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Towing


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7 hours ago, autumnwalker said:

Right on! What would be the purpose of a sleeper on a tow truck? Would they do long distance?

Yep, all the time, if ya get a run up to cape Breton or into newbrunswick, after ya already put in 5 hrs of your shift, by the time you get to your destination, the driver ends up being  out of hours. Or even heading down to Yarmouth, that would be around 7 hr round trip in a towtruck including loading, and unloading and driving time, easy to run out of hrs while on the job so the sleeper pays for itself, rather than turn down the job or cut into the expense of the job with motel or accomadations.  here are a couple local trucks with sleeper bunks

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8 minutes ago, autumnwalker said:

Very cool! I'm learning a lot about tow trucks.

When it's up and running, I can take ya out on a call or two, of course after the pandemic clears up

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  • 1 month later...

Alright, pre mvi done, have a list, can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Few more repairs needed and she will be legal, on a side note, coming home from pre mvi, lost power, and the truck was dieing, left me stranded on the road. Engine not picking up fuel, just changed the fuel filter a week ago with a genuine cat filter. Did a couple of roadside checks, blockage all led to the filter, even siphoned fuel up through the feed line and blew back through into the tank,  lines were clear. The filter I had removed prior to the cat replacement,was a carquest fuel filter that was on the truck since before I bought it, and made the trip home from Ontario, and some running while here, amazing the filtration difference in filters for the same position. The cat filter might just be too effective in filtering fuel, lucky I wasn't alone and had help from Tom and Tab, new carquest filter, bled out the injection lines and away she went. Made the rest of the journey with no issues. Also a note on the cat filters, the oil in this big ol' diesel was black as tar when I changed it, fresh oil and a pair of cat filters, the oil looks as if the truck has never been ran since the oil was dumped in. It has had several starts and a few hrs of running time and a trip to and from the shop since the oil change and it's still clear.

 

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  • 1 month later...

Ordered a GPS speedometer as the original speedometer reads wrong, and with the 2 speed rear end throws it out alot including milage. The GPS speedometer is digital and cheap, to track milage on the towtruck I'm going to install a Hubometer, which will fasten to the hub of the wheel, and when the tire turns , it tracks the revolution and is permanent set to the tire size on the truck. Basically an odometer on the wheel. Here are pics of a Hubometer and the GPS speedometer I have ordered.

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Received the GPS speedometer yesterday, has some secondary functions on it that are unable to be set, like the altitude, it only goes down to 750m and up to 995 for calibration, doesn't do much good around here to calibrate it and was showing 1435m right out of the box, But the speedometer works great , tried it in Tracey's car yesterday, seems accurate and can be calibrated if needed but seems close enough for me as is. Finds signal quickly once powered up. And can shut off all secondary functions so that just speed is displayed in the center of the screen. Feels cheap in fit and finish, which it was cheap, but will do the job.

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19 minutes ago, sar4x4 said:

Lol.  Speedometers in cars are actually notorious to be not exact.  Checking GPS against them isn’t very scientific..  But automobiles are plentiful!  👍

Doesn't need to be exact for me, just need something that will ball park it, +or -5 don't care. I'm not scientific by any means lok  Tracey's car is in mph, and tight increments, so it is an interpretation of what 100kmph is haha. The needle was roughly between 60 and 65mph on the car and GPS said 100km, so I'm happy with it. 

Once I get a feel for what speeds feel like in the truck, ill probably never look at speedometer again, but having not had much seat time and zero reference for speed, can only gauge from guessing, and it won't speed on the highway lol. 

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 kinda tested myself with some putter projects, first real things iv done since the first week of July, installing carpet in the towtruck, the rubber floor only goes to the edge of the seat, and it's buckets , so the raw ugly cold floor now gives a clean comfortable look. There are alot of profiles and things to work around, but I'm happy with the results. Took the risers off the seat base, now my head doesn't hit the roof anymore. IMG_20200813_164532_6.thumb.jpg.649d4fcd598bb1329e334d7f11231334.jpg

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Little more done on the interior carpeting, finished the pass side and also did the lower part of the back wall of the cab, just need to reinstall the seat, that project is finished for now. Not bad for $40

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5 hours ago, autumnwalker said:

Looks like it is made to go there! Is that the factory stereo pocket?

Thanks,  it was a cubbyhole where the Speedo is, the 3 gauges below are in the stereo hole

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  • 2 weeks later...

Some more repairs and upgrades, some minor, some major, installed green led backlighting in the gauages, finished detailing the interior and did some wet sanding and polishing on the wheels, a pair of new front tires and built new slides on top of the frame for the deck to ride on. The old slide rails were rotten, and made of wood. New ones are heavy duty and have uhmw for antifriction surface. Also building the rails gave me a chance to try out my new welder.

 One other long term issue I have with this truck is that 100kmph the engine spins at 2789rpm and max Engine rpm is 2800. Gearing is 4.88:1/6.64:1 in the 2 speed rearend, and direct 1:1 in 5th gear on the transmission. I can't go with larger tires for two reasons, one is they don't clear the rear fenders and 2nd is loading angles of the ramp.  Haven't had any luck finding any faster speed rear ends, so that leaves me with either finding a overdrive transmission, which is also kind of a needle in a haystack, or adding an aux overdrive transmission behind the transmission already there. That's probably the way it will go, but just thoughts, for now , I'll be that slow truck on the highway 

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On 8/31/2020 at 8:54 AM, autumnwalker said:

This will be a brand new truck when you're done with it! 

Yep, pretty close lol,  Dropped the truck off for some suspension work and mvi, so when I get it back it will inspected and ready to print money 

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