The ramblings of a rookie

I grew up outside of Boston. My Dad took a job in Milwaukee so our family moved from MA to WI a week before I started my senior year is high school. After graduating high school I came back to my home town and got a summer job. Fast forward to the following September (1969). Flying back to WI to start school at the U of Wisconsin I sat behind two fellows, one saying to the other as we flew over the Hudson River "I have a law degree from Harvard and this is the furthest West I have been my whole life."

In 1993 I visited my home town again and went to the next door neighbors. There were 9 kids in their family, 8 who lived within 10 miles of their childhood home.

I guess some people travel and others don't. I was lucky that my parents liked to travel. Maine and New England are beautiful parts of the country, but I am sure you will not regret "getting out of the NE".

 

In the '80's I was in a rental car trying to get from New Hampshire to the Logan airport in Boston. I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions, because you can always get directions from a gas station attendant, right?

I was less than 50 miles from Boston. NOBODY knew how to get to Boston! In all my travels I can say that those that hail from the Northeast are the least traveled folks in the world.

 

You can expect a lot of the most boring driving you'll ever do out west, it does in fact suck.
The northeast on the other hand is incredible. Gorgeous architecture , you get to see all the seasons and beautiful landscape it's got it all. Not to mention very historical.
I live out west and hate driving my truck out there. I spent the first 12yrs driving for the most part nothing but the west coast ( 11 western) it sucked then and I hate it more now lol.
As far as I'm concerned you ain't missing anything friend.

 

Wow great story. That's awesome you got such a nice truck right out of the gate.

Just a word of advice. Be careful with all that horsepower.

I think it was Spider-Man that said with great horsepower you need great responsibility...

 

Oh buddy... Yeah, about that "nice truck"...

So, truck just got cleared for service after a massive coolant loss issue. Myself and the boss suspected head gasket, shop said just a leaking hose. Replaced the hose, sent it out for a 100 mile run and said "it's fixed, run it"

Here begins my day
3am I roll into the yard, do my pretrip and start the truck. Leave it to warm uo while i run and grab a coffee. Throw all my stuff in the truck, move it about 6 feet, there goes my coffee. All 24 ounces flipped directly out of the cupholder and became one with my nice(ish) black carpet. Great start to the day.

Get rolling, and we get freezing rain. Its 31 degrees and everything is glare ice. No big deal, Im a mainer, i can handle it. Just sucks to get slowed down like that.

Start to notice the truck appears to be losing power. Odd...

Make it to the Kittery, ME Irving truck stop about 220 miles from home, top off my fuel tanks so I dont need to fool around finding fuel in Rhode Island. Figure since the truck is acting up a quick checkover is in order now that the sun is coming up. Check the coolant and WHADDAYA KNOW?! 2 gallons low.

Call the office, give them a heads up its still using coolant and seems to be losing power. "Keep an eye on it and run it" ok 10 4 boss. So i roll out. Stop engine light starts to rear its ugly head any time the truck is below 1000 rpm. Oh well. Boss says run in.

I Run it to my 1st stop in RI, get my first heavy rain and wind untarping experience, which went better than expected. Check coolant there, add 2 more gallons of water (no cash and the truck stop said my company card cant be used for coolant... Supposedly it foxed now) everything else seems good. But it hasnt even been 150 miles since i filled last. I assume my low coolant causes the light, so I roll on to the other side of RI to load.

Get loaded, with the truck still shining its ugly red light of death. Made it about 10 miles up 95, and I have no throttle. Light is staying on. Not good. I pull over, call the boss again (hes on vacation in Florida. Loving me about now) and explain whats up. I checked all the fluids and did a visual under the hood. ALL APPEARS GOOD, coolant is full. We agree the best thing is to try to roll on to someplace safer to sit.

Start the truck, light is still on (duh) but i have some throttle. Apparently it derated to 1300 rpm because that was all it had, with very little power behind it. So i move along. Light is on and off as I go, back and forth between 1300 rpm and full range, but no power.

Made it all the way from Providence, RI back to Kittery, ME running at about 45 in a torrential downpour, and here i sit for the night. Awaiting a rescuer with my daycab from last week so i can deliver my load. I didnt even burn enough fuel for the free shower...

I love this truck. It is the truck I wanted from my first day here. But right now, Id be ok with it being set afire. This is my 2nd trip with it and my 2nd major mechanical difficulty with it.

At least theres another day with no load damage and no accidents. Life could be much worse.

How is everybody else doing today? Hopefully better than I am!

 

Good lord dude. Well. I and probably every other driver on here as had total crap days like that. It sucks when it happens man so I feel for you. If you can sliver out ANY good from it tho, at least it didn’t happen on a Friday, or a day you were trying to get back to a family event, or start a vacation. And hopefully you used up all the bad luck for the week and the next 4 days’ll be smooth sailing. I’m rooting for ya.

 

All is good here , (western Ohio) just ate a turkey samich and going to watch a couple shows on the ol interweb call it a day.

 

If it werent for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. Thats what my wife likes to tell me lol.
I try to keep pretty positive. I could still be on the side of 95 in providence. Instead im getting ready to take a hot shower

But because i like to gripe... I paid 10 dollars for this and the dude didnt even make sure the toilet was flushed lol

 

I stepped on a sand spur earlier.

It hurt.

Sorry about your truck, but look, I had something bad happen to! See sand spur story above.

Good luck. Lesson learned here? Don't go to the NE and get a big ### coffee JUG so as make spills much less likely.

Sirscrapntruckalot - Nobody gets justice. People only get good luck or bad luck. - Orson Welles

 

The "Old Guy" used to tell me. "Cheer up! It'll get worse."