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I won a M929 a couple of weeks ago at Pineville, LA. So last week a buddy went with me to pick it up. I think all of the trucks in the auction ran with or without a jump and looked to be in pretty good condition.
I scheduled the pickup for Wednesday, so we drove up to Alexandria, LA on Tuesday and got a hotel. It's about 850 miles one-way from Orlando, FL and that equated to about 14 hours on the road @ about 70 MPH with stops. My buddy said the drive back at 50 MPH was going to suck; I told him not for you..... We arrived at the base a little after 8am and after a short wait for the DRMO person, (she doesn't work for GL, but works on the base) we were escorted to where the trucks were parked. I wish I had this young woman's name now so I could say how helpful she was (I have it on my invoice, but it's in the truck). She didn't rush us and was very patient while I checked fluids and pre-tripped the truck.
The truck started right up and I hooked my glad hand air hose up to the emergency glad hand so my buddy could air up the front tires while I finished looking things over. The only things I found were the insulation under the hood was falling off and the exhaust pipe had a crack just below the muffler. We ripped the insulation off and put it in my vehicle and I checked the muffler was bolted on top and bottom to make sure it wouldn't fall off if the exhaust pipe broke at the crack. The paper work was signed and we drove outside the gated area where the trucks were so the DRMO person could go meet another person with a load out. We put the tailgate in the up position and folded the wings against the side of the bed for the trip home.
The next stop was the Murphy gas station right outside the base gate (that was convenient) to fill everything up. The M929 was over half full of fuel so that was a nice bonus. Then it was time to hit the road. I stopped about 10 miles after we hit I-49 to check everything and use my IR thermometer check temps. The oil pressure gauge didn't work (it did start working after a real rough section of road), but it wasn't working in the GL video so I figured it would have blown up by now if the pump wasn't working. The transmission temperature was OK but the coolant temperature was only about 140 on the gauge and confirmed with the IR. Hub and axle temps were very cool at around 90, and no hot brakes. I planned to stop a little further down the road if the coolant temp didn't come up and put a piece of card board in front of the radiator (which I did). The wiper blades were shot so we hit a Wal-Mart to get some RainX. That was a very good idea because we ran into heavy rain just south of Lake City, FL and I would have had to stop if I hadn't RainX'd the windshield. The ABS light was on. I've driven air brake trucks without ABS and didn't really notice anything different about this truck. I've read stories about the engine stalling when you bomb the brakes with an in-op ABS and you loose steering. Don't think I would like that.
The truck ran fine and after the tires got round, the ride wasn't bad (G177 radials). We stopped in Gulfport, MS for the night and hit the road early in the morning for the remaining 400+ miles. The trip was long but un-eventful. Parts of the road in LA and MS beat me to death but it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be.
This is my First M939 series truck and after a fair amount of "wheel" time, I can safely say, I like the automatic transmission and air brakes. They make things almost like driving a car (big one). And the fuel mileage surprised me; I got 7 MPG. I only get about 6 MPG with the M818. Maybe the radial tires or the transmission make a difference. I figured it would be around 5 MPG if I was lucky since it weighs almost 26K.
The biggest surprise was after I got home I found a zip lock bag with a print out of work that was done to the truck. In 2005 the government spent $50K to refurbish this truck. There are ten pages of parts that were replaced. From dog-bones to transmission, engine, looks like darn near everything.
I scheduled the pickup for Wednesday, so we drove up to Alexandria, LA on Tuesday and got a hotel. It's about 850 miles one-way from Orlando, FL and that equated to about 14 hours on the road @ about 70 MPH with stops. My buddy said the drive back at 50 MPH was going to suck; I told him not for you..... We arrived at the base a little after 8am and after a short wait for the DRMO person, (she doesn't work for GL, but works on the base) we were escorted to where the trucks were parked. I wish I had this young woman's name now so I could say how helpful she was (I have it on my invoice, but it's in the truck). She didn't rush us and was very patient while I checked fluids and pre-tripped the truck.
The truck started right up and I hooked my glad hand air hose up to the emergency glad hand so my buddy could air up the front tires while I finished looking things over. The only things I found were the insulation under the hood was falling off and the exhaust pipe had a crack just below the muffler. We ripped the insulation off and put it in my vehicle and I checked the muffler was bolted on top and bottom to make sure it wouldn't fall off if the exhaust pipe broke at the crack. The paper work was signed and we drove outside the gated area where the trucks were so the DRMO person could go meet another person with a load out. We put the tailgate in the up position and folded the wings against the side of the bed for the trip home.
The next stop was the Murphy gas station right outside the base gate (that was convenient) to fill everything up. The M929 was over half full of fuel so that was a nice bonus. Then it was time to hit the road. I stopped about 10 miles after we hit I-49 to check everything and use my IR thermometer check temps. The oil pressure gauge didn't work (it did start working after a real rough section of road), but it wasn't working in the GL video so I figured it would have blown up by now if the pump wasn't working. The transmission temperature was OK but the coolant temperature was only about 140 on the gauge and confirmed with the IR. Hub and axle temps were very cool at around 90, and no hot brakes. I planned to stop a little further down the road if the coolant temp didn't come up and put a piece of card board in front of the radiator (which I did). The wiper blades were shot so we hit a Wal-Mart to get some RainX. That was a very good idea because we ran into heavy rain just south of Lake City, FL and I would have had to stop if I hadn't RainX'd the windshield. The ABS light was on. I've driven air brake trucks without ABS and didn't really notice anything different about this truck. I've read stories about the engine stalling when you bomb the brakes with an in-op ABS and you loose steering. Don't think I would like that.
The truck ran fine and after the tires got round, the ride wasn't bad (G177 radials). We stopped in Gulfport, MS for the night and hit the road early in the morning for the remaining 400+ miles. The trip was long but un-eventful. Parts of the road in LA and MS beat me to death but it wasn't as bad as I was afraid it would be.
This is my First M939 series truck and after a fair amount of "wheel" time, I can safely say, I like the automatic transmission and air brakes. They make things almost like driving a car (big one). And the fuel mileage surprised me; I got 7 MPG. I only get about 6 MPG with the M818. Maybe the radial tires or the transmission make a difference. I figured it would be around 5 MPG if I was lucky since it weighs almost 26K.
The biggest surprise was after I got home I found a zip lock bag with a print out of work that was done to the truck. In 2005 the government spent $50K to refurbish this truck. There are ten pages of parts that were replaced. From dog-bones to transmission, engine, looks like darn near everything.
7mpg is impressive too.
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