Why do trucks fail on an uphill climb?

This.

 

My old boss had a waiting list, but I imagine some people could have good references and road test well but haven’t had experience with 105k in the mountains.

 

We had a waiting list of drivers for a long time. It's getting whittled down pretty good and I don't know how much longer we can find drivers we can trust.. We've always required five years of experience with an emphasis on mountain driving, off road driving, and running on snow and ice.
We skipped that five year requirement a little the last two years for hiring water truck drivers for wildfire work and 10 wheel dump drivers for our road construction. All the old guys, retirees most of them, are getting to where they don't want to come out and work part time during fire season. I don't blame them. When you get up into your 80s you've usually had all the fun you want and it's time to relax.
We found some pretty good seasonal drivers and we might hold a couple of them over and train them on loggers and whatever else we can find.
We sold off the fuel tankers last year and one of the reasons was we couldn't find anybody who could take them where they needed to go and not tear anything up. One of our fuel customers bought them and he's already screaming about not being able to find drivers and what his insurance is costing. Those trucks made good money every year but every year there was a little less of it. The guys that drove the tankers for us all retired. We kept one 10 wheel pumper for our own use.
We still have the rgns, the loggers, the water trucks, and the road building equipment. We're still doing alright money wise but I can see the days ahead when we won't.
I've had about all the fun I can stand anyway.

 

Heat is the cause for failure on just about anything on a truck. I've seen guys with old trucks do things like pop their hoods up about 6" to just get a bit more cooling under the hood when climbing.

 

The automated manual transmissions that I have driven(Detroit DT-12,Volvo I-Shift) DO have splitters!
3 speed main box + Range change + Splitter = 12 speeds.
Gears are closer together than a POS 10 speed!
JD

 

Tiger ain’t much of a grade compared to others— rescued a FLD Classic with a Mercedes Benz power plant in North Bend and took it to Kent then to Portland and then back to Twin singing that Janice Joplin song the whole way— Lord don’t buy me a Mercedes Benz, my friends all have Cats I must make amends worked hard all my life… Tiger ain’t much of a grade

 

You talking to a guy that Is absolutely has ZERO use for a Mercedes motor
Never owned 1 never really worked on 1 .. drove 1 ONCE .. it was the most gutless sorry POS I EVER drove..I'am pretty sure the 238 detroit I learned to drive on had more nutts than that boat anchor.. I had to blindfold it if there was any sort on incline infront of it

 

Definitely makes for long couple days— even had a Polaris 335 Colt snow machine pass me up by Mecham — wouldn’t never do it again less’n I was starve’n to death and that was all there was

 

I can only Imagine what that trip was like
I'am quite sure a team of Shetland ponies would out pull a Mercedes motor