Let's see the big rigs!

Discussion in 'Big Rigs' started by CK5, Feb 28, 2006.

  1. steve_kibbe

    steve_kibbe New Member

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    I'd love to drive this:D
     

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  2. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    Here's some (but not all) of the trucks that I've driven in the past.
    Old-Trucker.
    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

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  3. rharveysr

    rharveysr Well-Known Member

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    What year is that Pete?????

    Rick
     
  4. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    Rick,
    That picture of the cabin over pete was taken in Dec 1994 and I think the pete was a 1988 model but I can't remember. I really liked that truck and put a lot of miles on it. Ran mostly the North East and Texas (picture: waiting for a load of books in Florence, Al to Houston, Tx).
    It had a large bunk and I lived there for 5 months straight putting 4,000 to 4,000 miles a week over the road. Had no home or apartment for 7 months and even my F-100 had a sleeper that I lived in when I was off. Life was good, no old lady, no bank account. The Cat engine in this truck exploded on I-81 in Va pulling a gross load of minerals to Springfield , Mass. That was about a month after I took the picture.

    I had worked for this company before in '92-'93 and drove that white ford then. My other gig is a captain and I ran a 500 passenger sternwheeler cruise boat in Lake Tahoe, Ca during the summers for 3 years. In the winter I drove trucks out of Florence, Al. I drove my '81 F-100 back and forth between the coasts stopping at truck stops for sleep and showers the 3 days that it took. I used my Flying-J frequent fueler points for free showers and discounted food along the way.

    When I went back to trucking in '94 they let me pick the truck that I wanted and I looks at this Pete but noticed that it had spring suspension so I opted for the white Ford again as it was a pretty good truck the last time...Big mistake! They had rebuilt the Cat engine and it leaked oil, fuel, and coolant and the cab caught fire while I was in the sleeper at a truck stop in Tn. I bailed out of the sleeper escape door in my jeans with no shirt in 30 degree weather and then realized that the doors were locked and the truck was running with the keys in the ignition. Went back in the sleeper and opened the doors to let the smoke out and saw that the wiring for the cab lights had shorted against the radio mount in the ceiling. This truck also had a bad habit of the headlight going off in the middle of the night. They never did get that straightened out.

    One afternoon I was at the junk yard with the Ford in the shop and they asked me to take another driver's Pete just like the pictured one down to get a trailer. That truck rode great bobtail and even better with a trailer. I looked when I got back and it was on springs just like the red Pete so I asked to drive the red one around the block. It rode 100% better than the Ford and I moved in right then.

    When the Pete died they brought me on a wrecker a two story Ford with the floppy cab that was a gutless POS. It rode so bad that I had to stop in the Pa mountains and barf...twice. I missed my unload appointment and had to spend the weekend at the Pride Truckstop in Mass so ashamed of that Ford that I pulled in backward on the back row so drivers wouldn't know it was me. On Sat about 3am I had to wizz so I jumped out in the snow in my drawers and T-shirt and the door locked behind me, That truck hated me as much as I hated it. So here I am on the side of the truck trying to get in and the driver next to me jumps out to wizz too. After he got done laughing he went in and got a clothes hanger and managed to get the door open.
    That truck also used so much fuel that I ran out of money and had to get more wired to me to get back empty. That whole trip just down right sucked. Even spilled an entire 16oz cup of coffee in the drivers seat and had to drive with a wet a$$ the rest of the night. Plus, if you had your hand on the gear stick and turned a right hand corner the cab would rock and smash your hand against the doghouse. Now I've driven other trucks like this one and that had never happened before but I really think that this truck was cursed and it was out to get me.

    After about a week of the two story nightmare I scored the best truck in the company, a '92 Ford LTL9000 w/60" walk-in sleeper. I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. That baby would run and I put the miles on it, even got clocked by the dispatch computer completing a run from Ga to Ms at an average speed over 110mph with a load. The dispatcher came on the phone and asked me what kind of engine I had..."425 Cat", geared pretty good eh?..."13 over w/4.10 rears" says I. He sarted reading me the riot act that his computer went nuts when I called in and the average speed was flashing on the screen. He ended with "we'll not have any more of that now will we? Then he asked what me route was? "I-75, I-285, I-20" I told him and he lost it. "You ran that fast around Atlanta???? Are you nuts?"
    Well he called the owner of the truck and the next time that I saw him he said that he had to bail a driver out of a Texas jail because to that truck and if I got locked up he would come get me. BTW, that drive was cruising at 125mph...laid back.
     
  5. rocknbronco

    rocknbronco Well-Known Member

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    There are some nice rigs posted in here and even better storys lets keep em coming.
     
  6. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    I could spend all day typing about my adventures running the roads and as a dispatcher/terminal manager. Things were a lot different back in the 70's and 80's and I was a real renegade. That Pete had hinges on the instrument panel and I kept my log books in there, as many as 6 at a time. The real challenge was figuring out which one to hand to the DOT. It's kinda hard to legally log 4,500 miles in 6 days. It got to the point that I even quit turning in logs for over a month before leaving to go back to Tahoe. One day the owner's daughter called me out there and said that they didn't have any logs from me, I said "Imagine that". I still had all my old log books and she asked if I could send them to her, I said "Sure" and went out to my pick-up got them out and threw them in the dumpster...end of story.
     
  7. bigHD

    bigHD Well-Known Member

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    Hey Old-Trucker, thanks for the story sir! I really enjoyed hearing about your trucks! Fell free to share some more with us!
     
  8. bigHD

    bigHD Well-Known Member

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    Here is the rig I'll be driving soon. Its a real nice setup, 1996 Top Kick/Keystone 1900 Elliptical/CAT/5 speed so you can drive out in the mud on brush fires. waytogo It may not hold the most water, but we can manuver it in where the large tandem/automatic tankers can't go. Its gonna be a real shame when this truck gets relpaced. The department may be going with a custom chasis tanker pumper in the coming years.:eek:
     

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  9. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    Ok, I'll tell about another one of my trucking adventures before I go to bed. I guess that would make this a bedtime story, but after that it's lights out and you have to go to sleep.

    Back in the late '70's I was driving R model Macks for a company hauling containers out of Charleston, SC. This happened after the Jax naked dancing incident but with the same company. All these Macks were day cabs that we ran over the road, 237hp 5sp Maxidyne and rode rough as hell.

    So I leave Charleston one night dragging an empty Sealand 35' propane fueled reefer to get a load of frozen turkeys in Va somewhere up I-81 that I can't even remember the name of but that's not important now. I was driving a nice 1976 R model that someone had turned up the fuel on, it smoked like it was burning soft coal, but it sure ran good. I was running with another company truck and near Fancy Gap, Va on I-77 the turbo in my truck self destructed about 5am. The other driver gave me a ride to the next exit and I called the company and they sent a local wrecker to get me off the road. When this wrecker shows up I had my doubts as it was a 1949 REO w/220 Cummins, cable ranged 10sp roadranger, butterfly hood, and a passenger door that was held closed with a piece of rope. We drop my trailer on the side of the interstate and hook my tractor from the rear and drive down the wrong side of the shoulder to the next exit. It un-nerved me a little meeting trucks head-on but we finally made it off and down the mountain we went off Fancy Gap. It took that driver both hands to pull the cable to put the transmission in high range and before long we were gaining a lot of speed. That old truck was shaking and the hoods were flying about half way open in front of the windshield and I was holding that door closed with all my might. My truck was flopping around on the back and we hit better than 80mph in short order when that driver yelled that he didn't think that he could get it slowed down. He wanted to know if I would be upset if we went in the truck run-away pit. I told him to do what ever it took to get it back under control and after that I was going to kick his ass. When we got to the pit there was already a truck in it and we had to keep going, like we had a choice. Why is there always a curve at the bottom of a major grade? He had both hands on the left side of the wheel pulling hard to get around that curve and I was trying hard not to fall out.

    Well, we finally made it to the shop and I was sick for hours. The VP of the company had come up and he personally put another turbo on my truck and I went back out to get my trailer. I made it to the turkey plant after dark that night and got my load.

    Back down on I-81 I can hear the turbo whining again and I know that it's history so I call in again at about 1am. White's truck stop was just over the hill about a mile but the truck didn't have enough power to make it up there with no turbo and a gross load. When I called the VP he asked me to stay with the truck since it was loaded so I baby sat it that night. Cops would stop and check on me as I had the passenger door open so I could sleep (remember the part about the day cabs). The reefer had been running for quite a while and I got a ride down to White's to take a shower, get something to eat and call the VP to tell him that I was running out of propane. He told me that help was coming and to please stay with the truck as much as possible. I told him that I was catching a bus home but he begged me to stay.
    Back at the truck about an hour later a truck pulled up in the grass next to me and I was sooo pissed when I see that it's a propane truck come to fuel the reefer. I got a ride back to the truck stop with him and called that VP and read him the riot act, I wasn't getting paid for breakdowns and I'd baby sat this load long enough. He tells me that he can't change the pay policy but that he had something nice for me if I would just stay with it a little while longer. I agreed, ate supper and got a ride back out there. The propane truck came out again that evening and again every 12 hours. The next day I hear someone on the company radio calling my truck number. When he finally got in range I find out it's the company wrecker driver bringing me another truck. There was a hill between the north and south bound lanes so I climb to the top so he can find me as he goes by to the next exit. On the back of the wrecker was a new F model Mack that the driver says the VP sent for me to drive. They had to wait for it's driver to get back with this truck and he retired so the truck was mine.

    What a sweet deal, my first sleeper and I got to look at it real close as we hooked a chain to it and towed it and my truck to the truck stop. After swapping the tractors and a quick supper we headed home. This cab over had 60,000 miles on it and with the 300hp 5sp maxidyne really pulled, and I had A/C, also a first for me. It was a 1979 model and still smelled new. Well worth the wait, but all was not fine yet.

    I was following the wrecker and by Charlotte I needed reefer fuel again so we decided to try the Southern 500 truck stop. The driver got off the wrong exit and so we made a round-a-bout trip to the truck stop.
    As soon as we stop and before we could even get out 6 cop cars surrounded our trucks and wanted to know where we had just come from and where are we going. After answering their questions they advised us to keep going and to get on back on the interstate post haste which we did. You see, this was all happening at the beginning of the big truckers strike in 1979 and at the exit that we should have taken to the Southern 500 a driver was shot and killed. It could have been us as we would have been the trucks in the sights at that time. Good thing that we got off at the wrong exit.

    It was just getting daylight and the other driver radios that something is wrong with the aux trans in the wrecker so we limp along and pull off an exit to call in. We ended up leaving the wrecker and the driver rides back to SC with me and we get to the main terminal that afternoon and they fuel my now dead reefer. It's Saturday and I had left on this trip 5 days earlier. The VP wants to know if I want someone to drive me the 65 miles on to Charleston but I told him no, that I would complete the trip. Actually I had a feeling that the truck would have been taken back to the main terminal and I would lose it. I was dead tired but I did make it to Chasn and the port accepted the reefer on Saturday. I even had to take it directly to the ship as it was finished loading and getting ready to get underway.

    I had to do a couple of runs to Savannah on Sunday but Monday morning other drivers told me to put all my stuff in that new truck and fight to keep it which I did. Nobody begrudged me for having it even though they had more seniority and I drove it for over a year. I got out of it and became a dispatcher then the terminal manager. Didn't drive another truck otr till 1983.

    Now about my old truck... I got a call from the VP and he's ranting and raving about the engine being turned up to the max and that's the reason that it was eating turbos. I told him that I knew about it and that if he check my pretrip/post trip reports I had been reporting the excessive exhaust smoke for months. Had they read the reports there wouldn't have been a problem in the first place. A good case of CYA that really paid off.

    That's it for tonight, now go to bed!

    Old Trucker
    BTW: I don't embellish any of my stories, don't need to, everything that I tell is true although sometimes I can't remember locations or towns. I sometimes wonder if I even knew the name of the town where I got those turkeys, Just remember that it was way up I-81 in VA. I try to proof read but there may still be some typos.
    My parents have always told me that I should write a book, but I don't know.
     
  10. bigHD

    bigHD Well-Known Member

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    Good story! I think you should listen to your parents and write a collection of over the road trucking stories. The best part is that they would be ture. You could call it Campfire Tales From the Highway or something like that! lol!
     
  11. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    Thanks Danny,
    I'll see if my brain can cough up another one tonight sometime. Maybe after I get out of the shower I'll recount my days or should I say nights learning to drive trucks.

    BTW, Nice fire tanker, looks like a converted milk hauler.

    OT
     
    Last edited: Jun 9, 2006
  12. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    My truck driving career was a little shaky getting off the ground and I tried several times in the year after I was discharged
    from the Coast Guard in January, 1976 to break into the business. I worked at a Red Ball Moving and Storage terminal and
    they about worked me into the ground, the 800 pound baby grand piano in the double wide trailer was the breaking straw.

    I went to work for my father-in-law as a marine mechanic since that was my training in the CG. One day I was walking down
    the dock at the Charleston City Marina and coming the other way was a guy that I knew from high school. After talking for a
    minute I asked what he was doing at the marina and he said the he had a load of diesel fuel for them. Out in the parking lot
    sat an R model Mack with a 9,200 gallon tanker trailer that he was driving for Laney Tank Lines. Didn't take me long to
    climb up in that cab and I got to start the engine...Oh man, I was sold, I had to learn how to drive one and get a job driving
    trucks.

    That evening I was sitting at home and heard a truck coming through the nieghborhood and then it pulled into my front yard.
    It was Johnny in that Laney tanker and he asked if I wanted to ride out to the island and he'd bring me back in his car,
    about broke my arm jumping up in the passenger seat and away we went. It was about 8 miles out to his parents house and
    I was blown away with the smell, sound, and size of that truck. The hook was set pretty deep when he asked if I'd like to
    drive it...I thought that I had died and gone to truck heaven even though I crashed all the gears in that 5 speed gearbox.

    He decided that he would teach me to drive even though this was a company truck and he didn't have permission. In fact
    they would have terminated him if they knew. Every night he would show up at my house and I would go down to the Pizza
    Hut where my 1st wife worked and help her clean up to get her out faster. Johnny would sleep on the sofa till we got
    home. I was working a full time job wrenching on boats and had only 45 minutes to get home from work before the old lady
    left for work. My daughter was 6 months old at the time. Johnny would take extra loads at night so that we had trips to go
    on and we usually hauled number 6 fuel oil as there was always loads to the Dupont plant in Lugoff, SC.

    I drove all night and Johnny slept in the jump seat, I learned a lot about driving tankers as we did this for about 2 months.
    He even ran a couple of loads for an O/O and showed up in a brand new International Eagle Cabover. This was my
    introduction to the Cummins 350/13over gearbox and power steering...sweet!!!

    On the weekends Johnny started running extra loads of gasoline and taught me that aspect of the business. In the mean
    time I had obtained a truck drivers learner permit, which was just the written part of the test for a SC Class 3 license.
    Then he one night he said that Laney was needing drivers and that I should apply for a job since he had already told
    them that he knew another driver that was looking for a job. They hired me...but first I had to attend the company driving
    school for 2 weeks in Wilmington, NC. Man was my old lady pissed at me and Johnny since the training paid $37/week,
    but by god I was going to be a truck driver at last and I didn't let her affect my decision. This was now January 1977 and
    the final exam of the school was a driving test in the back alleys of downtown Wilmington which I managed to pass. I still
    have the certificate of completion from a 2 week course of Defensive Driving for Gasoline Transport Drivers. That paper
    allowed me to trade my learners permit for a real Class 3 license without taking a driving exam.

    Back in Charleston I had to complete 2 weeks of OJT and then I was assigned my own truck, I made it, I was a full blown
    truck driver. Life was good, Johnny had trained me well and I moved up to a prime position as a dedicated Texaco
    driver. Only 4 trucks in the company where assigned to Texaco and we had the best and newest equipment. Besides
    gasoline we also hauled Jet-A fuel across town to the airport. These loads paid $10 each and I could do 10 a day.

    Actually I'm getting ahead of myself a little here. Before Texaco I hauled all kinds of hazardous loads and some non-
    hazardous that required extra carefull driving. There was the spent glycol I hauled from Dupont in Lugoff to Dupont in
    Charleston in an 8,000 gallon shotgun tanker. Glycol is pretty heavy and I could only haul 4,000 gallons legally, a shotgun
    tanker is one without baffles and allowed that glycol to run from one end to the other and up the sides in turns. This is
    very dangerous and the worst situation for a tanker driver. In the town of Manning, SC I stopped at a light and let up on
    the brakes as the truck was headed down hill. The truck tried to back up the hill and I had to hit the brakes again to stop it.
    You also had to time your shifts with the movement of the load or the truck would stop completely before you could hit the
    next gear. Do it right though and you could out run volkswagons of the line. I hauled other stuff too, like 100 octane avgas,
    paper machine oil, and a few loads of aromatics out of Exxon in Wimington.

    One night I had a backload of aromatics 100 and 150 to Charleston and when I got to North Myrtle Beach I detected
    not right with the truck so I stopped next to some gas pumps around 4am to check it out. Well, the whole area underneath
    the cab was on fire and the flames were licking at the nose of the trailer. About that time a cop pulled up and jumped out of
    his car and said that they had been getting reports of me since I hit the state line, was it loaded? When I yelled yes he
    jumped back in his car, threw it in reverse and smoked the tires as he departed the scene. I thought that he was just moving
    his car but he left in a cloud of smoke. In a split second I had the fire extinguisher and discharged it without pulling the pin,
    putting the fire out. Then I could see that the PTO cable was dragging on the ground and must have got hot enough to
    ignite the grease on the transmission. It had been burning for several miles and I didn't notice because I thought that the
    yellow glow was the left front amber clearance light on the trailer. I tied up the cable and sat there for about 20 minutes
    thinking that a fire truck or another cop would come to replace the chicken one that left. I often wonder where he went.
    Nobody showed so I cranked up and went on to Charleston without further problems and the only evidence was the scorched
    area on the trailer.

    BTW, aromatics are the bad fumes that escape when you open a container of paint remover. It's more volatile than gasoline
    and could have made for a real bad day.

    This ends tonights episode, tune in tomorrow night when I'll complete this segment of my trucking life. Johnny gets busted,
    I quit and find the world of containers, and a twist.

    Old Trucker
     
  13. bigHD

    bigHD Well-Known Member

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    Another great story!
    Yeah the tanker does look like a milk hauler! You dont see too many elipticals like it anymore. Most departments are going with a custom chassis tanker/pumper. The whole rear on them is boxed in with compartments, so it looks like a standard pumper.
     
  14. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    Thanks Danny,
    I was looking through my collection of pictures and picked out some more truck shots. I need to scan them and then I'll post them.
    OT
     
  15. BurnedBronco

    BurnedBronco Well-Known Member

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    should i say the stupid thing i got to do last month?
    got a call that a loaded gravel semi broke a front main leaf, the tire then came back and broke the air tank main fitting form the compressor off in the tank.
    i get i nthe kenworth ,swing by the parts store, grab about 6 different fitting that are what the guy discribes it looks like.
    anyways, its 45 miles from where i am at, get there, its in a quarry sitting in the limestone water of course with the tire jammed into the air tank/fuel tank of this kenworth semi.
    got to tow it from the front, as he wants me to take the truck, and laoded traielr back to his shop.
    anyways, its a short hood semi with no front frame rail visible to grab with the forks. its got a nice chrome front bnumper so i obviously can't sling lift it with the end caps and chain on the underlift bar.
    since the main leaf broke right up near the front i can't use my spring adaptors that capture it around the front spring hanger to tow it.
    that means i have to tow it off the front axle with the small forks. but the main leaf is bustificated.
    okay, i lift it up with the udnerlift bar under the front crossmember, run the winch cabel and chain under the underlift bar, winch the front axle forewards to its original position.i then wedge my railroad bar in the frame rail/crossmember so the spring wedges on it to support the weight of the tractor when i set it back down on the ground again.
    that works and holds the weight.
    so now i chain the axle pulling it foreward with one chain binder around the front crossmember. now the axle cant move backwards
    i then chain the axle rearword around the rear spring hanger and bind it with another chain binder, now the axle cant move foreward or backwords. now i can pick the truck up by the front axle and chain it to the bar. its kinda secure, but the trucks brakes are all still locked up, but i supplied air to the trailer with my truck so i only have one set of tandems locked up. i then drag it out of the water and to some higher ground and start working on the tractors tandems.
    well of course out of all 4 brake chambers there is only two retracting rods and one is seized to the side of the chamber. that isn't happening, so i crawl under and decided to easy out the broken fitting out of the tank. luckily my biggest easy out fit good and twisted it right out, and one of the fittings i brought with me fits. so now i can start up that truck and let it run to supply the truck with air so the brakes arent locked up.
    down interstate 57 i go with a loaded semi with the front axle attached by some chains. it got where i was going with it with only minor shifting of its attachments luckily.
     
  16. Tow M88

    Tow M88 Member

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    busy

    There are maybe a few who are wondering where I went, well I have been busy and have not had the time to get involved to post a reply. First things first, I am a soldier and I am deploying soon to Iraq. Been busy training to keep me most alive. Second, I am a diesel buff and I enjoy reading about all diesel progress. I am planning on buying a dodge megacab dually when I get home next year. I was never really a dodge fan but have always liked cummins since cummins has been around, a century give or take. I took a dodge for a test drive and really loved all the options and power. Never was interested in speed but always liked a truck with some brute strength. Think I found one. Any way Hope to talk to you all when I return. Sincerely, TOW
     
  17. bigHD

    bigHD Well-Known Member

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    Stay safe over in Iraq Jim. Thanks to you and all the other servicemen and women who are protecting our country.
     
  18. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    Jim,
    Be careful over there and kick some Terrorist ass!!!

    OT
     
  19. Old-Trucker

    Old-Trucker Well-Known Member

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    Rick,
    I can say for a fact that it's a 1989 model. While searching though some of my old pictures I came across the Improper Parking citation that I got in Va and it had the vin number and year of that Pete.

    OT
     
  20. Bullrack

    Bullrack Well-Known Member

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    Here ya go
     

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