Trucking ‘Old School’ Style part two

As I mentioned briefly in part one I had been able to get out of the International Cabover, and had been able to move into my “new to me” 74 359 Peterbuilt.

It had a Jake brake, but you had to work it manually, if you left it on and “Jaked” the engine down, it would kill the engine.

I drove it for about three months, pulling a thirty foot East dump trailer. The sides of the east trailer were bowed out and not straight.

The pivot pins on the back of the trailer were worn out, and the trailer on level ground would sway back and forth “looked like” a foot or so, probably an inch or so because of the sloppy holes. You had to be extremely careful when dumping a load.

Nearing the winter time, our company would do a lot of work for the Ohio Department of Transportation. We would haul “rift – raft” rock, which is a rock about the size of the palm of your hand. ODOT used it to put in washed out parts of roads that ran along creeks. The process is to dig out the washed out part, and build long wire cages in a box forms, and fill with the rock, and set it back in place. Yes, we ran a lot of two lane, sometimes one lane roads to deliver for ODOT.

I remember traveling towards Gallipolis, OH. one particular time, and it was on a Saturday. We were on RT. seven, and I had a pretty good jag on my trailer, Saturdays were almost considered a free day to haul what you wanted as far as weight was considered. The DOT enforcement officers rarely worked Saturdays. I was running with a group of drivers about six of us together, when suddenly my trailer leaned to the right and almost turned over on flat ground. The “trunnion beam” that connects the trailer wheels pivot parts from one side to the other, broke and allowed the trailer to fall down on the right side almost touching the tires.

This truck looks almost the same color and all.

Oh boy, this was going to be fun, we had to stop in the highway as there was not a pull-off close by. So, after about an hour of assessing the situation and how we were going to attempt a fix on the side of the road. One of the cars that had gone around us must have called the state police because an OSP unit pulled up that just so happened to be a DOT officer.

Great, now we were all overloaded, and all were stuck sitting on the road. This cop was going to have a field day with us. Surprisingly he asked what happened, and not for our paperwork. We explained what happened, and he told us there was a pull-off just up the road where we could go and have the trailer fixed, and more importantly open his road back up.

He offered to escort us, as we were going to have to go slowly, and we did so. We got in the parking lot, and began to work on it. The officer left and said he would swing back later if we were still here and check on us. We came up with a “quick fix” by sliding a 4×4 piece of oak on top of the broken beam, and jacking the trailer back up level, and chaining it all together. LOL, I know it sounds like trying to fix something with duct tape when you need to weld it, but we did what needed to be done to get the load off, and get it home.

We set the trailer back down on the ground, which tightened it all up, and the piece of oak was holding, it worked. Just about that time, our little buddy the cop showed back up to “Check on us”. He looked at our fix, and questioned it quite a bit, but finally agreed to allow us to continue on.

When we finally made to our destination, we had to “pile up” some rock on the side that had broken because it still was not completely level with our fix. We piled up the rock to compensate the leaning trailer, and I was able to unload and finally head for home. It took us a few days to fix it after work, but we finally replaced the broken beam, but it never entirely fixed the trailer as it must have bent something when it broke. We would have to pile the rock up on one side from then on while dumping a load on level ground.

I remember saving the life (or scaring the life out of) an Ohio State Patrol officer one time, with the Jake Brake. The old Pete, had one single exhaust stack, but it was just the hollow shell of a muffler, and boy was it loud. Also, the stack was on the right side, so if you were on that side it was even worse. I was hauling a load to a concrete plant, in Ashland, KY. and the general route was to travel up U.S. 52 in Ohio.

Traffic in and around Ashland, KY. gets pretty heavy at times as U.S. 52 is a four lane road part of the way. I was just outside the city of Ashland, and was in the right lane starting up a small grade loaded very heavy. At the top of this grade is an on ramp. I saw a car and the trooper starting up the ramp, and figured they would meet me at the end of the ramp, so I turned on my turn signal to get over, which BTW didn’t happen. All of a sudden the cop decided to pull the car over at the end of the ramp. Anybody who has seen an OSP unit pull someone over knows they like to nose the front of their cars out in front of traffic while making a stop.

I guess they figure this will make people get over in the other lane. Well, that only works if the other lane will allow you to move over. This cop pops open his car door without looking, I saw it happen and threw on the binders and the Jake Break, and was not slowing much. The cop realized the mistake he had made, and hurriedly jumped back in his cruiser and slammed the door, as I blew past him. It couldn’t have been more than a few inches from his car. His car was doing a lot of rocking when I went by from the wind off my truck. I am betting he had to return to his barracks and change his shorts after that.

The area we ran in, saw our fair share of “rookie cops” we must have been the training ground for them when they graduated school. I guarantee you he learned a valuable lesson that day. I will end this “episode” on that note for today.

© 2010, Truck Drivers News. All rights reserved.