Part II, Shipping and Receiving
It was January 2, 2025, I was parked up the canal from Starbucks in Redmond Oregon and I received a call that the truck was arriving in my hometown later in the day. Crap. I’m 400+ miles from the delivery location and there is no way I’m going to make it to the only loading ramp I could find in town. In an ally behind the old Diesel and Machine location. My other guy wass working about 10 miles away, my wife was home with the six and two year old, it was going to one a scramble and phone tag but we could pull it off. If my wife has her phone turned on.
I called my wife, she called her mom, kids are good to drop off. I call my guy, RJ, he’s jacked The New Worktruck is coming and is down to go get it when my wife comes to pick him up. I text the delivery driver, he gets back with me and he’s sucked his seat cover into his ass as he’s coming over Lolo pass on highway 12 and its just snowed 6-8”. Glad I decided to pay for delivery and let someone else take the liability and time.
My wife called me, the truck is there, looks as advertised, RJ got it unloaded off the flatbed and around the wonderfully placed power pole that’s lined up with the ramp and off to the job RJ was working at. I got a chuckle out of the entire operation as the very first trip The New Worktruck took is not to my house but straight to the rock quarry. RJ sent me a picture of it, I’m rolling down I84 in the Columbia River gorge at 70mph, yeah I looked at my phone, sue me. My route home takes me by the quarry that RJ is at and The New Worktruck is parked at, of course I had to go by and see it.
It was dark when I got there, its a white Freightliner as advertised, lights seem to work, sounds good, doesn’t miss, no rock chips or cracks in the glass, leaks air like a mother, has weird flip flop looking rolls of material in the cab for no reason, and what the hell is this hole in the hood? Is that a bullet hole? I chatted with RJ for about half an hour, ran the truck, looked it over with a flash light and called my wife before I headed home in The Old Worktruck. She met me at the house, about 25 miles from the quarry, we flipped and went back to the pit so I could get The New Worktruck. It took far too long to build air which gave me time to adjust the seat, or at least try to. Empty and with the low 4:30 gearing (most over the road trucks have 4:10 or 3.92 gearing in the west where we have mountain passes, some flatlander trucks have higher gears. Hire gearing is numerically lower numbers. For example mt 93 Dodge pickup had 3.54:1, most 70s and 80s rear wheel drive cars were around 2.92:1) its a rocket, fastest truck I’ve ever driven, at least up to about 55mph, granted I’m used to my loaded box trucks, my underpowered M929 dump truck and the junk I drove in the army. Off to the inlaw’s place to chat some more and then home to a well deserved shower.
The next day I got The Old Worktruck ready for the comming job and had a chance to look its replacement over. It was as clean as the extra pictures I requested showed, no rust at all on the frame outside of a few spots where scuffs and dings had happened over its 20 year service life, averaging less than 5000 miles a year. Siting can be hard on stuff though, the airlines on a tractor are largely exposed to the sun and weather. Plastic and sunlight don’t mix. I broke two of them just giving them a little bit of a flex test, then I looked at the fittings for the airlines, also made of plastic with plastic keepers instead of brass like the older international stuff I was used to. So much for saving time not having to move the axle and shorten the airlines, I had to replace airlines, how many? All of them I decided. It was far more involved and expensive than I anticipated and like Henry Ford is reported to have said, you can get them in any color you want as long as they are black. I went to three of the local truck shops, black, they had black, one had some 1/8” line in blue. ‘Why do you want any color than black? Everyone only ever wants black.’ I’m not everyone and I’m not your hack mechanic who doesn’t have to work on the truck more than once, the colors have meaning, they are 12 to 20 feet long and tracking a leak in the dark on the side of the road is my problem when it happens. My first priority in taking care of my customers is getting to the job. Since I have been doing this job on and off since 2002 I have never failed to show up to the job when I said I was going to be there and get it done.
The younger parts guy at Idaho Truck bothered to listen to me when I inquired about factory colors of airline, he could get it and would, I made a list of the line I needed, overestimating on length and a starter list of pushlock swivel DOT fittings, in brass. A few days later a $2500 box of airline showed up. Turns out I ordered almost too much of everything. Whoops. Better extra than be short. Thankfully the weather was good for February and I started in, one airline at a time only to realize that the Freightliner engineers not only have never driven a truck but likely have never driven a car over a curb, the airlines hanged down below the air and fuel tanks, in one place only 8” off the ground, worse yet the positive battery cables ran parallel with them but even dumber, passing between the frame and front drivers side spring, dangerously close to the tire at full lock. What morons designed this thing? Chrysler/Benz. Damn it I bought myself my second Dodge after swearing them off after living with my 93 W300 for the better part of a decade. I had cut the Ram up with a torch the previous spring and it was the best day I had with it since the day I bought it. Thanks for the 12 valve Cummins and the Dana 60 Chrysler, so long scrap iron.
It took me about a month and a dozen trips to get more DOT air fittings but I got all of the lines replaced, or nearly so, I still need to replace the two to the seats but those will be replaced when the interior gets redone. Along with replacing the airlines I rerouted them, and moved the air tanks, swapped the fuel tanks from left to right, moved the rear fuel tank brackets forward almost 3” which required drilling new holes with the mag drill (if you have not heard me talk about the Magnetic Drill in commentary or my brief time on Twitter let be extol their virtues. If you do any metal work GET ONE they are a Godsend, your wallet will only hurt for a couple of months after the purchase of the drill and Hougan bits from 3/8 to 1), flipped the air tanks around, moved them forward nearly a foot which also raised them about an inch in the back, welded in three more bungs in one tank, got the airlines up inside the frame except for a 16” section where I had to route around the lighting computer (anyone remember when relays and a switch were good enough for that job?), moved the fuel lines (another trip into town at the after hours Kenworth parts counter, the night crew is FANTASTIC to deal with and funny, I should take them a box of donuts here more than a year later for telling me stories and listening to my dirty jokes), and finally routed the battery cables to where they wouldn’t drag on the ground while making them a foot and a half shorter and less likely to chaff. I plan on driving this thing for 12 years and want to eliminate having to be under it as much as possible, especially with the box on it. I have three herniated discs, a bad knee, questionable shoulder, a fake ankle, and have had seven surgeries on my feet, I don’t need to be crawling around under a truck on the side of the highway if I can design my way out of it.
Then I started on the interior. It had a cracked dash all right. Every single piece of plastic excluding the dome light, door handles and the window cranks in the cab were broken. Freightliner in their infinite wisdom decided that the base of the structure for the dash should be the core of the HVAC. The duct work is the dash, its high density styrene. And its awful. It all had to go. I tracked down the part, an improved version for the low price of $1500, it would be in Pasco WA the next week via Salt Lake City. It spans the entire width of the cab and is about 20” on the other two sides. Had they designed in a horizontal steel tube or two to hang the dash and HVAC off of like a lot of Japanese cars have, most of the dash would have survived. Again, engineers who don’t understand the daily use of the thing they are designing and the forces it is subjected to. Pushing and pulling on the tractor air valve which operates the parking brakes is something that a driver does multiple times a day, dozens if he’s an in town delivery or short hall driver. That valve in the M2 trucks is bolted to a spindly rectangle of high density polystyrene that is part of a sub assembly which bolts to the HVAC core. Some parts I found new on Amazon, some I scoured Spokane WA to find and the one truck junk yard in Hermiston OR. I found them all, not always perfect but in each case better than what I had in The New Worktruck. Why outside of the facts that it was 20 years old and a crummy Daimler/Chrysler product was it all broken? This truck was low mileage. The air valve likely did the most damage, the lighter version of the M2 trucks is the 106, many of them have automatic transmissions and a parking brake that is operated with an electric switch.
As with most projects this one snowballed into a monster.
Once I heard somewhere in my youth when doing estimating to double the cost and then add 20%.
Experience has taught me to triple the cost and quadruple the time. I was originally hoping to have the NewWorktruck on the road before Christmas 2025. Its late Spring 2026 and its still parked in my driveway with no box on it.
I don’t do HTML, AT ALL so here’s a song with a regular long link. I meant to post this on the first New WorkTruck piece but I’m scatterbrained. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiZHNw1MtzI&list=RDPiZHNw1MtzI&start_radio=1
I call my guy, RJ, he’s jacked The New Worktruck is coming and is down to go get it when my wife comes to pick him up.
Your wife is picking up Brussels sprout-headed aliens?
Former logger with clown tattoos.
Close enough.
Must be a relation
Highly likely.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ETiSMS4i1as
Off to the inlaw’s place to chat some more and then home to a well deserved shower.
At least you didn’t take a picture from the shower. :-p
I do listen to Tom Woods in the shower.
One time I spent my shower with Tom and Moj.
I love punching those holes.
Enough with the euphemisms….
I always use plenty of lube. Makes your bit last longer, keeps the friction down. https://www.trick-tools.com/11747-Hougen-RotaFoam-Cutting-Fluid-15197?gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21071235021&gbraid=0AAAAAD3SIVQD4pkr-XY9S_RgAZtZzUu0a&gclid=CjwKCAjwqubPBhBOEiwAzgZX2gRTij2yo9FdxVQFl8xPa59kC6nUwTN7AoMjCAK64NGFkwDduFqvORoCupkQAvD_BwE
My old Jeep JK had 4:11 gears and a manual. From about 0 to 4 mph it felt like a rocket.
After that the 3.8L V6 quickly ran out both torque and HP.
Probably has tiny tires too.
We had a 2014 Ford Raptor. It had 4:10s but it had an overdrive trans and 35” tires on it. Started to get sluggish around 90, rev limited at 107.
“Chrysler/Benz” Something about that feels so wrong. I’m fairly sure I’m correct to have misgivings.
Your diagrams confuse me. The anti-compound line is compounded with many other things. Where’s the fuckin’ key go?
Key goes to the left of
The steering column on the dash. One of the things they got correct, my first running vehicle was a 1969 Chevy half ton 2wd short box stepside pickup. It properly had the ignition on the dash. GM went to the steering column in 73 for the light trucks. I have liked the key in dash ever since. Wing windows as well. This truck does not have wing windows but they were an option. After completely disassembling the doors it’s a good thing it does not have wing windows, the window channel just isn’t strong enough to do double duty for the window and a wing window, they likely leak like crazy.
If it had a Lucas wiring system in it it would take the cake, the trifecta of automotive suck.
An Irish trucker song. When my dad bought his first Freightliner he told people he bought a Mercedes.
I’ve been warned to stay away from the ones with the Mercedes engines. One of my neighbors one with the Mercedes, he loves it. Either the other guys got lemons or my neighbor got a good one.
My dad owned 2, but they were both brand new. He traded the first for the second after 3 or 4 years for tax depreciation reasons or something, then had to retire from over-the-road a few years after that.
The last 3 on here were trucks he owned, the rest he just drove.
He likely paid the first one off and rolled what equity it still had I to the other one. An OTR truck driver can put on a ton of miles a year, making a $200,000 truck pay for itself in a year if everything goes well for him.
Owner operator can do OK, now that trucks start around $250,00 and go easily up to $350,000
A new midrange like um building starts around $150,000 now.
I saw a few years ago used trucks with condos were going cheaper than RVs though when RVs got run on after the lockdown times; so there is that.
Nice find. It seems to be based on this song, a favorite of mine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMa1gdmOrkA
***
I’ll eat when I’m hungry
I’ll drink when I’m dry
I’ll court all the lassies
Or at least I will try
And I’ll never conform til the day that I die
Agus fagaimid suid mar ata se
***
The last line in Irish means “and we will leave that as it is”.
My last name’s Irish. My cursory research indicates that it means outlaw or fierce. Family history bears this out.
https://valor.militarytimes.com/recipient/recipient-22222/recipient-22222-2dsc-1/
Genetically I’m Irish. I’m not Catholic. I don’t speak Irish. I’ve never been to Ireland. Maybe someday. There’s a bar named after me there.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/hartys-bar-and-restaurant-tralee
Same first and last name as me. I’m a real-life Lieutenant Dan.
https://www.vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/21804/THOMAS-J-HARTY/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUsyMyHmqI4
Australian trucker song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQn7_EtIhUg&list=RDjQn7_EtIhUg&start_radio=1
You think that wiring is tough to puzzle out, try a Pierce fire truck. Wiring diagram fills a large three ring binder.
Fire stuff is nutty.
I’ve only looked at them.
It’s the canbus that pisses
Me off. I can’t do anything with it as you can add circuts and switches but you need to program the computer to talk to them. It’s a lot of extra complexity when like the fire apparatus if old you could just run three wires and a relay for everything you wanted to add.
I wish I had a language converter-Mechanic to English.
Good job, T’door. I call Robby S when I need to change a tire.
I know enough to muddle through.
Sometimes I know enough that I could have saved a crap ton doing work I paid someone else to do, often paid them to do it poorly. I wish I had done automotive or gone to welding school rather than chasing an engineering degree only to end with an elementary Ed degree, almost.
Fake it till you make it.
It all starts with righty tighty, lefty loosie and checking volts and ohms with a multimeter.
Im dangerous around electronics these days. 15 years ago i could wield a soldering iron. These days? Well let’s just say that I had to buy a replacement instrument cluster for my truck.
Used to we took the tubes out of the TV set and went to a repair shot to test them, get a new tube as required. Now we just buy the next bigger screen TV and bring it home and plug it.
Add be and in wherever they fit.
Today I learned that the Talmud teaches that Jesus is being punished in the afterlife by being covered in boiling excrement.
***
Onkelos said to him: What is the punishment of that man, a euphemism for Jesus himself, in the next world? Jesus said to him: He is punished with boiling excrement. As the Master said: Anyone who mocks the words of the Sages will be sentenced to boiling excrement. And this was his sin, as he mocked the words of the Sages.
***
https://www.sefaria.org/Gittin.57a.4?lang=bi
It’s not surprising, yet you’d think Jews would realize that non-Jews might read the Talmud.
For a non-religious guy like me, it’s like saying Megatron could totally beat up Optimus Prime instead having to resort to treachery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7GeisRaias
I’m currently doing an oil change on one of my generators, unable three of them with the same engine and my bulldozer used the same filter, one would think I would have four or five on the shelf.
Nope.
Dang it. I’m not running back into town today.
0:2 projects for me today. I was hoping to run the other worktruck after putting a turbo on it and an oil change. Not happening either, I got it all but buttoned up and realized I needed to take the radiator out so I could replace the front crank seal. Which International couldn’t find on the parts breakdown for the truck.
Start or buy a small business. You’ll have plenty of time and money.