...I say my truck is possesed. Well.... read on.

Now, every week there's something going on with this truck. At the end of June I wrote about my king pins. Well... let me start with that and give the short version again and I promise I'll keep it short.

While on the way to get the king pins fixed the jake brake comes on and stays on. A week later I get the truck back and the jake has been disconnected under the hood for the time being. Gotta trace the wire and all that jazz. (yeah right) While driving truck home my new water sensor doesn't work. It's only a week old. Disconnect it again and plan on visiting Freightliner that weekend.

About 3 days later I discover the wipers don't work. EEEEK! Not good. Run into another ex LMT driver and he checks behind the switch panel, nothing. Check relays. Pull ALL of them. Nothing, but suddenly the wipers are working! Ok, pull ALL relays again to find the one that controls the wipers. Wipers (nor radio) ever lose power. That's odd....

But while pulling relays discover 4 are corroded, and one is cracked. Go to Freightliner, get new relays, idea pops in my brain. What if the new relays have fixed the jake? Plug it back in, and vwuahalla!!! Jake brake works correctly again.

Have Freightliner look at sensor, they discover lose connection. Drive one block and go back. Truck is shutting down AGAIN!!! The do more searching, discover wire connection and module are corroded. Still waiting on Detroit to send the part.

Head out on a new week.

By wens. I want to slaughter someone. Truck was running fine, even with disconnected water sensor. Customer I was delivering to drops a 1,000 pound bail of tin on my catwalk, it lands right on my electrical line and air hoses. <insert alot of bad language HERE>

Damage done: Air lines survived (amazed me on that one) but electrical line needs replaced. DENT in catwalk is trimmed by the frame underneath it. Dent in middle door on headache rack. Crack in catwalk. Outlet on tractor that elec. line plugs into is pulled away from it's base. They send me to their mechanic who welds the crack, there's a hole in his weld job. They replace air line. Attempt to bang out dent in headache rack door, don't succeed. That will need replaced. Their mechanics idea of inspecting the underside of my catwalk and truck consisted of sticking his head between the steps and fuel tank and taking a peek then stating, "It looks good."

WTF??!!??!!?!?!?!?

Fine. Call customer and tell them I'm taking the truck to get looked at by Freightliner. Go get my reload, notice a 'bounce' in the truck. Yeah, it's a semi, they tend to bounce. Not like this though. Get to Freightliner next day, they check truck and find a busted shock. It was so badly broken that you could wiggle the thing and hear it clanking the metal around it. (great mechanic my customer has there!!) Replace shock, but no other damage is found.

Learn that company that built my headache rack sold out to another company, so trying to find them to order new door. Have to find a way to replace diamond plating on catwalk as my headache rack (lucky me!) is all one piece.

Fine!

*note - when I called dispatch to tell them about the tin bail, he had to remind me that I'm lady (use of bad words) and told me not to hit anyone because he didn't want to have to bail me out of jail. That man is so funny!

Not.

Anywho....

Start out this week. So far so good... Go to Wisconsin, deliver, reload, go to Michigain, deliver, bounce to Chicago to reload and head for Des Moines. Notice truck is louder. The jake brake now sounds like a machine gun. This not normal, will have Freightliner check it out this weekend.

WRONG!

Will have Kenworth replace muffler on right side as there is an exhaust leak. Half a mile from truck stop I plan on eating dinner at a sudden loud rattle comes on. I think it's the jake again and disconnect it. Nope, still there. Another LMT driver is with me so he checks it out. *sighs* I need a muffler.

Same dispatch I say is funny, really is!! He tells me I can run like for a while. Don't need to replace it right away, it'll just rattle. Eh? I cross ONE single scale and I'm screwed. They hear that and I'm getting pulled around back and will get a full inspection. So, tomorrow morning I deliver and go get it fixed pronto.

Oh, when I got the truck only one speaker was working. Apparently you CAN blow 3 speakers listening to talk radio as the ex-driver of my truck did. I replaced the front one's within two weeks of getting the truck. Decided to fiddle with the back ones and put the one working speaker in the rear. Now all 4 work.

While I'm on the subject of radios... My truck has decided it doesn't like a certain song by Prince. At first I thought it was the CD, so I downloaded the song again and burned it again. It happened to get assigned the same track number. Again, about 5 seconds into the song it just stops. CD is running, but no audio output. Eject and reinsert CD and it plays just fine. So, I burn the song again and put it in a different track number. Guess what....

Jr. decides I'm not allowed to hear that song and cuts it off again. Can't be the CD player - it's fine with all the other CD's. I just got an XM radio and it's been fine with that. It's that ONE SINGLE SONG.

So, when I say my truck is possesed... don't think I'm nuts.

Ohhh I almost forgot...when I started driving the truck about a year and a half ago I dropped my phone. It was like two days later when I found it again sitting by the brake pedal. No, I didn't have it sitting on the dash, I never leave things that small up there. Hell, I even had two friends searching the front, one on each side of the truck with the doors open while I hunted in the bunk for it. We called it and called it...you could hear the cell phone ringing, but damned if you could find it.

And I can still say....I love my truck!