Murphy's Law - Everything that could break, Did break. Truck finally road ready again, LOL

Mike

Well-Known Member
It started with me frying the alternator on my APU. Step on on virtually any automotive repair, disconnect the negative battery cable(s). yeah, not a great idea to skip that step, especially when you are cleaning battery cables......

So, I run all week without the APU. Got home Friday, attended gymnastics competition with daughter on Saturday. Sunday arrives, to the truck I go with tools and alternator in hand. Out with the old one, on with the new one. Immediately had a problem because I could not adjust it at all. Off with the new, compare to the old, and the cases are made different. Clocking it wasn't an option. So, wait until Monday, call Thermo King, and go pick up a new alternator. Get back home, install alternator, all is well.

Started truck, and I could tell that I was going to have to get batteries very soon, but planned on waiting til next week.

Tuesday morning, negotiate a load going to Lancaster, OH. A load with a broker that is minutes from my house. Load my stuff into truck, truck cranks slowly, but starts. 15 miles down the road, engine fan comes on, check engine light comes on, and temp gauge stops working. Bad words fly. Stop at fuel stop, check coolant, coolant is fine. Call broker with head down in shame, and come off of load. Get the truck back to the house, call @mndriver for a little advise as I am in full panic mode and not thinking clearly. Pretty positive the temp sensor was bad, but wanted to discuss it with someone. Freightliner had different options, so I just pulled the sensor off to take with me. Getting the sensor off was no fun at all. Half inch drive ratchet, could not budge it. Just my luck, not 1 1/16 wrench to be found anywhere. Got one, still couldn't budge it. Back on with the ratchet, wrench as a more leverage, and off comes the sensor, and out comes all the coolant. Call Fitzgerald on the way to Freightliner to get the actual part number, because Freightliner is a bunch of idiots when it comes to looking up parts, local parts stores couldn't match it up.

Install new sensor, fill with coolant. No leaks. Struggled to start though, decided to get batteries on it, needed larger ones anyway. Get the batteries on the way home, back this morning to put them on.

Out with the old batteries this morning, clean cables, clean the cables at the starter, removed the grounds from the engine to clean, and cleaned the cables at the back of the alternator. All metal shining.

Flip the switch on the APU so it would start up and get the batteries to charging up fully.

Flip the switch to turn on the fridge, and the damn thing breaks. Switch just flops back and forth, stuck in the off position, of course.

Pull the panel, pull the switch, and look at the little light switch. Looks the same, only one less prong. That prong looks to just be for the little light that comes on so you know the fridge is on. Unplug the light connector, plug in the fridge connector to that switch, and fridge now works. Call freightliner again, order new switch.

I think I am actually ready to go back to work now.
 
Nowhere to go but up! :thumbsup:

Did that help?

For no good reason there are some days when everything you touch turns to crap. I’ve had some recently as well. Had them with my truck when I was operating also.

Tomorrow might be a better day. But then again it might not.

I have a diabolical sewer story I can post later but right now it’s about you. :biggrin-2:
 
The hardest part was having to call the broker back and give the load back. Really sucked. Especially after working them so hard to get the rate I wanted.
 
Yeah I hear ya. The worst part for me would be wondering if they’re thinking I got a better rate and dumped their load. Happens all the time and while I wouldn’t do it, a lot do and it’s easy for the broker to think that.
 
Yeah I hear ya. The worst part for me would be wondering if they’re thinking I got a better rate and dumped their load. Happens all the time and while I wouldn’t do it, a lot do and it’s easy for the broker to think that.

Yeah, likely not going to call them for a couple weeks or so, maybe even longer, until they have had time to let this go. The guy wasn't happy, couldn't blame him, but he knew there was nothing I could do about it.
 
How did you do in the gymnastics

How did you do? first place, second place?:p
:hide:

I scored 3 doughnuts and a Sprite.

Daughter scored 9's on three events, and an 8 on the beam. Beam would have been well into the 9's, but it was her first event of the morning and she fell off once. No actual placing, as this was a fun halloween event, and more of a tune up for the rest of the meets coming over the next few months.
 
It started with me frying the alternator on my APU. Step on on virtually any automotive repair, disconnect the negative battery cable(s). yeah, not a great idea to skip that step, especially when you are cleaning battery cables......

So, I run all week without the APU. Got home Friday, attended gymnastics competition with daughter on Saturday. Sunday arrives, to the truck I go with tools and alternator in hand. Out with the old one, on with the new one. Immediately had a problem because I could not adjust it at all. Off with the new, compare to the old, and the cases are made different. Clocking it wasn't an option. So, wait until Monday, call Thermo King, and go pick up a new alternator. Get back home, install alternator, all is well.

Started truck, and I could tell that I was going to have to get batteries very soon, but planned on waiting til next week.

Tuesday morning, negotiate a load going to Lancaster, OH. A load with a broker that is minutes from my house. Load my stuff into truck, truck cranks slowly, but starts. 15 miles down the road, engine fan comes on, check engine light comes on, and temp gauge stops working. Bad words fly. Stop at fuel stop, check coolant, coolant is fine. Call broker with head down in shame, and come off of load. Get the truck back to the house, call @mndriver for a little advise as I am in full panic mode and not thinking clearly. Pretty positive the temp sensor was bad, but wanted to discuss it with someone. Freightliner had different options, so I just pulled the sensor off to take with me. Getting the sensor off was no fun at all. Half inch drive ratchet, could not budge it. Just my luck, not 1 1/16 wrench to be found anywhere. Got one, still couldn't budge it. Back on with the ratchet, wrench as a more leverage, and off comes the sensor, and out comes all the coolant. Call Fitzgerald on the way to Freightliner to get the actual part number, because Freightliner is a bunch of idiots when it comes to looking up parts, local parts stores couldn't match it up.

Install new sensor, fill with coolant. No leaks. Struggled to start though, decided to get batteries on it, needed larger ones anyway. Get the batteries on the way home, back this morning to put them on.

Out with the old batteries this morning, clean cables, clean the cables at the starter, removed the grounds from the engine to clean, and cleaned the cables at the back of the alternator. All metal shining.

Flip the switch on the APU so it would start up and get the batteries to charging up fully.

Flip the switch to turn on the fridge, and the damn thing breaks. Switch just flops back and forth, stuck in the off position, of course.

Pull the panel, pull the switch, and look at the little light switch. Looks the same, only one less prong. That prong looks to just be for the little light that comes on so you know the fridge is on. Unplug the light connector, plug in the fridge connector to that switch, and fridge now works. Call freightliner again, order new switch.

I think I am actually ready to go back to work now.
Nuttin' from nuttin' but didn't you say you needed new batteries like a month ago?
 
Nuttin' from nuttin' but didn't you say you needed new batteries like a month ago?

I was wanting to replace them, but wanted to clean the connections first and see if the batteries started building up to a full charge again first. One battery was suspect, but I was going to upgrade all of them from 725cca to 925cca when I had to replace.
 
I was wanting to replace them, but wanted to clean the connections first and see if the batteries started building up to a full charge again first. One battery was suspect, but I was going to upgrade all of them from 725cca to 925cca when I had to replace.
So the moral of the story is to do today what you could wait and do tomorrow.

Glad you got it fixed.
 

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