Instant O/O and Load boards

phill just so ya know. I buried the front axle of my truck in my driveway a few months back just like that. COst me $150 and the owner of the wrecker co is my next door neighbor. so i don't think $300 is out of line. just wait till you have to actually get towed somewhere!!

 

Thanks for the tips... the hand that burns...

Anyway ironically it was due to OBEYING the law and signs that I ended up in this mess. There were lots of large lots to turn around in. Traffic was following me down the road, I kept slowing to a stop to see another sign... the must have thought I was a spaz.

Well the owner of the property was non-plussed, but was unusually understanding, probably because I was SOOO remorseful and kicking myself. I offered to do whatever I could. He said that Pilot has been a town issue for months, in the paper etc. Said he gets about 3 trucks a year in his yard due to the traffic pattern there and lack of any options. The road up to that last turn is narrow and curvy. I don't know what decision I would make in a year from now, but going back really didn't look like much better of an option, especially since the turn before that was tough just going forward.

Nothing comes to mind at all when you say "spring thaw laws". No clue what that might be about. I'm guessing it means don't run trucks over thawing grass. Really he said they had had about 5 inches of rain the last couple days. Now Minnesota definitely had some frozen ground issues. I got stuck the day before just after the cows as well. Luckily they had a bulldozer and were quite used to escorting the delivery trucks out of their driveways. $300 bucks SUCKS though. This guy HAD me and he knew it... really seemed to enjoy it too. Said it took him 2 hours ($600) to find me, but he was gonna "cut me some slack".

 

up north in the spring as the ground thaws out it is spongy because a foot or so down is still frozen and the melted ice has nowhere to go since it con't go down through the ice below it. The ground freezes 4 feet deep up north so it takes a long tie for it all to thaw out to where it can dry.
the spring thaw restrictions are due to that. basically you can't run a truck on any road except the interstate or state highway while the restrictions are in place. Makes it real fun to get around to where you need to be

 

ya right...2 hours when the guy told ya he gets three trucks a year in his yard. lmao

 

How bout this,

The bad:

Today, I was bobtailing from Stockton, ca. to my home after looking a several skateboards (found one! hopefully financing will go through) as I was driving south on I-5 it started to rain, I hit the wipers and they start going good (they haven't been tested for an extensive period since I picked up the tractor a few weeks ago). After about 5 minutes of wiping away the rain, the driver side wiper makes it sweep to the right, then goes back to the left, instead coming back to the right, it keeps going!! finally bouncing of the hood and landing on the road near the Lathrop exit!! (if anyone should happen to need a freight. century driver side wiper arm, its likely 1/2 mile north of the the e. Roth road exit in French camp).

The good:

Fortunately, there is a freightliner dealership at the Roth road exit (What luck) I go in there park in front of parts and take a look at what happened. The wiper arm had worn the teeth down on the part it slips into that rotates it back and forth (i have no clue what its called) SOOO... I go inside and tell the parts guy I need to the wiper arm and the thingy it attaches to. Shaking his head in disgust at my lack of part name knowledge he asks for the last 6 of my VIN. He finds the parts I need, plus a set of new wiper blades. So I leave with my new parts and $130 out of my bank account, that will start to grow next week if I can get the flatbed I want. By then it had stopped raining. (even more luck!). I get home to my house to make the repairs. Replacing the wiper parts requires removing the housing that sits below the whole length of the windshield, and removing the bracket that attached to the coolant overflow. I complete this and and find a problem! However, the found problem is going to keep me buying new front shocks. See, when the tractor would get up to around 60mph the hood would start shaking left and right pretty bad, I thought maybe it was a shock problem because all of the hood mounts and supports next to the engine were secure. However, when I removed the coolant support bracket the driver side hood support was bolted to it as well. When the hood support came free it just flopped down. The hood support attaches to the cab firewall. The bolt that holds it to the firewall had come loose!! But you could not tell because it was hidden by the housing that sits below the windshield. Since it was attached to the coolant overflow bracket it would not shake until the high speed vibration started shaking it. SOOO.. I fixed the hood mount, replaced the wiper thing-a-ma jig, replaced the wiper arm, put the new blades on both sides, reinstalled the the housing below the windshield, reinstalled the coolant support bracket, and tested it all out. Wipers worked great and took a drive to see how the hood mount worked out. It solved the problem! no more super-shake at 60mph!

That is the first time I have had that kind of luck with a truck or any type of vehicle ,usually fixing a problem 99% of the time leads to the discovery of new problem; not the repair of a current problem!!!

 

I'm sorry one more story:

I called a dealer this morning about a flatbed he had for sale. I asked him about the tires and brakes, He told me the tires were about 50%, which was good they would last a few months, he said the brakes were at about 60%. I ask him if there was any other damage, he said no it was in great shape and he would not make me driver all the way out there (it was about 60 miles away) if he did not think it was ready to go. So I get to the dealership (I wouldn't really call it a dealership , it was basically the guys house with about 20 tractors and 5 trailers on a dirt lot on the property for sale), and the guys not there but on of his "partners" takes me to the far end of the dirt lot, and there is the flatbed, it has weeds around it that are taller than the flatbed itself. That was the first warning! I look at the back end first and there are airbags but no bags, looked like someone had cut the rubber off or something crazy! That was the second warning, I walk around the left side and the first thing you see is the storage box, and it has gang graffiti sprayed on it! that was the third warning. Warming buzzers have activated. Next I look at the tires on the left side and the rear 2 look good, maybe not 50% but close. I move forward to the front axle and both tires a bald, with some spots all the way down to steel belts!!! I go around to the other side, front axles 1 bald tire, 1 about 50% (do you see a trend here), rear axle same thing. I tell the partner that the guy told me the tires were 50%. His response was, and I am quoting him exactly "50% are good and 50% are bad." I laughed and told him tell his partner no thanks!! I could not stop laughing until I got back to my tractor, my 6 yo wanted to know why I was laughing, I told him I had just driven 60 miles for a good laugh.

 

Well Jason, now you know the only difference between a used car salesman and a used truck salesman is the size of their lot.

 

I've been mud bogging in a big truck too (the last little blurb about Smucker's).

The post is obviously the condensed version of that story. I left out the part where I dropped the trailer at Smucker's and bobtailed back to a local carwash that happened to be open in the middle of the night. I nosed it in, cleaned the front, then had to turn around and back it in to get the worst of it.

Thirty dollars worth of quarters later, the truck was somewhat clean and the carwash was completely destroyed. I'm sure the owner was real impressed to have to clean up a dump truck worth of fresh, mucky clay off the floor of the stall.

I spent another $80 at the Streakin' Beacon in Atlanta to finish off the job. LOL, I told the guy when I pulled up that I needed a truck wash, but that he might want to come out and have a look first. There were still huge chunks of clay that had been thrown off the duals and land on the roof of the truck under the airfoil.

 

LOL! I was also a little suspicious after looking at his fancy website, then doing a google map search of the location and the satellite view shows a farm house and cow pastures all around it!!!