CINCPAC
New member
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- Location
- Houston, Texas
My son and I drove to Biloxi from Houston on Sunday, and met my daughter and her mechanically-inclined boyfriend for dinner and a little gambling. I knew if I had her along, my luck would be great. Sure enough, she won $370 that night. She would play secretary and work on the insurance (I had been turned down three times on Saturday before it got too late to continue) while we worked on the truck. We arrived at the 255th Air Control Sqdn. in Gulfport on Monday loaded for bear. I had read and taken to heart all of the great advice here on what to have with you, and what procedures to follow when recovering a Deuce.
The wonderful folks in maintenance at the 255th had already backed a pick-up in front of my truck and were preparing to pull it off. I held up a hand and said, "Let's make sure this is the right truck." Sure enough, the SN on GL listing and the SN on the truck did not match. A cute young (female) airman walked down the line of trucks and found it, two trucks down. But that wasn't my truck, either. It was green, and mine was desert. They assured me that the only desert sand truck in the collection was the one they were backed up to. A quick call to GL's Mississippi rep clarified that she didn't-know-what-had- happened-but-it-wasn't-her-fault-she-didn't-write-down-the-numbers.
No harm, no foul, I guess. It's not like GL actually puts the serial number on the paid-in-full invoice. And it's not like GL gets the serial number from anyone but me when I turn in the SF-97 request.
That settled, I turned to my new best friends in maintenance, and said, "Let me get familiar with this thing before we pull it off. I want to check the fluids, etc. By the way, how long has this been sitting?" The answer was two years. I thought, "Oh, s***. That's not good."
I checked the oil. Had to do it twice because I didn't believe it at first. It was full to the brim with the prettiest oil I had ever seen. I mean, how clean can it get? Next the radiator: full to the filler neck with coolant. The boyfriend crawled under the truck and confirmed that, yeah, that looks like it has to be the brake fluid reservoir. That one took about a half gallon of brake fluid. I crawled under and opened the drain cocks under the air reservoirs. Nothing. We check all the tires. No sign of dry rot or cracks. The axle boots were there with no tears. We greased every fitting that we could find. My son had worked hard to pull the batteries and it took the two of us to get them up and into the bed of the truck. We installed the new heavy duty truck batteries I'd gotten at Sears, and waited until the last to hook them up. I knew it was going to be a long drive, that the end of it would be in darkness, so I had decided that pulling this off only to find that the generator didn't work was a non-starter for me (pun intended).
We checked for hydrostatic lock, and then I had the boyfriend take up position with a 2'x4" at the air intake in case the engine ran away. I took a deep breath and pressed the starter button for real. It fired up in one second flat. All the gauges but the temperature came up and into the green.
I drove that truck 394 miles from Gulfport to Houston in 9 and a half hours. It is a sweet truck. There wasn't even a hiccup along the way.
Thanks to all the great guys here who provided such superb advice on how-to-Recover! You are fantastic.
If I have any complaint it's that (sniff) it's not a whistler. Here are a few pics taken on I-10:
The wonderful folks in maintenance at the 255th had already backed a pick-up in front of my truck and were preparing to pull it off. I held up a hand and said, "Let's make sure this is the right truck." Sure enough, the SN on GL listing and the SN on the truck did not match. A cute young (female) airman walked down the line of trucks and found it, two trucks down. But that wasn't my truck, either. It was green, and mine was desert. They assured me that the only desert sand truck in the collection was the one they were backed up to. A quick call to GL's Mississippi rep clarified that she didn't-know-what-had- happened-but-it-wasn't-her-fault-she-didn't-write-down-the-numbers.
No harm, no foul, I guess. It's not like GL actually puts the serial number on the paid-in-full invoice. And it's not like GL gets the serial number from anyone but me when I turn in the SF-97 request.
That settled, I turned to my new best friends in maintenance, and said, "Let me get familiar with this thing before we pull it off. I want to check the fluids, etc. By the way, how long has this been sitting?" The answer was two years. I thought, "Oh, s***. That's not good."
I checked the oil. Had to do it twice because I didn't believe it at first. It was full to the brim with the prettiest oil I had ever seen. I mean, how clean can it get? Next the radiator: full to the filler neck with coolant. The boyfriend crawled under the truck and confirmed that, yeah, that looks like it has to be the brake fluid reservoir. That one took about a half gallon of brake fluid. I crawled under and opened the drain cocks under the air reservoirs. Nothing. We check all the tires. No sign of dry rot or cracks. The axle boots were there with no tears. We greased every fitting that we could find. My son had worked hard to pull the batteries and it took the two of us to get them up and into the bed of the truck. We installed the new heavy duty truck batteries I'd gotten at Sears, and waited until the last to hook them up. I knew it was going to be a long drive, that the end of it would be in darkness, so I had decided that pulling this off only to find that the generator didn't work was a non-starter for me (pun intended).
We checked for hydrostatic lock, and then I had the boyfriend take up position with a 2'x4" at the air intake in case the engine ran away. I took a deep breath and pressed the starter button for real. It fired up in one second flat. All the gauges but the temperature came up and into the green.
I drove that truck 394 miles from Gulfport to Houston in 9 and a half hours. It is a sweet truck. There wasn't even a hiccup along the way.
Thanks to all the great guys here who provided such superb advice on how-to-Recover! You are fantastic.
If I have any complaint it's that (sniff) it's not a whistler. Here are a few pics taken on I-10:
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him to death
