In. Finished my 14 day dispatch out in Asheville and drove the piece of shit truck they sent me out there with back. I hate that truck, it's absolute garbage. It probably wasn't back in the day but it is now. 1990 International 9300 with a 13 speed. It broke down so many times this past two weeks it was taken out of service until time to drive back, then I drove it. Transmission is so worn out that when its' in a gear it feels like it's in neutral. Air switches on the shifter leak like hell unless you hold the shifter just right. It shakes so damn bad you might as well throw your shit on the floor when you get in the truck because that's where it's going in ten minutes anyway.
It's not my truck, it's a neighboring county's hauling unit for the water tanker. It was "checked over" by the county personnel for that county before I was sent out with it, and some of the issues you can't tell it from a pre trip inspection so I'm not blaming anybody, but the drive tires were 13 years old. When I left with the truck I didn't know that, and they looked ok when i left, but this truck normally drives maybe 50 miles on flat ground at low speeds on the very rare occasion it's drug out of the edge of the woods. I drove almost 400 miles on them and they did fine and still looked ok the first morning of my duties, until driving around with 6000 gallons of water all day. That evening the dry rot showed itself and the sidewalls were cracked all to shit.
SO, it got 8 new drive tires on day 2 or technically 3, and I drove a comparatively nice Sterling instead while it got tires. Got the truck back from getting tires, and it seemed slow to crank but figured ah well it's cold. Nope, alternator shit the bed at some point on the way up and killed the batteries. 3 new batteries and that's when we tested the alternator to discern that. When we cranked the truck to test voltage, injection pump was pissing diesel on the ground, so we put it out of service. Alternator got put on Thursday and left this morning with the piece of shit.
As I mentioned the transmission sucks, and with all it's issues this morning before leaving I joked that I'd just get to the top of Black Mountain and just throw it in neutral and jump out and let it roll.
Well, I got to black mountain and when split shifting to slow down a bit more with the jake brake, it decides to not stay in the low side or go to the high side, it just did nothing.. so I was literally in neutral basically for a minute or two while fighting the stupid thing to decide to pick a gear. Thank god I was bobtail or I'd be a dead man probably.
Sorry for the long read, and I'll give more info and pics of the good stuff in the Helene thread, because I am really glad I got to be there to help as best I could. For now I'm gonna catch up on much needed sleep and poop on my own throne
(not in that order, poop first then sleep)
