Running produce to Alaska

I wanted to stop for a voluntary, but I am always worried that I get a guy or gal that is determined to find something to write me up. I better wait for the Yukon to thaw a bit more and ask for one there.

 

This here makes me laugh every time I see it. Our tax dollars at work.

 

I was working on my trailer and fixing lights and wiring issues and people thought I had a yard sale.




Heat shrink connectors and heat shrink are you friends when you run North. Every cheap splice and repair falls apart and costs twice as much. I do carry lots of parts and tools. Just spent a couple hundred dollars on a kit full of air fittings at NAPA and added all my loose ones in there as well.

 

I got back from my latest trip that was probably the worst trip I have ever had. It started out with paperwork issues that really turned into a pain when my phone and computer decided not to get along anymore. No internet access and no way to get to my e-fax service. After resubmitting everything and hours of delay I get across the border. I always hate to start out and being behind. I made it to my first stop to spent what was left of the night and went after it hard on the second day. I got caught up and started to feel better until the wheels came off. In a figural and literal way. I came of Steamboat in Northern BC and had a set of duals come loose on the trailer. Everything had looked good at the brake check and 20 min later all went down hill. When I saw the loose wheels in the mirror I stopped and found only four of ten studs were left. Unfortunately I was stuck in the worst possible place. I limped it down the road for a couple miles to a pullout. I did ruin two rims, the hub, brake shoes and the s-cam in the process, but still better than being rear ended on a windy stretch of road due to sitting in a bad place.

Obviously, there is no cell phone service and the next pay phone is about 50 miles down the road. It is time to put my mechanics hat on and get stuff figured out. I dumped the suspension and wrapped my chain around the axle and frame and chained the right rear corner up. I cut up a fallen aspen tree to get to 5' length of tree trunk to pull the trailer onto and lift the rear wheels of the ground. I do carry a grinder and cutting wheels which I was able to use to cut the last for studs or lug nuts. After sliding the fifth wheel all the way back I could load all the extra pieces on the cat walk on the truck. Now I am good to go for about 250mls to get to Watson Lake, YT where the first shop is.

I limped in to Watson Lake and was greeted by Kevin who came running out of the scale house. He would not let me go to the shop 1/2 mile down the road and would not sell me my permits for the Yukon until the trailer was fixed. I would have not tried to get across any other scale like that for sure. I pulled the hub in the morning and took all parts to the shop to be matched up. $1500.00 later the trailer was fixed and I was able to continue to their shop since they did not index the wheels and they had to remove the outside wheel again and turn it so I could actually check the air pressure on the inside dual. That is actually an out off service violation.


After getting that fixed I had no confidence in dumb and dumbers repair job. After pointing out installing wheel bearings without pre lube I had been told to sit in my Effing truck. I made it up the road for about ten miles and was trailing a cloud of smoke. Wheel seal is leaking and the new brake shoes are ruined. After a couple more hours on the side of the road they fixed it again and I was off. I stopped about 30mls down the road to check and found oil running out of the brake drum once again. I gave up on them and backed the brakes off and went to Whitehorse to get it fixed there. I stopped every 30min to fill up the hub with oil. After pulling into the shop in Whitehorse I found another set of wheels that were coming loose due to broken studs.

We ended up cross docking the load in Whitehorse on one of our other trucks to get the load to Alaska. With no parts available to fix the trailer right I ended up bob tailing to Anchorage to get parts and another load South.

My South bound load was dropped by one of my lovely co-workers with two bald trailer tires, mud flap missing and bent bracket and a light out. I had to take care of that first before I could head South. I straightened out the bracket and headed to tire shop to get tires replaced and buy a mud flap and light two doors down to fix that while they were fixing the tires. Now I am so far behind that I have to spent the night in Whitehorse to drop parts off the next morning for my other trailer.

It was brake inspection day in the Yukon and I got a level 4 inspection which I passed, but put me even further behind. Now it is hurry up and go to Burnaby to get rid off the fish load. By the time I get to Watson Lake I get a text that my delivery time has been moved up 12 hrs and it really makes it a tough run now. At this point what else could go wrong and I was hoping I got rid of Murphy, but no such luck. While running through Frazer canyon I hear a rattle behind the cab and I pull into the first pullout to investigate. I found my catwalk had come loose and slipped inside the frame rails and resting on the airlines and valves. To put the icing on the cake I ended up bending it when I pulled into the pullout since the trailer caught it. After taking that off and leaving it by the trash cans I made it South to Burnaby about 20 mins late.

I am glad to be home and to have a couple days off. I did buy myself a 3/4" drive torque wrench and I will be checking lug nuts since I had three different sets of wheels come loose in the last six month. I have a list of tools to add to my truck so I wont be needing any shops along the road to fix stuff for me. I will be buying parts and doing it myself.

When I was in Anchorage I got to feel the 4.7 magnitude earthquake they had last Sunday as well. Does anybody have any Murphy repellant since the Off spray does not work on him.

 

That is funny that you mention that. He had actually told me that he was glad that it was me and to please not take that the wrong way. He came out to the truck after I got back to the yard. He said he was getting worried after seeing me back in and not coming into the office. He is going out of his way to make it right and he seems sincere about it. I am sure looking forward to pull one of our brand new trailers, but the way my luck goes I will hook the gate on the way out of the yard and put some nice racing stripes down the side.