Wednesday, August 21, 2024

 Wednesday - night

I haven't watched any of the DNC, to start out with. Just don't know that I can stomach that garbage. I've seen a few of the highlights....Andy Beshear certainly made some waves with his ridiculous statement about Vance.

Anyway, today. Well, Just like any other workday, get up early, get in the truck, get on the road.  68 miles up the road on Highway 59 - very busy highway - a buzzer goes off with a light.  Oil pressure.  I look over at the oil pressure gauge and it's dropping like a bolt of lightning.  80 to 40 in a second and then down to zero.  

I turned the truck off before I even started over to the shoulder.  Truck engines are around 35k nowadays, maybe even more for that thing, a CAT engine. You run it without oil, you burn the engine up.  

I get out of the truck after getting it stopped and see oil all over everything. Amazing how all this oil was spurting out everywhere and I never saw a drop of it from inside the cab, just the way the truck is built.  The entire driver's side, underside and tanker were covered with it.  Open up the hood and there it was: fuel pump had 3 nuts gone and the pump popped out enough to spurt out oil literally everywhere.  Gallons and gallons of it.

It was then I knew the day was done.  I called the company, they sent out Love's, the mechanics had a heck of a time finding a repair kit. It's just the hardware and an O ring to put it back together.  This was an easy fix, it was just finding the stuff to fix it with.  I was there for 3 hours and 17 minutes.  

I was very happy that it was cool outside, long before the summer heat was going to kick in.  It's been getting cool in the mornings and that was a plus.  After that, over to a truck wash.  Love's opened up their version of one a while back at the facility in Prescott, AR.  I had never used it before, was hoping for a nice outcome.

I didn't get that. 2 men spent a little time on it but were lazy @$$es getting by with as little as possible.  They got around 85% of the oil off of everything and called it good. The wheels were still dirty, the tank was dirty, they did a horrible job.  Blue Beacon puts an entire crew of people on your truck when you go in there and for less money with far better results.  I had no choice, they wanted the thing cleaned up to go into the plant.  

I didn't say anything to them, no time for it nor desire to get into it with anyone.  I just left and went to the plant. That was one thing that did go right.  54 minutes and the tank was emptied out.  Amazingly fast, I wondered if they had unclogged something in the outlet tube and valve when they went inside it?

Yes, they had to get inside the tanker in order to clean all the dried up chunks of glue out of it yesterday.  I knew they were going to say that, the price tag to do it tho wasn't near what the manager was saying it would cost. He said over a grand, they actually charged $555.  The manager at the washout warned me.  It's as good as I can get it, I chipped away at everything with a shovel but some of it wouldn't come off.  If it falls over after this, nothing I can tell you.  

I didn't care, I was happy I didn't have to drive to Crossett to get it cleaned out and from the way it was working today? I'm perfectly fine with the results.  

Today is James birthday so we went to a local mexican food restaurant that has the goods. We're talking some of the best Mexican food in town. It's a small establishment, most people do take out but this time we sat down to eat.  

And now? The day is done.  I have tomorrow and Friday off because I have that doc appointment on Friday.  I didn't really want it off, I need the money but whatever. They've got me working this weekend of course.  Still, 2 days off, I can go to the property and continue on with the tractor work.  We're in the second week of having it there.  It's working, it just takes time. I would guess that I am close to half done with both ends?  Which reminds me, get some 25 foot wasp spray so I can kill off that hornet's nest.

I won't even go back there now until I get that done first. 

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