Why you should idle your engine while doint a Pre or post trip inspection

This past Friday afternoon, my boss asked if I wanted to work on Sat, a quick local HHG delivery to a residence. Ok, I needed the money. So Sat. morning, I came in, checked my coolant and oil, thumped my tires, fired the truck up, let it warm for a few, hooked and booked.

When I got to my customer and checked with the resident where they wanted me to park, I had the truck idling, I noticed a slightly odd sound, not really a "knocking", but more like an occasional "whack". After I was situated and unhooked and parked my tractor out of the way, I checked it over, couldn't find anything wrong.

When I came back to the yard, I stopped at the gate, got out to enter the code, when I did, I could hear an intermittent "knock" from under the hood. Pulled in, dropped the empty out back, noticed the "knock" again. Pulled up to fuel, while I was fueling, the truck was idling, and I could still hear it intermittently. Opened the hood, looked around, didn't see anything. Just as I was flipping the hood release, something caught my eye. MY KNOCKING SOUND.

The engine fan and belt pulley were wobbling on the hub. With the engine off you can't move them, but as soon as the engine is started, you can see them wobbling, and it's just enough to allow the fan and the pulley to occasionally hit something.

Called the boss at home, he was not happy. SO now, my truck is sitting in the shop, will be a two to three day repair depending on the availability of parts from the dealer. I'll be stuck driving an underpowered older daycab in the mean time. Oh, and he just replaced these very same parts 7 months earlier.

Just something to look for when doing your inspection.

BTW, had I not caught this and it failed totally on the road, in addition to having it towed, based on this happening previously, it would have also taken out the fan, pulley, rad. tank, probably the rad., the belt and tensioner, fan shroud and also the fan wiring harness.

 

Haven't gotten it yet, long, drawn out story. The truck has been here since Sept.., spent a month at the dealer getting stuff fixed, then two months in our shop while my boss was doing stuff to it, and fighting with the dealer over poor fitting fairings and paint. Now the truck is at the body shop to get the roof and side fairings repaired, repainted, installed correctly. If I'm lucky, maybe January.

 

Yep, that's all the boss will buy. Which is fine, we all like them, truthfully, we demo'd a Pete and a KW daycab two years ago vs. a new Mack daycab, the Mack had a roomier cab, was more comfortable, quieter. One of our competitors only buys KW and Pete, their senior driver in Denver took a ride around their yard in my 5 yr old sleeper, he's trying to convince them to buy him a Mack to replace his Pete that the engine grenaded on.