Okay... Here it goes:
I wake up at 0500, having stayed awake like a kid before Christmas. Called my buddy Ray who would be doing the drive back in my car. Met at the car at 0530, and soon underway. Stopped for quick breakfast in Oconto Falls, and then pushed on through.
Got a call at about a quarter to nine (3.25 hours of driving out of 5.5 done)... it's the guy replacing the transmission. He doesn't like the looks of the winch PTO, as it's that gear that looks like snot, and is what contributed to the destruction of the previous tranny. AHA!!!! The truth comes out. Maccus had mentioned to me that these tranny's were pretty much bombproof. However, when a ne'er do well PTO gets invovled, all bets are off. Anyways.
Well, the guy at the shop obviously doesn't want to put on a bad PTO because he can't guarantee that it won't ruin the new tranny again. But, he also knows that I am well over halfway to his shop. So he is trying to let me call it off so he can have more time to fix it. But by this time, Ray had already figured out that this was a LONG day, so I was pretty sure I would not be able to coerce him into making another trip later. So, I said to heck with it, and told him to pull the PTO off, and just put the plate across it. This satisfied him, because he didn't have to feel guilty about a shoddy job leaving his shop. It satisfied me because I would be able to retrieve the truck as planned. So, on we drove.
Arrived at his shop at about 1130, and he was about 20 minutes away from done. He had put the PTO on the old tranny, and was gonna load the whole thing in the bed for me - which I thought was pretty awesome. So after he finished, I hopped in the seat and took off all his little post-it reminders about how to turn the truck on. She fired right up, waited for the buzzer to go off, and away we went (@ 12:00).
Stopped for gas in Anoka (@ 13:51), got mad at the pump because it stopped me after $75.00, so I had to start again. Noticed a leak (drip (wait one second) drip) of engine oil from the flywheel housing .... minor heart attack. But it slowed and stopped with the motor running, so I think it was old oil from when the 1st tranny had the accident. Checked oil level, added 1 quart, and shrugged.
Had lunch after fueling/oiling in Anoka and pressed onward. The radio headset worked really well for me and Ray to hone our traffic kung fu, and St. Paul traffic was no worries.
We stopped once right after we entered Wisconsin so I could make sure the hub temperature was good - it was a brief stop.
Started to rain and I thought I could just deal with it until I noticed that the wipers weren't THAT bad... it was just water spray on the inside of the windows. Oh well, put on my rain coat, and drove on.
Drove and drove and drove until we got to Shawano and stopped for fuel (@ 1914). Also got roll or paper towels for plugging leaks around windows.
Drove till we got to Marinette (@ 2100).
Now I am back, and the truck is in clear view of my room. Tomorrow I will tear open the PTO and old tranny and post pics of that somewhere, along with pictures of the truck.
After 360 miles and lots of hours, I can only quote 73m819...
"LONG LIVE BIG GREEN IRON!!!"
Matt
