Michael
Active member
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- Location
- Fulton, MS
It has been a week now so it is time to post my latest pickup story. This has to be my worst pick up since I started collecting this stuff 20 years ago. I will admit up front that we did some pretty questionable things, but we did make it home without injury to ourselves or others.
We got off on Good Friday morning about sun up. Had the pickup loaded with everything I thought we would need. My oldest daughter is dating a guy with a class A license so I got them to go with me. We got to Smyrna, TN about 1030 without any problems except for paying $115 to fill up the pickup and two Jerry Cans with fuel. We found our trucks and started the inspection. The M35 with van body was first since we planned to tow the M818 with it due to insurance issues. It was missing the alternator belt and the batteries were dead. Jay let us take one off of a truck that hadn't been listed yet. We put it on our truck and found that our alternator was putting out about 40 volts. We then decided to check out the M818 and low and behold, it was missing its alternator belts also. It is getting about 1 o'clock now and Jay is ready to lock the gate, so we drive both trucks out of the lot and hook up the tow bar. We decide to pull the M818 with the M35 and turn the power switch off. We figured the batteries would run the stop and turn light. We had hooked up the air between the trucks, but at first it didn't seem to help. We double checked and sure enough, we had failed to turn on the service air. After that, the combination stopped and handled well. Going was an entirely different story. The combination would struggle to go 45 on level ground and would go down to 15 or 20 on the many hills in TN. But we were making progress. After we stopped to eat lunch, we found that the starter button would no longer work. After messing with it about 30 min we decided to just push it off and we were on our way again. Next we lost our air compressor belt. After another field expedite repair we were on the road again. Now it is getting dark. After running an hour in the dark with the lights running on the battery, we decided to run the alternator a few min to charge the batteries. I guess the load of the batteries pulled the voltage down some because instead of pegging out the volt meter it was on the line between green and high red. The extra load also stressed the belt because it broke a few more miles down the road. That meant we lost our water pump and had to stop again. We were just outside of Savannah, TN by then and it was getting late, so we decided to swap the trucks around and try to get to the house. We finally made it in about midnight. I got some pictures of the start, but all of the trouble kind of put me out of the photographing mood.
Here is a link to more pictures:
http://1plant4u.smugmug.com/gallery/4591805_mUqxW#270789495
We got off on Good Friday morning about sun up. Had the pickup loaded with everything I thought we would need. My oldest daughter is dating a guy with a class A license so I got them to go with me. We got to Smyrna, TN about 1030 without any problems except for paying $115 to fill up the pickup and two Jerry Cans with fuel. We found our trucks and started the inspection. The M35 with van body was first since we planned to tow the M818 with it due to insurance issues. It was missing the alternator belt and the batteries were dead. Jay let us take one off of a truck that hadn't been listed yet. We put it on our truck and found that our alternator was putting out about 40 volts. We then decided to check out the M818 and low and behold, it was missing its alternator belts also. It is getting about 1 o'clock now and Jay is ready to lock the gate, so we drive both trucks out of the lot and hook up the tow bar. We decide to pull the M818 with the M35 and turn the power switch off. We figured the batteries would run the stop and turn light. We had hooked up the air between the trucks, but at first it didn't seem to help. We double checked and sure enough, we had failed to turn on the service air. After that, the combination stopped and handled well. Going was an entirely different story. The combination would struggle to go 45 on level ground and would go down to 15 or 20 on the many hills in TN. But we were making progress. After we stopped to eat lunch, we found that the starter button would no longer work. After messing with it about 30 min we decided to just push it off and we were on our way again. Next we lost our air compressor belt. After another field expedite repair we were on the road again. Now it is getting dark. After running an hour in the dark with the lights running on the battery, we decided to run the alternator a few min to charge the batteries. I guess the load of the batteries pulled the voltage down some because instead of pegging out the volt meter it was on the line between green and high red. The extra load also stressed the belt because it broke a few more miles down the road. That meant we lost our water pump and had to stop again. We were just outside of Savannah, TN by then and it was getting late, so we decided to swap the trucks around and try to get to the house. We finally made it in about midnight. I got some pictures of the start, but all of the trouble kind of put me out of the photographing mood.
Here is a link to more pictures:
http://1plant4u.smugmug.com/gallery/4591805_mUqxW#270789495
