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New Member from Oregon/ Just Bought M923A2 First Ever, Advice?

FloridaAKM

FloridaAKM

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Well, if you guys are going to start a search party, I'll be really late trying to get there from Florida.

I hope the one I get comes from an individual, so the trip home blues won't be so bad. But then, I'll miss all the fun of bringing her home for the first time from the auction.
 
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poppypizza

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Oregon
Hey guys sorry its taken me so long to respond everything around the house has just been kinda crazy lately. But enough with that nonsense and on to the recovery,,, ask any questions you may have I will answer as best I can (about the trip, probably cant tell you much about mechanical issues).We first picked up a sweet Ford Focus rental car and took about every tool we could think of we had that might come in handy, we packed ALOT of stuff, spare diesel, gorilla tape, RIGHT STUFF (if you dont know what that is and work on cars i would recommend looking into it) So we left Wednesday afternoon from the spirit mountain casino area in Oregon and planned on driving all night into the morning on Thursday and arrive at about 7a at the Fontana site and our pickup time was 9:30a. As soon as I sat in the passenger seat I fell asleep instantly, my brother logged about 5-6 hours I would say and woke me up to start my shift of driving. I made it about 2 hours before I had to wake him up, such a smooth ride it makes me tired instantly. So needless to say he did 90% of the driving going down there. Everything went smooth made it to the Fontana site at about 7:45-8:00a. Went inside invoice in hand, expecting to get shooed away, but they were very nice. Asked if we had a pickup appointment told them at 9:30 and they said "Well we can't get you checked out yet, but do you want to go check your truck out?" Us "yes if we could that would be amazing." Them" does it run?" Us " It's suppose too." Them "okay well, sign in and go look around for your truck and bring it up here and we will work on getting you checked out." So we were pumped to go look around. It didn't take long, a few stops to admire other rigs along the walk back there. Found the truck in a row of trucks and it looked just as it did in the picture. So we opened hood and checked the oil.... It was BRAND NEW, New oil filter, new air filter, new transmission filter, new tranny fluid, full radiator, Diffs were just gone thru in 2012 (when the oil was changed looks like), same with the hubs or the CTIS maybe both? After checking all the fluids we cranked her over and she started right up. After letting it run for 20 mins and checking and listening to everything we cruised it to the front of the lot. Now came the moment of truth, I only had the Invoice, my I.D, Insurance for my pickup at home, and registration, other than that nothin. The lady was cool, asked for my invoice and I.D scanned it and signed a few things, wished us a safe trip home, then the other guy took a paper board outside, wrote a number off the door sticker and also wished us a safe trip. From walking into their office and walking out I would say MAYBE 10 mins Tops. So if your from Oregon and your thinking of going to get one,, DO IT! My brother hopped up in it and we started the drive home. Drove to pretty much the first gas station we found and topped it off and once again checked all the fluids with everything looking and sounding good we took off. After about 2-3 hours I started getting tired again so we switched vehicles (hoping it would help wake me up). Boy oh boy it was bouncy going down the freeway in that! Woke me up thats for sure! With everything going good our plan was to get as far if not home before sleeping. We made it about 100ish miles from the Oregon boarder before we had to stop and sleep. We stopped at a rest stop and slept, felt kinda sketchy because we didnt have either of our anti-car jacking devices due to going out of state. But being that tired it was easy to sleep. After a 4 hour cat nap we were back at it. Made it all the way right outside of Rosberg and got a phone call from a friend, He started telling me about the snow storm that was hitting and told me how bad it was where we lived. So we had to drop the rental car off in Roseberg and headed towards home both in the 5ton. About Eugene we started hitting snow, people were chaining up and off the road, not us just kept on goin'. So overall the trip went perfect I think, We had a awesome experience with GL with no complaints from us about them. I would also like to say is we planned to spend $6XX to drive it home at 10 Mpg (990 miles), after getting home we spent $460-$480 in fuel, So to my calculation it got much better then 10mpg!! Sorry again guys it took me SO long to post again but heres some pictures let me know what you guys think. Pictures aren't that good I know, I didnt have a camera just my crappy phone!
 

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Another Ahab

Another Ahab

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FloridaAKM said:
Glad to hear that you made it safe and sound. Awesome truck you were able to salvage @ the auction. Send me some of your spare luck if you have any left.
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FLoridaAKM, you look like you might be relatively new on-board here, so welcome to you.

Please start your own thread once you decide to "Go Green", so we can follow you. And you'll be lucky when you need it. Count on it.
 
FloridaAKM

FloridaAKM

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Location
Gainesville, Florida
I am very new on the board, but a determined newbie to get a 6x6 before summer. There are some up coming auctions in my AO this month & even though its not advised for a first time owner to get a truck from the auctions, its an option. Not wanting to take the shine away from the OP, I'll keep working toward my goal elsewhere.

Poppypizza, you & your brother are an inspiration in the acquisition of green (tan) iron. Thanks! After viewing your pictures, I'm stoked!
 
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poppypizza

New member
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Location
Oregon
Thank you! From what I saw on the Fontana property it looks like they have a pretty nice selection of nice rigs there. It defiantly was a trip in our lives that we will never forget and probably something we will never stop talking about. I really cant say enough about the people on here, everyone seems to be so nice and helpful. Do some research, and we watched it run and drive on the video on GL which was reassuring.
 
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