2500 miles on my new toy

[silentbob]

First a big thanks to Justin (appalacious) for his help. He found me ground transportation from the Atlanta airport to the Warner Robins Air Force base 100 miles away for $35, found me a hotel right across the street from the base, inspected the truck before I flew out, picked me up at the hotel and got me through the gates and over to the DRMO.

2500 miles, one blown tire, a clogged fuel vent line, and a bad radiator cap later, I arrived in San Diego.

I'm too tired to finish right now. More details later.

 

[Bill W]

Wow
Coast to coast
Now thats a trip for the record books

 

[ojsdna744]

Now that's a road trip, glad you made it safely. Looking forward to "the rest of the story!"

 

[rockman]

Supercab international, pretty neat ride. How did the back seat sleep?

 

[wsucougarx]

Uh, I think he may have the record for a recovery trip.

 

[ida34]

Why didn't you get Jay to help?

 

[uoa]

Gives me hope... I am planning on driving my Deuce to Alaska at some point.

 

[11Echo]

Nice trip for sure! Did you run into any bad weather on that long ride?

 

[ETHOS]

long ride for sure, i wonder what the longest m35 ride was

 

[vtdeucedriver]

AWWWW and here I thought it was in a deuce!!!! He had a nice seat, maybe a heater and a airtight cab!!!!

Glad the trip went well.

 

[silentbob]

Supercab international, pretty neat ride. How did the back seat sleep?

I slept in the front seat. Pretty comfy. I want to build folding bench seats for the front and rear so I can have a queen size bed in the cab.

 

[silentbob]

AWWWW and here I thought it was in a deuce!!!! He had a nice seat, maybe a heater and a airtight cab!!!!

Glad the trip went well.

Air tight cab, quiet engine, automatic transmission, heat, a/c, stereo, power steering. The Air Force really knows how to rough it.

 

[11Echo]

long ride for sure, i wonder what the longest m35 ride was

I'm sure there have been farther but, maybe not colder then the 976 mile ride I just took with no defrost or heater. Brrrrrrrrrrr! Mine has the "spring seat" and I got along well with it.

 

[silentbob]

The trip started out pretty smoothly. The Air Force ordered this truck with every option except a cigarette lighter. This meant that I had no way of running my cell phone/gps/mp3 player. I drove the truck from Warner Robins GA to Atlanta to pick up a motorcycle. As I pulled off the highway I got a warning buzzer and and a light on the dash. The same light comes on for the oil or the temp. The oil pressure gauge showed good pressure but the temp gauge was non operational. I opened the surge tank and the coolant was low so I added some antifreeze and the light went out. I loaded the bike and filled the tank. When I went to take off the cap it was held on by a vacuum in the tank and the top of the tank was sucked in. I didn't have any tools and it was pretty cold out so any repairs would have to wait. When I reached my friend's shop in Oklahoma the outside temp had gotten above freezing and I decided to give the truck a once over. I started with the tire pressure sine they looked low. They were about 40 psi low in each tire. But when I got to number 6 I couldn't find a valve stem. Without a valve stem there couldn't be any air and sure enough I had been riding for 1000 miles on a flat tire. I checked the vent system on the tank and found that the hose itself was clogged. I replaced it with a piece of fuel line which eliminated the vacuum in the tank and made the engine run smoother. I took the truck over to a truck tire shop where they installed a new tube in the tire. They rolled the wheel into the cage to air it up in case it exploded. Here is a picture of the shop about one minute after it exploded.

After that they installed the spare tire. On the way back I stopped by a truck stop, bought a cigarette lighter plug and wired it into the fuse box. I drove the truck to Steve's house and had the coolant alarm come on again. I added more antifreeze but started to get concerned about a coolant leak or a blown head gasket. We could not see any leaks and there was no steam coming out of the exhaust. The following night I headed out for San Diego with a case of coolant in the truck just in case. I made one more stop to add some coolant and started thinking the worst that it must be a head gasket. Then the light bulb in my head went on. If the head gasket was blown I would have very high pressure in the cooling system and every time I opened the radiator cap there wasn't even normal pressure and on top of that the cap was very loose. So I checked the cap and the spring was toast. I followed the overflow hose down and sure enough there was fresh coolant dripping out the bottom. A trucker who was filling up next to me gave me a spare cap. After I swapped that out I had no more problems with low coolant. I finished the rest of the 1500 miles from Oklahoma to San Diego with only a 3 hour nap in the front seat of the truck. Oh, I also locked the keys in the truck with it running at a gas station and had to borrow a slim jim to get back in. Then the next night I knocked over a good size pine tree while backing it into the parking lot at my apartment complex. This caused the management to call a tow truck to have me removed. The tow truck guy didn't seem to know how he was going to tow this thing. I don't know either since the air brakes were locked and his little tow truck would probably pull its own front wheels off the ground if he tried to winch it up with the boom. I told him to move his truck and I would drive it out. He said I needed to contact the management. I said no and got in and fired it up. He decided it would be best to move his truck and let me out.

 

[Ozarker]

Wow, eventful trip. Thanks for sharing! opcorn:

 

[jpcj-7]

Wow sounds like a exciting trip!