Nothing like a 1000 mile drive to get to know your new rig.
My buddy SebasSF and I flew into Grand Junction, CO last Friday to check out the 290 I'd been eyeing for months. She was definitely rough around the edges, but mechanically everything looked pretty good. We got a great price from the PO and headed off to a local trucker shop to have some work done before starting back to SF:
- 6 New Dynatrac ST-990s + 1 Spare
- 2 Front Koni FSDs
- Full Chassis Inspection
- Genset Serviced/Tuned
- 2 Front Lower Ball Joints
- 2 Front Sway Bushings
- New Oil Cooler Lines
- Fixed Transmission Pan Leak
- Suspension Alignment
We ended up taking I-70W out of Grand Junction SW to Las Vegas to avoid a winter storm. The rig ran great, plenty of power up steep grades and only slowed down a bit on Salina Summit, UT (7,923 ft). The fuel gauge did seem to give pretty ballpark guesstimates on what was in the tank (bouncing +/- 1/3 tank
) ... this almost got us into trouble at one point.
We were in the middle of UT doing some fuel calculations - miles driven/est. MPG vs. gallons added at last fill-up vs. best guess on tank capacity (60 gal?) I figured that in our worst case scenario we had about 40-50 miles left in the tank. I pulled out a map and found we were exactly half-way between Green River and Salina. I was a bit concerned to also find out this was exactly the mid-point of "the longest distance anywhere in the Interstate Highway System with no motorist services". Yep - no gas station for 50 miles, a new-to-me rig, a bad fuel gauge, unknown MPG, approaching fumes on a 60 gallon tank, and an 8000 ft summit between us and the nearest gas station.
Won’t do that again.
We stopped off in Vegas that night and I won big at blackjack. Good luck all around on this trip.
Now I’m working on getting this thing CA smog legal – hoping my luck holds.
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