Taking the plunge. My journey as an O/O.

Someone will likely be posting a YouTube video of me tonight.

Why? Because I put chains on for the first time today.

* In Cleveland, TN.
* On my DOT bumper.

I picked up the load and scaled on site. A bit less than 34000 on my drives with tandems fully forward. Other axles were fine.

I had 1/8 tank of fuel at the time.

No problem, right? APU allowance is 400 lbs, right?

NOT RIGHT.

My truck has no APU. No 400 lb allowance for fuel in this situation.

So. The shipper would have kittens if I returned to the site and asked for rework.

I took two sets of chains off the truck wrapped them around the DOT bumper and padlocked them in place.

Voila! @ 200 lbs shifted off my drives.

I can now legally put enough fuel in the truck to go around 150 miles without worrying about running out of fuel.

I still cannot believe I brainfarted there and thought I had the APU allowance.

And, like I said, I am certain someone recorded me 'chaining up.' If so, it will be interesting to see if they noticed me hitting the scales and figured out why I was doing it.

 

Here is a pic of my handiwork, the first time I ever threw chains on!

 

Ok, during my 34 this week, I stopped at The Freightliner service company in Kingman, AZ.

On the menu this week.

1. Adjusting the 5th wheel forward 1 notch, then storing my chains on the chain rack, rather than in front of the passenger seat. Now that I have two sets of chains out of their bags, they are a mess up front. That 5th wheel position has irritated me quite a bit over the last couple years due to light steers when there is 34k on the drive, even with the chains up front.

2. Fix the leaking marker lights. This ended up being more expensive than I expected. I told them to do a fix without simply slipping more goop around them. This meant a full set of new lights, as the gaskets are permanently glued to the marker lights. When the gasket degrades, you replace the marker light if you want a good seal. Or you spend hours and hours cleaning off old gasket, and more time making new gaskets. I do not have the patience for that. The next problem was that some Crete genius mechanic, at some point, likely when I asked them to fix the leak the first time, tried to crank down the screws to seal the leaks by simply putting more pressure on the gaskets. The mounting hardware doesnt like that approach. They stripped out every one of the marker mountings. This meant that the marker lights had to be ground off, and the screws and mounting hardware replaced as well.

3. This Freightliner dealer carries chocks. I bought a pair. Then I bought a 4 foot length of 1/4 inch chain and a couple attachment ends at a local hardware store. Now I have a personal set of chocks for adjusting trailer tandems. Total cost @40 dollars.

Total cost for everything will not be pretty. The added labor and parts to fix what Crete broke is going to add an annoying extra cost to the total.

 

I might do that the next time I start seeing leaks. No need to pay what I did for a job as simple as that.

Total bill was almost 1300. Mostly labor. Two more things off the to-do list though. 5th wheel is adjusted, and the markers should no longer be leaking into the cab and onto electronics.