Deuce, Trailer, Dingo, Atl, Ga -> FIG, Pa.

[rmgill]

So wednesday, I'll be headed out to Fort Indiantown Gap PA for a WWII event. This'll be the first WWII event I'll be taking the Dingo to with my own truck. Part of the original reason I bought the 5 ton and then the deuce. So I could spend a few hundred instead of a thousand moving my WWII armored car from Atlanta to PA and back.

I'll be headed up I85 to I77 thence to I81 which goes right past FIG. I'll post some pics before I leave to show the trailer setup.

 

[Boatcarpenter]

Enjoy the trip and carry plenty of tools to deflect the evil breakdown spirits!

 

[rmgill]

I think I have everything I need. Wow, took me all day to get loaded up and I was already loaded up partially. Takes too long when you've got only yourself and you're trying to figure out a loadplan for Modern and WWII kit on the same truck.

I'm headed out. I'll have my cel phone 404-545-6205. Hopefully I can get up there no problem. Cross your fingers.

 

[cranetruck]

Take your time driving and you'll be all right. Have a great trip!

 

[rmgill]

You can't do anything but take your time. It took me nearly 10 hours to get to Staunton. Left the Ga Border area at around 10am. Around 500 miles. Granted, I have stopped every so often to check the truck out. 3 hours stopped time 10 hours drive time, (that's when the truck is running, fuel stops, bathroom stops, checking the tires, etc).

I had one scare coming out of the big Quicktrip in Atlanta, one of my UTG axle wheels on the trailer started to come off! A nice fellow in a Landrover gave me a heads up, a 20 minutes checking that one and all the other lug nuts and then again later down the road, then marking them has apparently solved it for me.

I was able to enjoy the Atlanta rushhour traffic that I normally get to miss and got about 70 miles out of Atlanta before I was just plain crosseyed. So I stopped at a TA truckstop, got some dinner and assembled my little cot to sleep in the bed. Bjorn's right, sleeping in a Deuce at a Truckstop is difficult.

I've chatted with cops twice now. The first was being pulled at the weigh station going into SC on I85. Apparently one of their new employee's passed me and told them to stop me, then when I got there the scale operator (fellow upstairs on the tower) started to check me out then had me pull over to the inspection area. Turns out they just wanted to look at the Dingo and Deuce. Then the other fellow there wanted to look, then the supervisor wanted to look.

I have about another 300 miles to go. More later.

 

[Polverone]

At least that's all they wanted to do, look over your equipment, and not start with the regs and such.

Picture(s).........................please?
Especially when you get there.
Have a safe journey.

Green with envy.

 

[cranetruck]

Good to hear from you Ryan, get some ear plugs for the truck stop sleep overs, it helps a lot. Those big rigs never shut down.
BTW, my favorite truck stop is the "Flying J".

Don't forget to check the lug nuts!

 

[doghead]

rmgill road trip

You can't do anything but take your time. It took me nearly 10 hours to get to Staunton. Left the Ga Border area at around 10am. Around 500 miles. Granted, I have stopped every so often to check the truck out. 3 hours stopped time 10 hours drive time, (that's when the truck is running, fuel stops, bathroom stops, checking the tires, etc).

I had one scare coming out of the big Quicktrip in Atlanta, one of my UTG axle wheels on the trailer started to come off! A nice fellow in a Landrover gave me a heads up, a 20 minutes checking that one and all the other lug nuts and then again later down the road, then marking them has apparently solved it for me.

I was able to enjoy the Atlanta rushhour traffic that I normally get to miss and got about 70 miles out of Atlanta before I was just plain crosseyed. So I stopped at a TA truckstop, got some dinner and assembled my little cot to sleep in the bed. Bjorn's right, sleeping in a Deuce at a Truckstop is difficult.

I've chatted with cops twice now. The first was being pulled at the weigh station going into SC on I85. Apparently one of their new employee's passed me and told them to stop me, then when I got there the scale operator (fellow upstairs on the tower) started to check me out then had me pull over to the inspection area. Turns out they just wanted to look at the Dingo and Deuce. Then the other fellow there wanted to look, then the supervisor wanted to look.

I have about another 300 miles to go. More later.

anyone here any more from ryan? did he make his destination?

 

[rmgill]

yep, I made it up there. I had a long weekend driving around in the woods of Fort Indiantown Gap flanking Germans and then a not so quick trip to Hatfield, PA. Then Monday I caught the train back to Atlanta, leaving the truck up in PA at my friend's place.

Work, naturally had lots of things going on and we changed our phone service so I was stuck with no DSL last night. I'll dump some pictures online later.

 

[mangus580]

Ryan, why did you leave your truck up there?

 

[rmgill]

Yep. Left it behind Jim Burrill's barn. He's had Bren Carriers and a C15 CMP truck in the past so he's very MV friendly. The Dingo is snug and warm in his barn with about 5 tons of his WWII kit, radios, and other bits. We'll be going to the Reading Airshow and perhaps Aberdeen, so it made more sense to leave the truck up in the area. Pre-staged for the re-enacting season so to speak.

 

[mangus580]

I figured that was the reasoning

 

[doghead]

glad all is well. looking forward to more on your trip later. If I'm lucky I'll see you at Aberdeen.

 

[rmgill]

So this is the combination that I drove up. I figure the trailer was around a ton and a half. The dingo is another 3.5 tonnes, so I was probably around 12,000 lbs towed. I loaded the Dingo pretty close to the front of the trailer to get the weight centered per Squirt Truck's advice. I had a pair of chains rigged from the trailer's pockets to the horns on the back of the dingo, the dingo was then pulled forwards to snug the chains up and then another Grade 70 chain was run from the front corner pockets to a pair of shackles on the front of the dingo's front tow eyes and then tightened down with ratchet type binders. The Chains were all one side of the trailer to opposite side of the dingo.

I also had 3 spare tires in the bed, plus two 6 ton jackstands, an air impact, die grinder, and air hammer/chisel, a nice bright orange air hose, glad hand/regulator, 2 coiled air extension hoses, socket sets, combination wrench sets up to over 1" sizes, two hammers, screw drivers, wire ties, spare wire, wire terminals, electrical tape, spare bulbs, wrenches, vice grips, wire crimper, spare MV wire terminals, and assorted other tools and safety gear. Oh, Fire extinguisher, Road Safety Triangles and 1.5' long flares, several flashlights and assorted fluids, spays, etc.

 

[mangus580]

Looks sharp ryan!

 

[rmgill]

As I stated above, I was running more or less full tilt, average speed for the whole trip was 34 mph, that's stopped and running time. When I was actually only running I was averaging around 47-50mph, with short blitzes to 55mph. I noticed that on the long climb up I77 past Bjorn's neck of the woods, the temp on the coolant got a touch above 180. On the flats of Virginia along I81, I was getting cooler temps around 170 or so.

Total distance was about 750 miles to Fort Indiantown Gap PA (I85 to I77, then I81 to just past Harrisburg and onto the PANG Post). Then from there to Hatfield/Lansdale PA for about another 90 miles by going up I81 to I78 thence to the PA Turnpike.

Surprisingly the turnpike only cost me $3. I can't say I found the quality of the PA roads along I78 and the turnpike to be all that nice. The worst surfaces I encountered were along both of those. The porposing I was getting from pavement joints was annoying, but not disconcerting as the steering was still nice and solid. I suspect my loading of the truck was just right as I hardly could tell I had the extra load back there save for heavy departures (when I had to turn around in a parking lot near Jim's house to get the right entry angle).

My notes for fuel milage aren't here, naturally I left them in the truck! I'll get Jim B. to check the book in the glove box to relate the fuel used.

My preference for the truck is to get either an S250 or S280 shelter setup in the truck for real cover at truckstops to avoid the $70/night expenses at hotels. Though, I did like the hotel at Staunton I've stayed at before. It makes a nice calm and quiet "almost there!" breather. Still, I've got a camping catalog of some items that would be ideal, combine a bank of batteries, some wood working, some metal working and some wiring, and I'd have a pretty sweet camper setup on the back of the truck. But that's for another posting.

 

[area52]

What kind of trailer is that?

Is it set up to run off of the 24v deuce system with the air/hydraulic brake system? or did you convert to 12v?

Glad to hear everything went ok and nice setup!

 

[rmgill]

The trailer is some no-name trailer that has a set of UTG axles with electric brakes. The data plate is missing so I have no real clue as to the exact load of the trailer, but the axles were made by one of the companies that Cequent took over decades ago (Hammerblow). Dexter's axles/seals match up for their 6000 lb axles, so I figure it's an easy 10,000lb payload trailer.

I bought it for $1000 and then, once I got it home and looked into, realized it needed new bearings, new brakes all 4 wheels, there was one wheel that had NO backing plate what so ever, 2 empty backing plates and one more that actually had the shoes and electric puck on it. A set of Dexter DXQ 9 hole backing plates worked out perfectly for it, but took some looking to find.

The electrical system on the trailer was completely changed save for the military 12 Pin electrical cable and the 2 Gamma Goat lights that it had on the rear. I added 4 replacement marker lights (2 of which apparently burned out their bulbs at nearly the same time, so I suspect a resistance issue that I'll check later) and replaced the rear corner brake/turn signal housings. I'm thinking that a flashing amber LED light on the left rear would be a good idea too just for safety. The neat thing is that I wired in the rear lights so the BO Marker lights work too, just for giggles. The Lights on the trailer are all 24 volt. I can quickly swap them out for 12 volt and the corner lights for the turn/brake lights are dual voltage LED type bulbs, so I'd really only need to swap out the marker light bulbs. But, I didn't install a conventional trailer socket yet, (I do have one though) so it's not really ready for that yet.

The Trailer has a 12 Volt Breakaway battery wired in with the 12 volt electrical brakes and I added 3 wires to the truck's harness so I could run a 12 volt power lead through the 12 pin cable as well as 2 wires to the trailer for the 12 volt brake power and ground leads. The Truck has a 24volt to 12 volt converter on the firewall, but it's not a properly sealed unit, so I'll be swapping that out later when I have more funds and using the vented unit in a shelter project. The 12 volt converter runs power for the 12 volt brake controller (Tekonsha Prodigy), power for a 12 volt accessory socket I added under the dash (gotta power the GPS and MP3 Player ya know!) and also provides power for the 12 volt breakaway battery charger back on the trailer.

As best as I could tell, the brake setup was spot on with the #2 boost setting. I didn't have a single stop that seemed like I was being pushed by the trailer AND it behaved. Though, I can say that I don't recall a single panic stop, so I either had none that got me worried or I just didn't have anyone trying to stop in front of my big slow truck. Even the mountains were easy, a touch of the brakes and I'd loose speed nicely.

 

[clinto]

The taillights look good, Ryan.

 

[rmgill]

Thanks! I can't take credit for the Gamma Goat lights. The guy I bought the trailer from added those.

I'm technically supposed to have three marker lights back there, but I suppose I can argue the trailer pre-dates that regulation just based on the HammerBlow axles. I thought about mounting the gamma goat lights up on the ramps with some boxes and protected wires, but didn't get around to that. It would raise the visibility of the trailer's tail lights better though. On the trip, I saw a flashing tail lamp that another truck had that seemed rather nice.

Seems like one of these would be ideal as it runs 12 or 24 volts. There's even a cutout on the rear of the trailer under the hinge for the ramps. Wiring it up would be trivial.