Winter maintenance and preperation check list

So simple, yet so easy to overlook until that first cold night.

Several years ago I worked for a guy hauling cattle. About this time of the year I went into the mountains around Pagosa Springs, CO to get a load of calves. I'd been running a lot of cattle out of the south up until then, so no need to turn on the heater. Well, as I topped La Veta Pass on Hwy 160 during the night I could feel the chill in the cab, so I reached down and turned on the heater. It blew cold air in my face all the way down the pass. Dang thing didn't work, or so I thought. I pulled over and grabbed a sweatshirt and blanket, and when I got to Wolf Creek Pass I was bundled up like a baby in a stroller. When I finally parked in Pagosa I slept fully clothed and still shivered the whole night. I called my boss promptly in the morning and told him we needed to get the heater fixed asap, and he told me it would work just fine if I opened the valves on the heater hoses. For whatever reason he liked to close them in the summer. Had I given the heater a test run beforehand, I would've saved myself a cold, sleepless night. Lesson learned.

 

In certain temperature and high humidity situations the absolute cold flash freezes the pads to the wheel drum. You aint going anywhere today. Not maybe until springtime. You have in the worse case scenario can drag a dead trailer with wheels locked on that snow and ice to a shop bay where they can get to it with a propane cannon.

Once or twice my tractor and trailer has been absolutely locked on ice overnight and another tractor (Mine was loaded to 79500) had to drag the whole deadweight on that ice around to the shop bay where they put two cannons on it for three hours. Big torpedos putting huge amounts of heat against the undercarriage. Thaws em right out while you went and took care of breakfast.

 

A couple of rolls of shop towels, the blue expensive kind. Anytime you cross a pass with sufficient difference in weather versus the valley you will frost or fog over on that windshield on the inside. In the old days half the macks did not have anything that worked in the cab so it took so many towels to get across from say Hagerstown into the Baltimore area. You would think I would want a shop time to do a work around. But ultimately I told Port East to junk the trucks and pick up newer tractors with sleepers to combat the problems I had with trucks that were in bad shape. (They actually did for a time.)

 

I keep a propane heater and 6 extra bottles extra just to be safe. I’ve broken down in elk mountain Wyoming of all places in a blizzard. Service sucked and it got cold real quick. Now I keep things to keep me warm for sure and a bucket of canned tuna under the bunk to get me by. You just never know.

I also keep a tow strap Incase someone needs a tug. Then with that everything else that’s been mentioned above lol

 

Heated wiper blades... I use these, have for a few years and they work. Heated Wiper Blades | Everblades Windshield Wipers

They easily swap out when the snow stops flying. Once they are hard wired in it is plug and play at the windshield. The blades and the structure are heated. Best money I ever spent. Blades are hand assembled here in Michigan.

 

Great thread for a new guy like me.

 

I pulled into a truck stop in Montana couple years ago. There was water flowing through the parking lot. Went to sleep when I woke up that water froze my tires were glued to the ground with about 2 -3 inches of ice. Chipped away at it for a while then just called in and told them delivery ain't happening today.

 

it’s time for winter bedding in festive holiday colors.