Big Yellow Tractor

Mick was offered a truck to take us to San Francisco, which needed to be returned to Penske, the idea being that we would bring back the repaired truck which had been left down there by another driver.


We were going to High River AB to collect a trailer to take down to Modesto CA, but when we went to pick the tractor up we realised it had no Tripak, so we wouldn't be able to stop in it overnight as it would be below zero.
After a little refresher and some tips from Martin and Val, and the loan of an inverter up at the yard (thanks you two) we took a trailer up to Calgary, then dropped it and went to High River for our California load.


The security people were really helpful to Mick when we went for the pickup (explaining the paperwork etc) , and it didn't take long to hook up and scale off at the plant before heading back to Lethbridge for a night at the hotel.
If there had been a Tripak (for heating), or if we could have idled the truck, we would have slept in it, but 'fraid not.

I took this picture of Mick to show the size of the rig (about 75') after we had slid the tandem to make it legal for California, but also to record a little bit of damage which was already on the trailer when we collected it.

Today we set off nice and early to the yard and after a pre-trip we had a quick short run down to the border where I quickly got my I94 which allows me to visit the USA, and is valid for three months.
The meat inspection is also at Sweetgrass, and we had help from yet another driver (thanks Adrian) who clarified the paperwork for us.
The inspection was a skip load, so we were only there half an hour.

So far so good.

Within a couple of miles of leaving the meat inspection Mick was complaining the truck was not pulling properly and a warning light had come on, and it certainly was chugging a bit, so we pulled over and he had a look under the hood.

He couldn't see anything wrong but he said it was still miss firing when he started it up again, and in the meantime another driver had stopped to see if he could help (thanks Jack).

We followed Jack into the truck stop in Montana and after a few phone calls we had two lads from a local company come out to us.

Their diagnosis was a faulty injector, and the instructions were to limp down to Great Falls MT and take it to the Freightliner garage in the morning, so off we went, and now it's another hotel stay for us and that's the story so far.

It was nice to note that we had plenty of friendly offers of help today from other drivers from the company, and it's just unfortunate that the truck let us down.
Mick will find out tomorrow what is happening with us and the truck, but in the morning he is going to the garage and another driver will be taking the trailer forward to California.



The rental truck still needs to be returned, and the company truck needs bringing back, but it may not be us that do it.