Well that was definitely an interesting adventure. I will start out by saying this is NOT a rant at all I am happy with the truck and these things happen all the time. I just want to say what happened on my adventure and by no means is this a knock on the previous owner so don't take it that way! The guy I bought it from was great. He helped us out alot going over the truck and so on and is a great guy. I am not mentioning who it is because I don't know if it is ok with him to mention it. I don't like putting other peoples business out there without there permission. Having the 14.5 tires on there made that quite a slow drive. At 2600 rpms the speedo said 50, but all the radar speed stations I passed said 45 to 47. The truck was maintained by a member so I didn't think I would have any issues. I should have planned better for them anyway in my usual fashion but I didn't. This is my first diesel engine so I have a bit of a learning cure here as well. The previous owner didn't drive it that much and I am sure that is probably what caused the algae in the fuel tank. so on to the adventure.
My nephew and I flew out to get the truck so we couldn't bring anything of use with us really. We got the truck and headed to the DMV to get a temp tag. Getting the temp tag took 3 hours so we were well behind the time I had planned to get on the road and going to be driving in heavy traffic. We stopped at a Harbor freight to get some basic items for the truck; flares, fire extinguisher, triangles, misc tools, tie down straps, tow strap, sockets, flashlights, some 12 volt charge packs to keep our phones and gps on, and my first upgrade to my A3. 2 old school cup holders to hand on the door (a must have). We then made a stop in a O'reillys to get some Rotella, atf, rags and so on. I didn't get any fuel filters because the truck was taken care of very well by the owner so I didn't think I needed them. Oh by the way it was really hot and humid too. We got about 100 miles I think then the truck started losing power a little bit so we stopped in Willow Springs and got some fuel treatment and it didn't hit me to pick up a filter there(that was my first mistake I think but it could have been the 3rd or 4th). The truck was getting worse and really losing power climbing the hills. It was taking us forever limping up the hills at about 10 mph until we got to a hardware - truck stop and parked it till they opened. We got about 2 hours of sleep in the truck there until they opened at 6. They didn't have any fuel filters but we found a shop in the area that did. Brad from Ashers roadside service came out and brought us a filter and we also found a charge boot with a hole in it and getting bigger. We swapped out the filter and he offered to let us come back to his shop and repair the boot so we did. Those guys were great!!!!! They let us pull it into one of the bays and loaned us tools to pull that boot off, and cut us a piece of 3" high pressure hose to use as a temporary repair until we got home. If you guys have any problems with your trucks near Elsinore Missouri I recommend you call these guys. They will definitely help out and it didn't cost much at all. Only $60 for him to bring me a filter, loan me tools a shaded shop bay and cut me a NEW piece of high pressure hose to use as a boot. What a deal!! We then drove into popular bluff to get a few more filters and a wrench for it. Finally we were able to continue out journey again to my brothers place in east Kentucky after about a 10 hour delay. I thought we were thru with the hard stuff, but after getting some sleep there we came out in the morning to get back on the road again to Baltimore. Started the truck and all was well except.... the ctis was indicating a flat. Checked all the tires and they were low so we started checking the system. I found one of the plastic quick connect fittings on the front axle had a cut o-ring and was blowing air like crazy. We scrounged around and his neighbor had a 1/2" pipe plug so I removed the fitting and plugged it to take that tire out of the loop. Still no good the manifold pressure was too low even with higher rpms to inflate the tires. I had read the manual on that so I knew how it use the manual inflate with the system off. Using my brothers little pocket air compressor to inflate those all up from 22 psi took quite a while. Got the tires up and drove to a tractor supply and I hit the credit card again. For my second upgrade I removed the trailer air line on the rear passenger side of the truck and added a quick connect fitting after the valve. Bought an impact, air pressure gauge and a air chuck with gauge on it, 50 ft air hose, and installed the quick connect fittings. They had a bunch of other stuff on sale there too so I bought some of that as well. Luckily the last part of the trip was uneventful. We made it home and I am happy to have my truck. I have a bunch of things I am going to do to it now that I have been working on it. I am going to pull the ctis apart and find out why that stopped working, and replace all the 0-rings in those fittings. I also found a leak on the air compressor I am going to fix and rerun that main air line. Now I need to go get Maryland tags for it. That should be another adventure. Thanks for all of the input and help while I was out on the road. Hopefully this will help other to see as well not to take things for granted no matter how well the truck is maintained things still happen.
Thanks
