04/12/10 Arrived Phoenix Last Night

Our load was ready about 1730 Friday evening out of Columbus. We were to go to Kansas City and take a load that would be waiting there to Phoenix. Before we were able to make it to Kansas City, we received a message asking if we would be willing to go to Eagan MN, South Minneapolis area with an empty trailer and pull a load right back to Kansas City.

I suppose it was about an hour and a half later, we pulled into the Kansas City terminal and dropped and secured our trailer, deposited the paperwork in the night depository, and located an empty trailer to pull to Eagan MN. We hooked the empty, performed the pre-trip and headed for Eagan MN.

We made it to Eagan at about 1330, dropped the empty, hooked to the loaded trailer and headed back to Kansas City, MO. We arrived back in Kansas City at about 2115. I handed the paperwork off to the driver that would be pulling the load the rest of the way to Dallas, unhooked and re-hooked to our Phoenix load.

After performing our pre-trip inspection on the Phoenix trailer, We went to the fuel stop up the road, filled up with fuel, checked the truck and trailer over again, and headed for Phoenix.

We traveled U.S. 54 to Tucumcari, NM where we jumped onto I-40 west and ran that all the way to Flagstaff AZ and accessed I-17 south right into Phoenix. We made it to Phoenix at about 1930, dropped the trailer and went to bed, directly to bed, we did not pass go nor did we collect $200.00.

It was actually a bit warm in phoenix last night so we started the generator and turned the A/c on. Just about 2 hours or so into a great nap, the generator decided to quit running. I thought I could sleep without the a/c so I just went back to bed and tried to forget it. No such luck. The longer I lay there, the hotter it got.

I was able to get the generator running in about 30 minutes or so. It was overheating because of road grime built up on the radiator. I cleaned the radiator off a bit, and left the door open on the front for more air flow, and it seemed to be okay. Man was that good. I was tired and wanted to go back to bed. Which I did.

Tina got up this morning and turned on the water heater for a shower and then took off for a walk. I stay in bed a bit longer, until the generator quit running again, that is. It seems that the water heater being turned on had loaded the generator a bit more, causing the engine to run a bit warmer and the radiator fan couldn't move enough air to keep it cool. I knew what I had to do. I got my lazy rear end out of bed, got cleaned up, dressed and off to work. You see, driving isn't the only job you have when you are a truck owner/driver. You have to be a mechanic as well.

When I got outside I found the door for the front of the generator hanging, broken loose from its mounts. I removed the door and then the cover for the generator and set it aside. After removing all the pieces from around the radiator that would come off, I proceeded to spray the radiator down with a degreaser and let it soak for a bit. I decided as long as I was working on the generator, I might as well do a service as well. I removed the K&N Air Filter sprayed on the special cleaning agent and let it set for a bit too. I changed the oil and fuel filters and topped off the oil level. I also sprayed the rest of the generator down with degreaser and sprayed the area off with water. I repeated the degreasing of the radiator to be sure it was good and clean.

After a thorough cleaning and inspection of all wear parts and topping off the coolant reservoir I started work on reattaching the door to the cover. I had to drill out the broken rivets and install new rivets in their place. As Murphy's Law commands, "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." Both batteries for my cordless drill were dead. I keep them plugged in for emergency use but it seems that they have overcharged and are bad now. I was able to get enough juice out of them to drill 9 rivets out but that is all. They are completely dead now. Good ole Black and Decker junk.

I re-riveted the door to the cover and re-installed it to the generator. All is well now it seems.

I also changed the FS 2500 bypass oil filter on the truck engine. I love this filter. It only takes about 30 minutes from start to finish to change and keeps the oil amazingly clean. I run oil samples with every filter change to make sure the oil is still good and clean.

After completing the work on the truck, we headed over to the truck wash in the area. They also make a killer burger. I had them wash the truck while we had dinner and now, here we sit, watching television.

We don't know at this point to where we will be headed but I'm sure that after we get to sleep real good the phone will ring with our orders. We shall see.

In God I Trust
Have a Great Day and a Better Tomorrow
ADW