jedawson1
Member
- 420
- 22
- 18
- Location
- Murfreesboro, TN
I helped a friend join the addiction this week by helping him recover his recent GL win, a 1985 M929. Since I have a CDL and a M923 he decided I would be an asset to have along for the trip. Which translates to, "I was there to drive."
Murfreesboro, TN to Fort Polk Louisiana and back in 2 1/2 days.
We departed in the cold rain Monday after work drove through the night and arrived in Alexandria, LA at 4am catching 2 hours of sleep then grabbing breakfast and arriving at the GL office at 8:45 am. Truck was listed as needing a jump but it started right up, I checked all the fluids, inspected the batteries (4 new batteries ) in the cold rain. We checked the running lights, tires and brakes gave a big thanks to Linda the GL rep. she was a sweetheart.
Tuesday Morning we departed Fort Polk at 10am in the cold rain, drove across Louisiana and made it to just north of Ferriday, LA when a brake began to drag (not lock up) and we had a tire that wasn't holding air at the same time. Fortunately I brought tools and we jacked up the truck in the cold rain and used the gov't provided lugnut socket and pry bar to change the inner rear tire on the drivers side. We used the wedge puller to deactivate the brake and were back on the road in 2hours. Did I mention it was cold and raining? We continued on Newton, MS where the truck started loosing power due to what we believe was water in the fuel, pulled over at a gas station and topped off the tanks in the cold rain, added fuel treatment tugged on the primer a few times and the truck fired right up with a consistent idle. We got back on the road and made it to Meridian, MS around 7pm where we grabbed a bite to eat and a hotel room for the night. Set my alarm for 5:30am enjoyed the hotel's "free" breakfast and coffee. Departing at 6am Wednesday Morning we drove the rest of the way home in the cold rain arriving back to camp around 2pm Wednesday.
Words of "Recovery" Wisdom:
1) GL is a crap shoot and its highly likely you will need to do some kind of in-trip repair or modification to get home.
2) at 55mph it takes much longer to cover the same distance you just drove in your truck at 80mph, 450 miles is a long day.
3) Soft Top M939 series trucks are extremely loud, bring earplugs to go under your earmuffs.
4) These truck have 10 lug-nuts on the outer rim and 10 on the inner rim, that's 20 giant lug-nuts with several hundred pounds of torque applied to them. Better be in good physical condition!
5) Like a sailboat needs wind, you should never attempt to drive your truck home if you have to be back at a certain time. Sh*t happens and Mr. Murphy loves to interrupt a schedule.
6) You need to have tools on hand and a chase car is a good idea, we would not have spotted the dragging break had my chase car not smelled it.
7) Its also a good idea to have a transport company on speed dial should you encounter a critical failure, that can be hard to do when you have no internet service on your phone.
For the money and time spent on a long distance recovery, it doesn't cost much more to just freight the truck home.
9) Recovery's can be a good time and fun memories, just be prepared and not in a hurry. When you hurry you make mistakes and mistakes are expensive and can be deadly with machinery this size.
Murfreesboro, TN to Fort Polk Louisiana and back in 2 1/2 days.
We departed in the cold rain Monday after work drove through the night and arrived in Alexandria, LA at 4am catching 2 hours of sleep then grabbing breakfast and arriving at the GL office at 8:45 am. Truck was listed as needing a jump but it started right up, I checked all the fluids, inspected the batteries (4 new batteries ) in the cold rain. We checked the running lights, tires and brakes gave a big thanks to Linda the GL rep. she was a sweetheart.
Tuesday Morning we departed Fort Polk at 10am in the cold rain, drove across Louisiana and made it to just north of Ferriday, LA when a brake began to drag (not lock up) and we had a tire that wasn't holding air at the same time. Fortunately I brought tools and we jacked up the truck in the cold rain and used the gov't provided lugnut socket and pry bar to change the inner rear tire on the drivers side. We used the wedge puller to deactivate the brake and were back on the road in 2hours. Did I mention it was cold and raining? We continued on Newton, MS where the truck started loosing power due to what we believe was water in the fuel, pulled over at a gas station and topped off the tanks in the cold rain, added fuel treatment tugged on the primer a few times and the truck fired right up with a consistent idle. We got back on the road and made it to Meridian, MS around 7pm where we grabbed a bite to eat and a hotel room for the night. Set my alarm for 5:30am enjoyed the hotel's "free" breakfast and coffee. Departing at 6am Wednesday Morning we drove the rest of the way home in the cold rain arriving back to camp around 2pm Wednesday.
Words of "Recovery" Wisdom:
1) GL is a crap shoot and its highly likely you will need to do some kind of in-trip repair or modification to get home.
2) at 55mph it takes much longer to cover the same distance you just drove in your truck at 80mph, 450 miles is a long day.
3) Soft Top M939 series trucks are extremely loud, bring earplugs to go under your earmuffs.
4) These truck have 10 lug-nuts on the outer rim and 10 on the inner rim, that's 20 giant lug-nuts with several hundred pounds of torque applied to them. Better be in good physical condition!
5) Like a sailboat needs wind, you should never attempt to drive your truck home if you have to be back at a certain time. Sh*t happens and Mr. Murphy loves to interrupt a schedule.
6) You need to have tools on hand and a chase car is a good idea, we would not have spotted the dragging break had my chase car not smelled it.
7) Its also a good idea to have a transport company on speed dial should you encounter a critical failure, that can be hard to do when you have no internet service on your phone.
For the money and time spent on a long distance recovery, it doesn't cost much more to just freight the truck home. 9) Recovery's can be a good time and fun memories, just be prepared and not in a hurry. When you hurry you make mistakes and mistakes are expensive and can be deadly with machinery this size.
