Most notable breakdown I've had was not much of a mechanical problem. It was the circumstances.
Came out of Casper, WY, and ran through Lusk into NE. There's a "SCENIC VIEWING AREA" on the south side, and I seemed to be having a problem with the air. Half way between Casper and Lusk, I'd hit rain, and it was still with me in NE. Outside temps were running between 22 and 26 degrees F. I looked at the airlines under the trailer, and they were bigger around than my thigh. Hole worn through one of the hoses. Going back to the truck, I turned and realized I also had a flat tire on the rear axle. Taking a better look at it... Not just one, TWO FLAT TIRES. The valve stems had broken with all the ice build up.
Repair shop to come out and fix the stems was only 34 miles away, but it took the guy 7.5 hours to get to me because of all the ice on the roads. (Bull wagons were only doing 15 mph on US-20) He replaced the valve stems, aired up the tires and we were off again.
At Valantine, NE, I went up into SD, and when I got to Souis Falls, I had another broken one of the front trailer axle. (No idea what it all cost, because the company took care of that with their Bridgestone Account.)
Half way across MN, I ran it over a CAT scale. Load weighed only 17,000. But the whole rig weighed over 97,000. About 46.000 of ice on the rig.:eek2:
Worst breakdown I ever had was when the bolts that hold the alternator bracket to the engine broke off. The repair guy came out and tried to use "extractors" to take them out. He only managed to get one hole opened up. Broke off his extractor in another one, but did manage to get the mounting bracket back onto the engine.
When I got to my repair guy, he was not able to get the last hole opened up because when road service drilled, he went off on the side, and drilled into the casting. From then on, I only had 3 bolts holding the bracket on, instead of the 4 that it's supposed to have. And, it cost me almost $400 to have the guy mess it up. (I could have done better if I had used his tools.)
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( R E T I R E D , and glad of it)
YES ! ! ! There is life after trucking.
a GOOD life
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