking about a 25 year old unknown vehicle.

Most likely something like this would happen. You get pulled into the weigh station. The cop looks and says you have a bad slack adjuster you have a bad air can and you have an airline that's rubbing and it's being chafed.

So you fix all that and you go on your way the next thing you know your water pump gives out.

Okay you fix it you drive down the road and your wiper motor is not working.

Okay you fix it and you work for a couple of weeks and you find out now you have a pinion seal leaking. So you stop and you fix the pinion seal and you drive on your Merry way and next thing you know do you have another bad air can. So you fix that and you drive on your way and you find out your airbags are leaking.

And you fix that and you go down the road and you can't understand why your cab is shaking and carrying on and now you need cab mounts and airbags and shocks...

Next is injectors or head gasket or an inflame or a clutch or the AC stops working...

The point of what I'm saying is that the idea of getting into a 25-year old unknown vehicle and everything is going to work and you're not going to have any problems for the next several years is very far-fetched.

Now some people will be lucky. There are people that win the lottery. There are people that go down the shore and they play in the poker game and they win the big money.

Most are not going to be lucky and you cannot plan your success on luck. Some guys do. Some guys say hey I got ten Grand I'm going for it bang and maybe it works for them. That is positively the minority.

But the age of the truck isn't in itself as much of an issue as how well it was maintained and whether it was abused or not kept up with. And the problem with older trucks isn't always big-ticket items but there are a lot of little things that can cause you problems that will probably pop up and keep popping up unless you bulletproof your truck before you start.

I mean on a different level would you buy a car that's 25 or 30 years old and has three hundred and fifty thousand miles on it and as soon as you turn the key you plan to crisscross the country with it nonstop for the next 4 or 5 years. Do you really think you're not going to have one single problem with that car during that time?

I can only tell you I went over my truck from front to back and I couldn't be happier that I did.

Good luck to everyone and be safe in all your travels.

 

You buy a 25 year old truck it's going to give you fits. I don't care what brand it is or how many miles it has on it, miles don't even matter at that point. You can work less to pay off that 25 year old truck, the trade off is you have to do a little work on it here and there. You don't have to worry about any DEF nonsense is the biggest reason not to buy a new truck.

 

1996 Series 60 here in a 2015 Glider I had built. Truck wasn’t on a hook for the first 5.5 years until I Blew a Turbo. I was 50 miles from my yard so I decided it was easier to be towed home. Sensors go out occasionally but those are an easy fix. I wouldn’t take anything for my Pre Emissions motor. My Pete parts have worn out quicker than my Detroit parts have so far.

 

I've lost count of hours,nights,and weekends wrenching on mine. I've dreamed of a new truck, even have looked at them.

All joking aside, it wasn't easy. I would still go the same route. If I bough another, it will be even older.

 

I just paid somebody to do everything. Bought my last 99 truck for $13.5k, brought it to a shop, spent 30k and put it on the road