jenandjon

68 seems to be my sweet spot. Anything under 60 I have to put it 9th gear or it lugs too much. I get 8-8.5 mpg pretty consistently. With my old smaller trailer, I averaged 9.

Have you thought about having it wrapped? It's a lot cheaper than paint.

Everything looked good. Typical shavings on the drain plug. They go it apart and recommend a bearing kit because they are all out of spec. However, there is not one available anywhere in the country. The bearings in the tail shaft where the Youk comes in are the worst but those are available. There is a washer in there that was spinning with the bearings. That did not do any damage, but it's not supposed to move. Worst case they will just replace those and have to run it with the others. The bearing kit cost $950. The only one they could find was on eBay for $1250. Not paying a price gouger an extra $300. For the miles I put on and I'm not pulling 95,000 Lb loads like I do with the work trucks. If they put the 2 in by the Youk that will have to do. They are going to keep looking and call in a few days. I should mention that this rear end came out of a single axle tractor, and it has a locker. They didn't just remove the front axle and leave the rear. So, this thing is huge. 3 of us couldn't pick it off the floor to put it on a pallet. Had to carefully roll it on. It took it to Inland truck parts. If you are familiar with them. They are really good.

Got the diff pulled out yesterday. Taking it in to get checked out today. Hopefully in a couple days we will know what if anything is wrong.

We have a 09 one ton but its deleted and straight piped. It will get 20 empty and 12-15 with a 30 ft stock trailer loaded with cattle.

I get a lot of generic parts from Freightliner and Napa. Our local CarQuest also handles truck parts.

Replacing all your air lines certainly can be done. We had to replace a bunch on one our farm trucks after a shoddy welding shop burned holes in them with welding splatter when he was fixing the dump box. It was not a fun job.

its no secret I have been chasing a vibration in the driveline. I threw a bunch of cash at it last year before the West coast rally with very little results. A few weeks ago, I was shooting the bull with the manager to the local Kenworth dealer, and I mentioned my problem. He suggested checking the rear end. So, I put the truck up on jack stands and put it in high gear. Let the clutch out engine idling. It took about 5 seconds to find the problem. The rear end was really growling. Took a video of it and put the truck away until I found a new rear diff. I will try to post the video here, but it will be on the FB HDT page. It will be interesting to see what the keyboard commando mechanics have to say about it on there. The other day we took some time and went to the farm trade show to see all the new goodies. I ran across the booth for Inland truck parts. I asked them about my noisy rear end. (Insert joke here) He said to replace its $4,800 with the locker. I played the video for him, and he said sounds like a bearing we can fix that much cheaper. So, hopefully we get caught up on stuff around the farm next week so I can get the differential pulled out and up to them to rebuild.

Scratch that. Looking at the wrong month on the calendar. It was actually several weeks later.

Jen and I were at the National rally for a couple days. I got covid a week and a half later. So maybe I picked it up there also. Jen didn't get it. How long after the rally did everyone get sick?

There will probably be another variant by then.

Thanks for the info. I am lookin gfor some seer tires for one of our trucks. The wide mixer type tires for a 20,000 lb steer axle. 385 I think.

You may not get wat you want. You might have to settle for what's available. I just had to put Yokohama on my work truck. Not what I wanted but they are a good tire. Decent price at $411.

They all leak. You will drive yourselves crazy fixing every little thing. Dont sweat the small stuff.

Got 8 new drives on my work truck. Didn't get what I wanted had to get what they have. Got Yokohama for $411 apiece. Same ones I have on the HDT. I got 8 new trailer tires just in case along with 4 hight scrub tires for our tag axles. I also earned that Michelin is no longer going to make 24 shorts. So if you want some better get them now.

Don't forget to turn left at Albuquerque.

Here are the pictures.

Finally got around to changing out the dip stick that started leaking on the way to the West Coast Rally. It's good to see my roadside patch held. Once everything was taken apart and cleaned up it turns out that the rubber clamp in the first picture had silicone in it. It appears someone already patched it once. Now the rear seal in the transmission is leaking. But I am one step closer to finding the vibration in my drive line. I believe its in the rear end. I jacked it up and put it on jack stands put the transmission in 10 gear and let the engine idle. The rear end was making all kids of noise.

That's a good idea. Then you don't have get out and try to find it.

When will that be? I got mine 5 years ago when truck prices started going crazy. They never stopped. I still watch the auctions as a hobby. I will say that there hasn't been as many nice trucks for sale as there use to be.

For a HDT where we don't put on a bunch of miles just about anything is good. There are only 2 brands I will never buy again. Duraturn and Double Coin. If that's the only choice I will go with Double Coin. I've run Bridgestone, Yokohama and Toyo a lot on commercial trucks with no problems. As a matter of fact the drives on my HDT right now are Yokohama. Uniroyal is pretty good. I have one Michelin and one Uniroyal steer tire. I had to change one on the road so I got the cheapest tire I could get my hands on. Figured Id change them both when I got home but it actually drives really good so I left it. The Uniroyal has a deeper tread and likes to throw rocks. When the Michelin ages out I will get a new pair of something. The tires I had that my brother "stole" out of the shed were Continental. He really likes them. So that's what I was going to get more of they were only $390 a tire.

I hate Denver. Any route around is better than through. I ran all over eastern Colorado in the 90s pulling a grain hopper. really pretty country.

Many of you have probably already felt the pinch of shortages. I am gong to share with you what 2 different dire dealers told me this week. If you even think you might need tires for anything in the next 6 months you better get them ordered now. I had 8 new drives for my commercial truck in the shed until we needed them on a different truck. I went back yesterday to get 8 more. 11R-225. They have 4 of this and 4 of that but no sets of 8. They have over 1000 tires ordered but they show up 10 or 12 at time. No idea when they will get anything. Same thing at the other dealers. No Michelins or BFG until the first of the year. No promises then either. Good luck everyone.

I keep the same kind of binder in my commercial truck as I do my HDT. It's real simple. Get a binder and a few of the clear 3 ring sleeves. Each page has its own thing. Truck registration on one then trailer registration then insurance cards. In the HDT I have a print out from the DMV of the requirements to do a RV conversion. On the last page is where I keep track of oil changes. It is a total of 5 pages. That is literally all there is to it.

WOW those are nice. You could go into business building them. LOL