Quack 20


Going to pick up crashed "super cab" Pete 386 (whatever that means, .. I'll see when I get to it), then go 27 miles east to where the trailer's at, then get some crap to haul out to the Idiots Out Wandering Around state.
 
Going to pick up crashed "super cab" Pete 386 (whatever that means, .. I'll see when I get to it), then go 27 miles east to where the trailer's at, then get some crap to haul out to the Idiots Out Wandering Around state.
this thread should have been called ducks adventures
 
I'll post pix tomorrow. Right now I'm starting an 8/2 split so I don't have much time.

19 miles from the little truck stop I was racing the e-log to reach, middle of nowhere, rural Iowa, 2-lane road, 4AM. Minus 8 degrees, ... fucking "STOP ENGINE" light on the dash & "bing-bing-bing-bing". Nowhere to pull over. Shoulders are all snow/ice.

I stepped on the clutch, shut the key off, waited for the dash lights to go out, started it back up, same ****. Repeat twice, same crap.

Well it's probably something with the global warming filter, ... so I hammered down. Noticed it was derated but still had more balls than the trucks with SCR. (This one only has the DPF cuz it's an '09. At a stop sign I got the "exhaust temp" light on until I started moving again so ... yeah. It's emissions. Hammer down. Only 17 more miles to go. Still derated but I was able to eventually get it up to it's max speed of 68 & hold it there til I got to this little truck stop.

Noticed the oil pressure was about 10 psi at idle, 20 psi at 850 RPM "fast idle". WTF? I pre-tripped the living hell out of this thing when I picked it up this afternoon. Oil was a ****-hair under the full mark.

So I shut 'er off. There was only about 1/8" of oil on the end of the dipstick after sitting about 5 minutes.

Because of the structural crap holding the radiator in place, I can't get the gallon jug of oil anywhere near the filler. No funnel in the truck. No funnels in the truck stop, not even disposable paper ones. WTF?

Well the guy who crashed this truck left two partially used quarts of automatic transmission fluid in the side box. No idea what he was using ATF for in a big truck but... Anyway I was able to fit the contents of the lighter quart in the other one & cut the bottom off it & used it as a funnel. I put in one gallon cuz that's all I had. We have a fuel account here so I can buy more oil inside with my TCH card but I checked it after adding ONE gallon & it's right at the full mark again.

Fired it up, 15 psi at idle, 25 psi at fast idle. No warning lights. In fact the screen says "DIAGNOSTICS - NO FAULTS FOUND".

So in 546 miles this truck pushed out a gallon of oil, ... which was enough to have crap oil pressure, derate the engine & trigger a warning light? Something aint' right.

But I'm gonna idle this thing for 8 hours because it's -8 degrees & these batteries were boat anchors this afternoon when I picked it up at the Peterbilt dealer. Interior lights wouldn't even come on. They had to jump it. Ammeter was showing about +75 amps for about 30 minutes, then gradually went down to about 40 amps for about 4 hours, now it's showing about +5 amps. They're charged but I ain't gonna trust 'em in the cold. No jumper cables to use the reefer as a battery maintainer either.

Cummins ISX, 580,000 miles. One of four O/O spec Pete 386's. This is actually a nice truck. I like it, ... would like it better if they finished the accident repairs though. There's no reason it should be blowing out a gallon of oil in 546 miles though.
 
Shop is doing a regular service, inspection & some temporary redneck repairs to that Pete & then I'm gonna run it to Chicago & back. It's likely the last decent truck of theirs I'll ever drive since it's one of 3 remaining trucks that don't have the SCR/DEF systems.

It's loud, has some rattles, needs an alignment (not too bad but needs it) & looks like hell, ... but it's the 2nd best truck in the fleet because it GOES when you put the hammer down.

They put a new deer bumper on it & fixed the hood so it won't fall off. That Peterbilt dealer's definition of "roadworthy" and "legal" are not the same as this company's definition. There's a REASON I took the back-roads the whole way. :D
 
Here da truck when I picked it up in IN the other day.

0206141533.webp

I tore this crap off cuz it was hanging loose:

0206141534b.webp

Them numbskulls didn't even tie that coolant overflow down with anything. I shoved it in the side box.

0206141541.webp

I didn't know I could've just thrown this broken fiberglass crap in a dumpster. I was tripping over it in the cab cuz I thought they wanted all the "evidence" in Sheldon.

0206141554.webp

After getting a jump start (totally dead batteries) I had to go 30 miles further east to get the trailer.

0206141637a.webp

It took a plastic shovel & a 50 lb bag of sand under the king pin to hook up to it. I didn't even bother shoveling snow away from the trailer tires. I figured if they were frozen I'd drag it out into the plowed area before punishing them with the Sledge-O-Matic. But they weren't frozen. I aired it up, waited about 5 minutes, pulled the Johnny bar down for about 30 seconds, then backed up a few inches. Pulled out, turned to the left so I could see the wheels turning in the mirror, turned to the right, saw that the right wheels were turning, good to go. I felt like an ass hole when I got on the turnpike cuz I had about 3 blizzards worth of snow on top.
 
How long had the truck been sitting? I'm tellin ya, letting a truck sit has lots of parasitic crap draining the batteries. I've looked at this at great length. Have you ever been at a fuel island and another truck pulls up, shuts his engine off and the TriPac starts up immediately? It's not for heat, it's for the batteries.
 
I think it had only been sitting maybe 2 days. I was supposed to pick it up Tuesday but there was 4-6" snow in the forecast & I told em if it had any alignment issues I was gonna refuse to drive it on slick roads, especially if it was a Volvo. Those things wander around the lane so bad when they're new, ... plus I aint used to an automatic.

When I got in the truck it was totally dead. Interior lights wouldn't even come on. Not even a click of a relay when I hit the city horn. They rolled out this thing on wheels that must've been like 4000 amp or something cuz 10 seconds after e hooked it up he said to try it. It had to crank for a bit but it was cranking fast. After he disconnected it, the ammeter in the dash was showing +75 amps at 850 RPM. It stayed like that for about 3 hours then slowly tapered off to about +5.

I put 600 miles on it & left it overnight in the heated shop. They put a new deer catapult on the front & fixed the hood latch & cables so it won't fall off again, and then I drove it another 20 miles to Minneapolis yesterday & arrived at receiver 14 hours early. I sat here with engine off, running the fridge, Espar heater (which works good on this truck) and my laptop via 800w inverter. After about 40 min the low voltage alarm went off so the truck's been idling ever since. No APU & I don't have jumper cables to mooch some power from the reefer unit.
 
The damage has already been done. It may show it's fully charged but won't have any staying power. I've found that it's always 1 battery that takes a bullet for the team first. After that the others are trying to charge it up also. I carry around a battery load tester and swap out the bad one.
 
Yeah before I left the yard yesterday I asked one of the mechanics for a spare key to this truck because it has battery issues. He was being kind of a prick. He said "Why didn't you write it up yesterday when you got here?" I was tempted to say "I did, .. go look in the ****ing tray in the office where we turn in the write-ups" but instead I said "because I'm a dumbass steering wheel holder & I'm stupid & don't know any better & I'm a moron & go f*** yourself".

(I've had problems with that mechanic for almost 10 years, ... he's got permanent PMS. I think that bug-eyed crabass just hates the world cuz he looks like an English bulldog.)
 
Oh geez....

Just got "empty" at my first stop. Stop 2 aint' til tomorrow.

Shipper is Tyson. They didn't put a seal number on the BOL for stop 2, nor did they give me one. That happens sometimes, .. it's why we carry our own seals.

But the moron who picked this load up in Dakota City wrote the same seal number on the bills for both stops. It's got stop 1's seal number written on the BOL for stop 2. WTF. :bonk:

Now I gotta pull into a truck stop & call Tyson & say I lost the BOL for stop 2 so they can fax me their copy that doesn't have a seal number on it. I don't have my scanner/printer in the truck or I'd just make a copy myself & fix that seal number with Photoshop.

The rest of this truckload goes to Tokyo, Japan, BTW.

Yesterday when I got in the truck I noticed that the physical address for "ship to" says Tokyo, Japan. I sent a Qualcomm message asking if Tyson will reimburse for the ferry boat but some moron at the yard replied & said the receiver I'm taking it to will transload it into a refrigerated shipping container & put it on a ship going to Japan. I was tempted to reply with "Um.. yeah. I already knew that dumbass, .. go drink some coffee". But I didn't.
 
After about 40 min the low voltage alarm went off so the truck's been idling ever since. No APU & I don't have jumper cables to mooch some power from the reefer unit.

The damage has already been done. It may show it's fully charged but won't have any staying power. I've found that it's always 1 battery that takes a bullet for the team first. After that the others are trying to charge it up also. I carry around a battery load tester and swap out the bad one.

Yeah, you expose a dead battery to freezing temps and it's normally toast.
 
Yeah, you expose a dead battery to freezing temps and it's normally toast.
I'm inside the TA gettin' breakfast. I went ahead & shut it off. It'll be fine for 45 min. or so. I just can't trust 'em to last overnight. Yeah, batteries are junk, or at least one or two of them.
 
Are you allowed to idle all night?
Not really. But they're not ass holes about it. When we have battery issues or if the Espar isn't working they let us idle. If it's below 15 or so they want us to hook up jumper cables from the reefer unit to keep the batteries up, or if it's below -5 or -10 or so they say to leave 'em running. That fleet seems to average one set of batteries per year per truck because we use them as deep cycles in order to comply with their idling policies. I rarely ever hook up jumper cables unless I'm gonna be stuck somewhere for more than 10 hours.
 
That alternator on the refer can't be that big? It's only charging 1 battery? That was a question.
Reefer alternator is basically a car alternator. 35-40 amps or so. It takes 15 amps just to run the reefer unit.

You'll toast a reefer unit's alternator trying to jump-start a truck or charge it's dead batteries but they'll work ok as a maintainer if they're "charged" when you shut the truck off & don't try running a big monster inverter with microwave or something.
 

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