Hopper, Dump O/O's & Drivers

Howdy fellers,ya'll staying busy? I have been a tad slow in my neck of the woods,only hauled 2 loads of ddg and 1 load of soy-hulls since last thursday,but I did get to help my son finish up on top-dressing corn. Crops look fairly good in our area,so far at least. Fuel was $2.93 monday.

 

Yep,i lost 1 of the feed mill accounts WH,they said they were NOT going to call me since i raised my rate $1.5/ton,i guess i'm too stubburn for 'em,or maybe they got a new bottom feeder on the hook. When will wheat be ready for harvest?

 

You just gotta love the iRS hitting you directly for another random tax, don't you? What they have to do with trucking I will never know.

Thanks for the heads up, I wasn't sure when it was due, just that I hadn't heard about it yet and my plates are due at the end of June. The way this has worked out so far has been pretty expensive. I bought my truck last February, and then let it sit (without plates) until October of last year. Sounds crazy, but I couldn't find anything that sounded good enough to run it (original carrier fell through by the time the truck was delivered).

When I got a temp plate in October, and then paid the plates bill in December - I had paid my 2290 ($480 I think since it was in October), and then my plates of $1600 in December (probably a penalty from February). Now 8 months later, I have another (guessing) $1300 due to renew. So in the past 8 months I'll have paid out almost $3400 just for license plates - and I've only run 5 months of the time. WOW - not a bad selling price for $2 worth of tin and $1 worth of stickers! At least I'll have a few months to come up with the 2290 again - bringing the total to nearly $4000 over a years time......

The good news is, I'll be over the hump and registered to run for a whole year to try and make all that back!!

 

The gremlins are alive and well today - I'm driving the proof! Had a few running issues - keyword running, because I can't really have too much done until I get this load off tomorrow in NY.

Place I loaded at today was mostly dirt, and after leaving out, my main belt (not the smaller one I just replaced along with the tensioner) decides it doesn't like dirt at all. It was all I could do to keep from squealing like a pig above 1400rpm with the fan running. I pulled over about an hour down the road once I'd hit open ground (past city traffic). Sprayed the belt down really well with belt dressing, and it shut up other than a slight chirp every once in awhile when the fan kicks on. That belt should be changed, but thanks to the price of it and the price of the tensioner I just bought, some things have to wait.

About 2 hours ago, I noticed my battery voltage (one of the digital readings I set on the dash) has dropped from 13.8V to anywhere from 12.2V to 12.8v - not good. I won't be shutting the truck down until I find a truck stop with repairs sometime late tonight. It's probably a battery gone south (I hope) or worse - I suppose it could be the alternator. No idiot lights on the dash yet.....

For troubleshooting - the lights don't affect the reading, and my inverter (straight from the batteries) doesn't like it at all. When I ran the micro to heat dinner the reading dropped from 12.8 to 12.2 and then the inverter overloaded and shut down. I can afford to replace a battery and the belt if I can find them tonight - I'm not one to let things go (and I need to stop and sleep sometime!). Other than that - and some crappy mpg trying to make time (5.8mpg running 70mph in the hills) things are going well enough. I'm pushing time and space right now to get reloaded Friday for a run over the weekend - how about 1,200 miles in 36 hours? It can be done legal and I'm gonna prove it!!

Take care and be safe out there

 

Hahah - well, it looks like I have a bad connection somewhere. Sitting at the shop right now, trailer is dropped at T/A, and I'm staying hopeful. I stopped into a T/A shop last night to have the batteries and charging system checked, and the truck wouldn't restart. Supposedly the batteries are fine and from the looks of it, it's probably a bad ground connection. Multiple random error codes and symptoms, and after an hour of playing with it, I was able to get everything to power back up again and run to the dealer. A few hours sleep and here it is - they said they can get to it around noon or maybe before.

Just hoping to get to NY and get unloaded/reloaded for the weekend - time will tell.

 

Hard to find, and they always want an hourly rate to go looking.

Have to say this day has worked out better than I expected. The shop was able to get me in by 12:30p and out by 3:15. The place was great to deal with, and I got off alot lighter than I'd expected.

Turned out to be a broken fusible link at the starter itself, and the ground cable connector was nearly falling off the cable. Fixed those up, and then replaced my wiper motor on a recall ticket - and then asked me if I needed anything else done while I was there. I had them remove the Gear Down Protection which kept cutting 12th gear short at 60, and the Idle Shutdown Timer is finally GONE. Amazing how smooth the engine idles at around 600rpm compared to 800 - it was $47 extra to have those changed.

Overall - the ticket was $247, and I'm not broke after all <almost LOL>

I would highly recommend Truck Enterprises in Roanoke, VA for Volvo/ Kenworth/ Cummins work - they're professional and didn't start yesterday. Everything happened when they said it would, and the bill was reasonable. Overall, it's good to be treated as a customer instead of a nuisance, and I appreciate that every time. I told them I'd be back as soon as I could spare time to have more work done - and it's good to know they're along my route. They're located just off 581S and 81 in Virginia - within a few miles of the T/A and Pilot off exit 150.