Bollweevil

I have been there, and done that. Without seeing his face, you can't really tell if he is holding his head to try to keep it from swelling, or just an aw sh** look.

Anyone can fly a dangum airplane, they don't bend in the middle, fly backward, or fall on their face every time the see a hill. Can you imagine how much easier one of those construction site deliveries would be with a Peterbilt with wings. Just buzz over once to wake everybody up, then fly back over and hit the dump valve. No more backing a mile and a half, blind siding 90 degrees over a 12 foot wide bridge. Rt 50 would be so easy you might consider paying the shipper to haul his freight. Adding an endorsement to your license shouldn't be a problem, you've already passed the physical, and you don't have to be any crazier to be a pilot. Easy as pie, maybe we should open a school?

That is a good observation. For all of the strutting, posturing, and braggadocio. it appears that many people are not willing to call a turkey a turkey. It doesn't matter what color it's feathers are, if it looks like a turkey, walks like a turkey, and gobbles like a turkey, it's probably a turkey. I like turkey, but I would never have one over for dinner without first holding it's feet to the fire.

Procrastinating is a serious charge, I can see why you would wait until the last moment to post this.

No Paul I don't. I sold the last of my big rigs in 95, pulled a flat for a local Co. in Blairsville Ga. for about 8 months, then bought a 359 Pete from a company here in Blueridge. I gave too much for the truck, because it had a job to go with it. Pulled an end dump for about 4 years, at the same time rebuilding the truck from stem to stern. Dump trucking was pretty strong here at that time so I bought a T-800 heavy spec tractor and built a tandem dump. I spent $42,000 building it, ran it 6 years and sold it for $36,000. I wasn't going to do much at all, then I saw a 1973 RS700L on TruckPaper.com. I couldn't stand not having it, so I bought it over the phone. That's a story in it's self if anybody's interested.

Actually Tom, you didn't miss it by much. At the time. I was short a driver and I had talked a friend with very little over the road experience into making the trip. We were both loaded with frozen chicken, for Safeway in LA. After unloading I sent him back to Banning to wait, and went to Salinas, loaded a straight load of lettuce for Alpharetta Ga. I got to Banning about midnight, woke him up, swapped trailers, sent him on his way, and went back toward Bakersfield to pick up a mixed load with several pickups. The odds at the time were that I would beat him back to Alpharetta. It didn't happen though. I had too many pickups, and he was in a hurry to get home. He also had his wife with him, which hampered his ability to trash around.

Coachella, CA circa 1993 During the busy part of the soft fruit season I ended up with both trucks in Los Angeles. These pictures were taken at Rip Griffins truck stop in Coachella.

Don't pay the ransom honey, I've escaped.

You may have two issues caused by the same faulty part. I don't know about a single disc pump, I have never seen one much less had one apart. But I know from experience that a Cummins AFC or PT type pump is capable of delivering 5 gallons of diesel into the oil sump in 5 miles. If you can make the engine run, you can find which cylinder is not fireing with an infrared heat gun. If it is a timed injection like a Mack, crack one line at a time. Kind of like pulling one spark plug wire at a time. You may not be getting fuel to the top on all of the cylinders. Try to post a picture of the pump. Personally, I would not start swapping parts around. Find the offending cylinders first then find out why.

Therapy, I could use some therapy about now, I don't know if it should involve a hammer though. It takes a lot of patience and practice to be able to straighten a body panel with a hammer and dolly. Otherwise whatever you happen to be working on could look like you had added a couple of syrup buckets to the repair. As a young man, I worked at a Buick dealership in Atlanta. I still remember my body repairman friend laughing and shaking his head over a Buick Lesabre that had been hit in the left rear quarter panel. The owner had climbed into the trunk with a claw hammer to work the dent out, and when he had finished it looked like a tow sack full of walnuts. I've already fixed the worse part, he had said before leaving it to be repaired. I am also reminded of something an older fellow once told me. Don't never hit no Harley Davidson with no hammer. Now things are all turned around, and I am the older fellow. Dammit boy, how did this happen?

Shucks, you were right in my neck of the woods. I was born in Alpharetta. It has grown. and changed so much that is getting more difficult to get around. Forty years ago, Alpharetta had an all volunteer fire department. When the fire siren went off everyone cleared the sidewalk as well as the streets. Since the first one that got to the fire station got to drive the fire truck, it could be pretty exciting.

Normally, the overhead adjustment will change over time due to wear. Changes over night are not usually considered normal. Especially a change like this. If you have white smoke, you have compression. You can isolate the weak, or dead cylinder with an infrared heat gun. If you don't have one available, after running the engine for a short time, feel of the cyl. heads at the exhaust ports. try to find a cold one. Many times a slobbering cylinder will leak out of the offending exhaust port and run down the block. If you still haven't found it pull the manifold off the engine and start it up. The bad cylinder will look like a volcano. How ever you isolate the dead cylinder, find it first before touching the overhead. Your engine should set by the outer base circle method as the later STC engines. After years of NTC's with Top Stop injectors, we are doing it the old way again. Once you have the bad cylinder at TDC on it's compression stroke, and you can't see something loose, bent, or broken. Then pull the injector. my guess is that the tip is gone off of it.

The only time you should have air to the parking brake chamber is when you have manually released the parking valve. It should be located in the dash or possibly between the seats, below the rear window. Normally you would need 60 to 70 lbs. air pressure to actuate the release valve, and keep it open. It should go without saying, that you should block the wheels if you are going to be under the truck testing these lines with the engine running. Since these lines were torn off, quick release valves on service and parking brakes, may further complicate or confuse the issue. you could e mail a phone number, and I'll try to talk you through this. James

You have pretty much figured it out by yourself. The front side of the chamber is the service brake, which is supplied by the foot valve. The rear part of the chamber is the parking, or spring brake, which is supplied through a valve inside the cab. Parking brakes are released by air pressure, not applied.

I don't think that these are dull ramblings at all. I think someone should only be limited by their imagination. Otherwise we wouldn't have light bulbs, airplanes, automobiles, or even an ice cold soda. I just can't leave Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness out of this either. When I was young, there were a lot of things I just couldn't do, because of my responsibility to my family. And neither could you. Well guess what. Now you can. I have stepped over someone else's toys, now they can walk around mine. Since I am already standing on this stump, when you do find yourself down under. Stay away from the Croc's. And if you can make it happen by any means take at least a short trip on a road train. It couldn't be any worse than pulling doubles through Mo. or Ill. And insist on driving, just don't look back. Hey man, you couldn't ride a bike either till the first time.

Any fool can take a girls clothes off. Say, thats really a nice looking excavator. I wonder if that operator could load a truck every 3 minutes without busting the sideboards off.

Right is right no matter where you are, Cairo Egypt, or Cairo Ill. However, sometimes a little diplomacy is in order. The old saying is, [What goes around, comes around]. In the words of Davy Crockett, Make shore your right, then go ahead. Just keep in mind that having the last word is not worth much, when the last word is Goodbye.

I used to carry enough tools to overhaul a Cummins engine on the side of the road. Not to mention various spares. Once in Hammond La. as I coasted toward a traffic light, the light turned green and as I began to pick up the throttle, I realized that the truck wasn't pulling. As I cleared the intersection, there was a wide spot, so I steered the truck out of the road, popped the brake valve and swung down. When I looked under the truck, I saw that I had lost a pinion nut. I rolled under the truck on the drivers side shoved the drive shaft forward to clear the pinion, pulled it off the slip yoke end, and rolled out on the passenger side with the drive shaft. Uncle Bill Hamby, who was riding with me at the time, had just opened the door and was getting out, spoke up ( Son, if you are not careful, you are going to run over yourself, you had that drive shaft out before the truck stopped rolling.) A neat thing about this calamity, was the fact that I had stopped at the rear of an automotive repair center, When I finally found a pinion nut, I stuck their air hose out a rear window, coupled it to my 50 ft. hose and hammered the new nut on. Not every break down has a happy ending, but this one did. James

Rob, the greatest benefit of a fuel warmer comes in extreme cold weather. To gain anything from this unit it would have to be plumbed to return heated fuel to the tank. In the past, before blended fuel became more popular, we would mix half no. 1 and half no. 2 diesel, to keep the fuel from jelling. When it was really cold and the wind was blowing out of the North Pole. even that didn't help much. It used to be fairly common to see trucks on the side of the road with the fuel jelled. I have used a water heated unit manufactured by Artic Fox, which mounted inside the fuel tank. It worked well, and I could use the cheaper southern fuel in the upper mid west. From a performance stand point, there is more to be gained by cooler, denser, air than warmer fuel. I would be interested to see a picture of this unit. James

Sometimes you just can't help it. If she didn't absolutely say, no more, then you might try the amnesia solution. I bumped my head and there it was. I don't know where it came from. Or just tell the truth, It's such a good dog, it followed me home, it likes me, I'll feed it, I'll take care of it, can I keep it.

Got a few more pictures posted today, check my albums. James