The jouney of a nut, and why you should carry tools.

Experienced truckers advice.

To answer the thread. Sorry not doing all of that.

 

I wasn't going to say it but......yeah!

 

I always encourage our drivers to carry some basic tools, but also to know their limits. If someone can change a trailer air line themselves and allow us to continue on what we're doing, great. But I've seen some pretty "custom" work come through our shop, as well... particularly when it comes to wiring.
Tools are a lot like guns... handy in a pinch, but useless if you don't have the know-how regarding when and how to use them.

 

One I was making my 2nd trip on a new 1980 Western Star. In New Mexico west of El Paso when I pulled off the scales my accelerator pedal when to the floor. Thankfully on that surface I was able to let out on my clutch while in 1st gear & idle off the scales & pull over to the side & get out of the path of the scales.

I raise my hood & sure enough the throttle rod was hanging down. As soon as I saw that I was thinking, "OH NO! This is not good! I will be here for a long while!"

Yet fortunately the pieces that fell off landed on the bottom side of the frame rail & were still there. So I got my tool box from under my sleeper & put it all back together them went on my happy way.

I figure there would have been some truck drivers, perhaps many, who would have been calling out a mechanic to fix their boss man's truck.

 

Yeah, stuff like that, I think any competent driver should know how and what to do. The big concern for any company which runs newer equipment still under warranty is going to be voiding that warranty.. thing of that is, if it fails 20 times over, then whoever pays the bills ends up eating that cost 20 times over. Obviously, things like clamping down a cable on a battery terminal won't void it, but with the propensity of these truck manufacturers to multiplex systems, DIYing or jury rigging it will come back to bite someone in the hindquarters. One good case in point being power windows... some genius figured, "hey... these things just require a power source, switch, relay, and window motor... but I can computerize it! And, since I can do something, it means I should, right?". So they do that, then it fails, and you get a driver who figures, "hell with it, I'll bypass the whole thing and wire my own switch straight to the window motor", well, the warranty becomes void at that point, so when the window motor burns out because that switch was wired direct and not through a relay, what should have been a warranty matter no longer is.
So, one needs to be careful about stuff like that. But, on the flip side of that coin, I remember going to the Bosselman service center at the Love's in Sioux Falls, trying to buy a mudflap for a stepdeck trailer (they had none, but were willing to drill holes on the other side of the existing one so I could mount it), and talking to a driver for a large fleet who will go unnamed here, finding out he'd been waiting almost five hours to get a couple lights replaced... that just shouldn't happen.