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A couple of weeks ago, I picked up an M923 and drove it from near Chicago to just south of Albuquerque.
Unlike most of my trips, this one was relatively uneventful in the scheme of things.
The truck is a KS RSMS truck, which already stacks the deck in my favor. Further, the previous owner has more or less gone through it. (I say "more or less" because we all have different ways of doing things. His way is fine.)
Still, the truck hasn't been driven extensively in the past little bit, so there's always going to be surprises.
Surprise number 1 was that the exhaust came off above the muffler, just as I merged onto the interstate the first time. I pulled over to the shoulder and secured it into the bed. The truck now sounds bigger and meaner
It was all kinds of windy for most of the drive. I lost a canvas out of the back in the middle of the first afternoon. I flipped a u-turn across the interstate divider and managed to get back to it before it got ran over. The interstate divider had a stream running through the middle of it, so I managed to get the truck muddy and ended up engaging the front axle...
The fuel gauge stopped working after the first fill. I presumed i sank the float, but upon closer inspection the sending unit failed. (Anybody got a part number?)
I stopped in KS and offloaded some stuff and on loaded some stuff. But most importantly I grabbed my basic set of recovery tools - jacks, wrenches, slave cables, battery charger, etc...
The truck is equipped with a soft cab top in NOS condition . Like all of them, this one started to let go across the front seam. I wear safety glasses when driving, mostly to prevent wayward grit in the eyes, and this time it really paid off. About 80 miles from Tucumcari I got caught in what AZ calls a microburst - sudden tremendous downpour combined with heavy wind and hail. Soft cab top peeled all the way back, I'm beaten senseless by hail (OUCH!) and I thought the truck was going to overturn. This little storm did overturn a Werner tractor trailer, tractor and trailer...
I stopped for the night in Tucumcari. The next morning, park brake lever no longer applies air to the springbrakes, no longer releasing them. The override button on the dash releases them, so I isolated this to the park brake lever. Repeated manipulation resolves this, but it recurs intermittently for the rest of the trip. Disassembly and lubrication should resolve this.
The following day I continued to RGS20inophir''s house, taking a break midafternoon to chase cans on GL (who wants a can?). We did some trivial surface rust removal and painting, the truck attended the MudBog event (without getting muddy) and then I flew home Sunday (yuck).
And then to the emergency room Monday
Unlike most of my trips, this one was relatively uneventful in the scheme of things.
The truck is a KS RSMS truck, which already stacks the deck in my favor. Further, the previous owner has more or less gone through it. (I say "more or less" because we all have different ways of doing things. His way is fine.)
Still, the truck hasn't been driven extensively in the past little bit, so there's always going to be surprises.
Surprise number 1 was that the exhaust came off above the muffler, just as I merged onto the interstate the first time. I pulled over to the shoulder and secured it into the bed. The truck now sounds bigger and meaner
It was all kinds of windy for most of the drive. I lost a canvas out of the back in the middle of the first afternoon. I flipped a u-turn across the interstate divider and managed to get back to it before it got ran over. The interstate divider had a stream running through the middle of it, so I managed to get the truck muddy and ended up engaging the front axle...
The fuel gauge stopped working after the first fill. I presumed i sank the float, but upon closer inspection the sending unit failed. (Anybody got a part number?)
I stopped in KS and offloaded some stuff and on loaded some stuff. But most importantly I grabbed my basic set of recovery tools - jacks, wrenches, slave cables, battery charger, etc...
The truck is equipped with a soft cab top in NOS condition . Like all of them, this one started to let go across the front seam. I wear safety glasses when driving, mostly to prevent wayward grit in the eyes, and this time it really paid off. About 80 miles from Tucumcari I got caught in what AZ calls a microburst - sudden tremendous downpour combined with heavy wind and hail. Soft cab top peeled all the way back, I'm beaten senseless by hail (OUCH!) and I thought the truck was going to overturn. This little storm did overturn a Werner tractor trailer, tractor and trailer...
I stopped for the night in Tucumcari. The next morning, park brake lever no longer applies air to the springbrakes, no longer releasing them. The override button on the dash releases them, so I isolated this to the park brake lever. Repeated manipulation resolves this, but it recurs intermittently for the rest of the trip. Disassembly and lubrication should resolve this.
The following day I continued to RGS20inophir''s house, taking a break midafternoon to chase cans on GL (who wants a can?). We did some trivial surface rust removal and painting, the truck attended the MudBog event (without getting muddy) and then I flew home Sunday (yuck).
And then to the emergency room Monday
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