West Coast Rally in Sparks NV

[SunJuniper]

to anyone coming to the Rally , does anyone have a truck newer than 2010 that were hooking up to my computer??

[RickS]

Lou,

Mine is 2015 which has changed to an OBD II port for diagnostics.

[RickS]

Lou,

If it helps I have and adapter cable that I use to adjust the factory TPMS in the truck. I can bring it with me.

 

[SunJuniper]

Lou,

Mine is 2015 which has changed to an OBD II port for diagnostics.

thats why i was asking. i dont have one of the new adapters for mine. if you want to bring yours , it would be appreciated.

 

i need to get one for my diagnostics laptop...

[dennisvr]

 

West Coast HDT Rally

Begins June 19th, 2015

Ends June 21st, 2015

 

Location: Sparks Marina RV Park in beautiful Sparks, Nevada

http://www.sparksmarinarvpark.com/

Currently 10 sites have been set aside for the WCR (more are available and can be added if needed). The cut-off date for the 10 sites to be released back to the campground is May 15^th, 2015, so make your reservations soon.

 

You are welcome to call the office at Sparks Marina RV Park (775-851-8888) between 8:00 am & 5:00 p.m. to make your reservations.

 

If you would like to arrive earlier or depart later you are free to do so. When making your reservations, please mention that you are a member of the “WCR – HDT” group to get our pricing.

 

If you are bringing a pet please mention this when you call.

 

The Agenda has not yet been formalized. Any ideas, suggestions or input will gladly be accepted by emailing Scott Almquist (MrSeas) at almquisc@verizon.net or Chad Heiser (Chad Heiser) at chadheiser@att.net

 

I would also ask that once you have made your reservation that you email me at almquisc@verizon.net or PM me here on the forum to let me know so that I can accurately track and co-ordinate everything with the campground.

 

We are looking forward to seeing lots of the West Coast folks!

 

 

I called the CG and the person I talked to didn't know much about the group rally. I asked for pricing and she told me it was $36.77

for back in and $41.88 for pull thru, does this sound right.

I'm hoping to make it up there, I have a lot of questions for you guys before I go the HDT route.

On second thought I'm not sure its a good idea to join you guys. After seeing that RickS is going to be there with his new rig he built I'm thinking that I will only want one like his and knowing that its out of my reach it will just kill me. LOL Well I guess I could go and just set and look at it and drool.

Seriously I'm looking forward to seeing how each of you put your rigs together to get Ideas of how I what to do mine.

[MrSeas]

If they get "lost" have them look up my name and us my reservation as an "guide".

Pricing seems right......we are all in the pull-thru sites due to our overall lengths.

If you would like a "back-in" site that's fine just ask them to put you in a site near our pull-thru sites.

[MrSeas]

For those still "undecided" today is the last day for the RV Park to "block" our sites for the Rally.

There are lot of "activities" in the Reno/Sparks area the weekend of the Rally so I suggest you get our reservations in.

Looking forward to having a great weekend with our "gentle giants" and their handlers!.

[dennisvr]

Reservations made for June 19th & 20th leaving on Sunday the 21st

[MrSeas]

Awesome.....looking forward to meeting you. PM sent

[dennisvr]

Awesome.....looking forward to meeting you. PM sent

 

I have a change of plans and will not be able to attend the WCR this year. The other day the General Manager of the Kenworth dealership that I’ve known for the last 10 yrs called me and said he had a position opened and wanted to hire me. I told him I was comfortable in my retirement and told him thank you, but that I wasn’t interested. He asked me to think about it, I did and that was my mistake.

That night I thought about it and thought it may be a good thing to pad my retirement and be able to travel the way I want to, so I called him back the next morning and told him I would give him 1 year. Being the salesman that he is he talked me into 2 years.

So I am now the Service Manager for Pape Kenworth Leasing division (Paclease), well I start tomorrow anyway. So if any of you are in the Stockton CA area and have to have work done on your rig look me up, I’ve known the Service Manager in the dealership truck shop for many years and I can see that you’re treated fairly.

I would like to say thank you for answering all my questions and the way I have it figured is, If Calif gets there s__t together and lets us Lic them as a motorhome I will be in the right position to get the pick of the litter.

Thanks again

Dennis

[rdickinson]

Not sure if I should respond here or start another topic. If someone wants to move it, fine but it impacts Canadians in BC and the Rally in Sparks.

 

Firstly, the individual at the RV driving school clearly overstated the position of ICBC. When the instructor came to the RV park where I'd spent several hrs readying the rig for the road, he looked at it and said Holy S--t, that will never get thru. They, ICBC, won't know what to do. Also you're not going to take the Smart car are you??

 

So handing me getting my Class 5 and air endorsement with one hand they, ICBC, took my AB license with the other and told me my rig could not go on the road without me having a Class 1. The truck has air the trailer is 12v. If one or the other has air, a class 1 is required. The class one can be unlimited using a standard or limited using an automatic. The truck with the standard is in use by others so automatic it is. The truck is an International and feathering the throttle to hook up doesn't work, it hammers the pin. Even the Instructor hits it harder than I'd like but says it's OK.

 

You can go onto Albions site and do all 260 odd questions like I did then try the test. I got 86-92% on the practice questions a couple of times but got 73 on the written which failed. 80% is a pass. In the manual, it did say knowing the answers to the questions does not guarantee you will get the same exam questions.

 

So I hit the books, reading until I can't focus, learning about cleaning floors once a week in school buses and what strength chains are required for what loads and how many needed.

 

You will also need to do a pretrip inspection of both units. Around the truck, under the truck, under the trailer, around the trailer, light check, in cab pretrip, air brake check on truck and trailer as well as a tug test. yes, you will have to slide under the truck on your back checking truck rear end, U joints, brake chambers, slack adjusters.....the whole meal deal in less than 45 minutes including filling out the paperwork.

 

I'm 170 lbs and 5-10 ish, sliding under is a little awkward but anyone substantially heavier or with issues may find that part a serious challenge. There will be a 1 hr road test which the instructor said should not pose much of a challenge with a few hrs training. The test also has you back into a spot, parallel park, disconnect the trailer, back up parallel to the trailer, pull ahead and hook up. There may be some slight variations but this is the gist of it.

 

My first pretrip was 71 minutes, second one 60, 3rd 45. Now after 7 or 8 tries, it's down to 26 not including paperwork. I go to their open yard before 7 am and after 6pm, pop the hood of the Cornbinder and run thru the whole meal deal. Sometimes they leave the cab unlocked and I do an actual cab pretrip. If its locked I pretend as best I can.

 

So to get to the short strokes, you can't drive the combination, electric and air without a Class 1 restricted to an automatic or unrestricted with a standard. The learners license will only be given out after the written exam is passed. 35 questions. ICBC doesn't care if it is for an RV, as the examiner said " we are not prepared to make changes for a fraction of 1% of the people".

 

So best to hit the ICBC book, Driving Commercial Vehicles, bring it up on the computer if you want. It will even read it out loud to you from the computer. Look up Albion driver training, go thru the library of practice tests.

 

If your truck isn't on the road now, do it now so you are not "benched" like I am.

 

As far as the Rally is concerned, my rig is ready to go. Surgery Monday on the thumb, stitches and cast off on the 11th. Dr doesn't want me driving until cast is off. I will return to Victoria sometime next week write the test and hopefully pass then get on with the driving part. Not sure if all that can be completed along with successfully passing the driving test, but I will try.

 

Driving instructors cost between 75 and 100 hr. They aren't needed to stand over you doing the pretrip, I can come over to the mainland and if their yard is open, we can simulate a pretrip. No charge for me, just pick me up from the ferry or we can make other arrangements. Your instructor may have his own way of doing the pretrip so if I am aware of that, I can modify mine to fit.

 

There are a lot of things to remember, some of them are an automatic fail if missed. Chocking the wheels, checking to make sure jaws are locked. Doing pretrips all day is tiring and sometimes frustrating. Trying to get all those words out of my mouth that fast and not tripping over myself.

 

Best not have arthritis or some other physical issues, even running and biking, I make the old man noise....grunt.

 

Almost 6pm, traffic is dying down, off to the yard to do another pretrip.

 

Let me know if I can be of any help.

 

Roger

[mr. cob]

Howdy Roger,

 

That was a heck of an ordeal to go through, best of luck to you.

 

Dave

[rdickinson]

Dave,

 

How do you post that big pic at the bottom of your post? Or did I already ask you? Shallowdraft is also wanting to know.

 

Ordeal is far from over.

 

Roger

[mr. cob]

Howdy Roger,

 

I have my photos hosted by "Smugmug", in my very biased opinion the best all around photo hosting site on the internet, costs a few bucks but its worth it. I have had my photos on Smugmug for over 10 years.

 

If you have your photos hosted someplace you can go into your profile and where it talks about your signature you can put a link to your photo in your signature and it will show up. I asked the same question about 9 months ago and one of the other members explained it to me in much more detail then what I just did. I am sure I am forgetting something, I am not much with computers and depend on others who have such skills to advise me on such things. I still haven't figured out how to post an avitor, (sp) I'd like to use the one I use on all other web sites I participate in but so far how to do it has eluded me.

 

Dave

[rdickinson]

Dave,

 

I did the avatar a couple of months ago. My other computer got stolen and the new one has windows 8 which I had downgraded to Windows 7.5....sort of. Anyway My camera has small pixels, I'm told by my Computer trainer, and the pics won't compress. We have to crop and reduce in size to get the Avatar to post. My avatar is cropped but if you click on it the pic that shows isn't cropped as much.

 

Your pic at the bottom is what I'd like if it can be figured out how to do it.

 

I'll Google Smugmug up and see what it says.

 

Thanks

 

Roger

[mr. cob]

Dave,

 

I did the avatar a couple of months ago. My other computer got stolen and the new one has windows 8 which I had downgraded to Windows 7.5....sort of. Anyway My camera has small pixels, I'm told by my Computer trainer, and the pics won't compress. We have to crop and reduce in size to get the Avatar to post. My avatar is cropped but if you click on it the pic that shows isn't cropped as much.

 

Your pic at the bottom is what I'd like if it can be figured out how to do it.

 

I'll Google Smugmug up and see what it says.

 

Thanks

 

Roger

Howdy Roger,

 

"IF" you like what you see when you research Smugmug, before you join up contact me and I'll give you a code that will save you a few bucks and give me a small credit toward my next years use. The thing I really like about Smugmug is there are NO ads all over your screen, you can send photos by email with NO ads, others can view your photos with NO ads, you can post photos with NO ads, for me with all the ride reports I do this is a real blessing, it also makes it EASY to post photos to sites like this one.

 

Dave

[rdickinson]

Will do, I was using Dropbox but they wanted a fee, forgot what it was. What does your site charge?

[mr. cob]

Will do, I was using Dropbox but they wanted a fee, forgot what it was. What does your site charge?

Howdy Roger,

 

The fee depends on which level of service you use, because over the years I have had so many people use me as a referral after reading my ride reports and such I haven't paid a fee in 10 years. I think the low level service which includes unlimited photo and video storage and use is around 30-40 bucks a year, I know that are cheaper places but they spam you and the folks who look at your photos with ads, and I hate those darn ads that take up half your screen and make it difficult to use the site or irritate those you send a link to.

 

Dave

[MrSeas]

 

I have a change of plans and will not be able to attend the WCR this year. The other day the General Manager of the Kenworth dealership that I’ve known for the last 10 yrs called me and said he had a position opened and wanted to hire me. I told him I was comfortable in my retirement and told him thank you, but that I wasn’t interested. He asked me to think about it, I did and that was my mistake.

That night I thought about it and thought it may be a good thing to pad my retirement and be able to travel the way I want to, so I called him back the next morning and told him I would give him 1 year. Being the salesman that he is he talked me into 2 years.

So I am now the Service Manager for Pape Kenworth Leasing division (Paclease), well I start tomorrow anyway. So if any of you are in the Stockton CA area and have to have work done on your rig look me up, I’ve known the Service Manager in the dealership truck shop for many years and I can see that you’re treated fairly.

I would like to say thank you for answering all my questions and the way I have it figured is, If Calif gets there s__t together and lets us Lic them as a motorhome I will be in the right position to get the pick of the litter.

Thanks again

Dennis

 

Dennis,

 

Congrats on the job!!!

Sorry you have to miss the Rally!

[GoldRush]

You should tell your boss that you will be recuiting new clientele at the rally and have them pay the expenses.

[dennisvr]

You should tell your boss that you will be recuiting new clientele at the rally and have them pay the expenses.

 

I like the way you think.

[MrSeas]

Just a reminder the Rally is fast approaching.....I've sent an email to everyone that is on my list of "confirmed" attendees so please check you email.

I enclosed a copy of the "social" events and a list of the "known" attendees so please look them over and let me know if I covered everything.

 

Looking forward to a great time......

 

Please remember "EVERYONE" is welcome regardless of what you choose to pull you 5er with! The more the merrier!

 

Scott Almquist

almquist@twc.com

[RickS]

Looking forward to the trip down! Got my new passport today and my DW should be getting her's in a day or two. We both renewed our passports for 10 years this time.

[rdickinson]

Just did the passport ten year thing. Looking at my 5 yr old pic was bad enuf, a 10 tr old pic down the road will be positively depressing.

 

Rick where are you located?

[RickS]

Roger,

I'm in Edmonton, AB. Leaving for WCR June 15th or 16th. I may stop in Calgary to get a few things done on the truck at Trans Western Truck and RVhaulers.