Welp, I broke down and gave it my best shot last week.. O/OP rant

I don’t need my account name or VIN at my local dealer, 1 of 2 guys see me calling and just know, it’s the stupid #### that will drive you mad too

slept like a baby in the yard Friday night. Back in and toss my load on, 27 boards, simple, stop for breakfast on the way out, all good.
Getting off 78 on to 287 hit the Jake and the switch breaks off, $63.xx and I’ll leave it behind the bush in the parking lot for you, perfect something to do at my second drop Monday morning

Starting off though you have the benefit of not worrying about a payment if you have no work, now with 52 weeks of work? Nothing worse then blowing a day off because you have to fix something

 

Nice, I went with the M920's. Bit pricier and wear out a bit quicker, but they're great in the snow and the mud.

I dont think I'd try to run an old truck OTR again unless I had done a full frame off restoration on it. I just run a 500 mile radius hauling groceries and come straight home every trip so anything that needs to be fixed only needs to get limped a day before I'm back home to fix it. I've broken that cruise control switch multiple times as well lol.

It's been a rough year to run an old rig. Oil cooler blew out 300 miles from home and cost 4k to get towed home and my 3 year old rebuilt rear differential blew up. Had to pull the drive shaft, lock the power divider in to limp it home. Bunch of other small issues mostly with the air system and mystery air leaks I still haven't figured out as well.

Everytime I search for my truck problems I find someone having the same issue on a less than 5 year old truck too so I figure there's just no getting away from truck problems. Better to have cheaper old truck problems than more expensive new truck problems and a payment.

 

$4,000? There wasn’t a service center nearby that could get you back up and running? I’ve been lucky twice and been able to limp it to a nearby Kenworth shop. All the other stuff has been elective “fix and update” repairs where I swing by on the way out or back in on a load. There’s been a couple unplanned hotel vacations though after an “oh crap” occurrence.

 

I didn’t even know 24.5” was still a common thing. Almost everything I see is some 22.5” variant . Those are probably more expensive and harder to find if you need one

 

I run 11-24.5

 

Me too.

 

my stuff is out and back, I’ve never done true OTR, I’m home within 9 days of leaving

I’ve been having some serious back issues that are probably going to be a deciding factor whether I add a couple more pre emissions truck or just buy myself a new one and prep as much as possible for early retirement when I can’t physically do it any more

air check valves drove me nuts last spring, had like $1200 just in valves and fittings

 

The 60 Detroit is electronic but it’s a good engine

you gotta be a decent mechanic if you want to be a OO

you can’t be paying a stealership $4k to repair something and lose three or four days revenue for something that costs $300 in parts

back when I was driving I made good money with my truck leased to a local/ regional carrier

if you’re thinking you’re gonna buy a truck and use load boards to find your loads , yoire never going to make any money

you need to either find your own direct customers or lease on to a carrier that has their own direct customers .

I did regional pulling the carriers trailers .
I think that’s called “power only “now ?

At that time nice cabovers were just about free so that’s what I mostly ran .
IH 9700s with the set back axle , high roof and double bunk .

I was gone two or three nights a week , and took care of the little repairs myself and had a trusted independent shop that did the big stuff .

 

Noted

 

At the time I didn't know it was an oil cooler. It was overheating and my coolant reservoir was full of sludge so I thought it might have been a cracked head or blown head gasket which I didn't want some random shop doing. If I had known it was just an oil cooler I wouldn't have gotten it towed home.