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ost_uid0]<span style='font-family:courier'>Now that's as cold as a Witches.....sorry the XYL saw what I was writing...
As promised.....Lightning and the Volvo!
As I mentioned earlier, the Chemical Brothers were placed in seperate trucks, I first started out with an "Ancient" Volvo for about a month, then I was blessed with a new 1995 Volvo, #2036, nothing to rave about it still was a Volvo. It had it's shakedown run going to Chicago and then to Houston. It wasn't too bad and it was radio friendly! Fast Forward..
Around the late summer or so the Chemical Brothers were dispatched to Nashville, TN to help out with dedicated runs for Dupont out of their Old Hickory plant. One run went to Circleville, OH, one to Mt. Vernon, IN, one to Deepwater, NJ and the last went to Houston, TX.
I was on the return leg of a Circleville load, when a severe thunderstorm popped up. The lightning was really intense and quite frequent. I was, as usual, reporting everything I saw to a Sky Warn operator. I had just finished my report when there was a bright flash and then the truck DIED, I rolled to the side of the Interstate and parked under a bridge. I sat in the seat looking around for any smoke, nothing. I tried to restart the engine, again nothing!
Well, panic didn't set in, but I was getting quite concerned. I sat on the side of the road for about 30 minutes watching the rain fall dreading the inevitable walk down the highway to the next exit. Didn't really care for the walk, so I tried to crank the truck just once more and lo and behold the thing started and everything started working again. I took it to the shop when I got back and the mechanics couldn't find a thing. The conclusion was the lightning caused an overload and shut it down!! DUH!!!!!
Three weeks later I got the "privilege" of running to Houston. I was strolling along I-10 at the Louisana/Texas border and wound up in another thunderstorm and as most folks know, thunderstorms in Louisana are nothing short of spectacular. I really didn't think much about the storm until, bright flash and the sudden sensation of no power steering and no engine noise crept over me..."Not again!!!" I yelled as I rolled silently to the side of the Interstate. A Louisana Highway Patrolperson stopped and called for a wrecker. I told the officer what had transpired and he told me he knew someone that could locate the problem. "Yeah" I said "the guy up above who keeps hitting me with lighning!!!"
Help did arrive and the truck was towed to an old shop, the mechanic had to be about 100 years old pulled the hood and went right to work. 10 minutes later he tells me he found the problem and that the computer box had to be replaced. It seemed that the folks at Volvo decided that grounding was not neccesary, but it was!!!!
The mechanic went and got a new box, programmed it and I was on my way in less than 3 hours.
When I got back to Nashville, the company shop people checked the guys work and gave it their seal of approval. What they didn't check was the programming and I wasn't about to tell them. I ended up with one of the fastest "Company" Volvos. It stayed that way after I had left the company until it was wrecked in 1998 due to a roll over!
That's all for now</span><span style='font-size:13pt;line-height:100%'></span>[/color
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Edited By Doctor Who on 1042913215