Today was one of those days that I thought would never end. It started off with me sleeping in about twenty minutes late; not a good thing considering the load I'm currently on had barely an hour to spare on it even if I woke up on time. So I took off, delivered my previous load, then found out that the place had no empty trailers. So instead of being out of there with an empty in thirty minutes, I instead wait that long just to get directions to another place that is supposed to have empties, 50 miles away. I go down there and the guard says they don't have any empties but I'm welcome to look. Amazingly, they just finished unloading a trailer and, as I was driving in, a yard jockey had just dropped it off. I promptly went over there and took it, then headed up to pick up my load, despite being at least two hours behind schedule. I arrived and picked the load up without further incident, though it's nearly five tons heavier than I was told it would be; my work assignment said 21,000 pounds and the bill of lading says 30,500.
After taking back roads for nearly seventy miles just to get back to the Interstate, I realized that there was no chance at all I was going to make Atlanta tonight, which I had originally planned on. I'd lost too much time just trying to find a trailer. So I peeked in the truck stop guide and found a couple of stops along the way, including the TA here. OF course, not even that could go entirely without a hitch; as I drove along, I noticed my truck struggling more and more when going up hills. I'm not sure if it's my fuel filter acting up, the turbocharger going out, or something else entirely, but I have nearly no power when the engine is revved above 1500 RPM. Even as low as fourth gear, I can feel the lack of power at that speed and feel the truck jerk around as soon as I hit that number. Even in neutral there's still a noticeable change in the engine's sound. I'm currently on hold waiting for maintenance to pick up so I can find out whether or not this is a major problem that requires road repair, one that I should drive to Atlanta to get fixed, or one that they'd rather wait to fix until the truck is due for PM. I guess I'll find out soon as someone answers the phone.
Ick! Not good! Didn't you have your fuel filter replaced just this winter? I'm thinking it might be something else... Hopefully nothing serious, but having engine issues sucks big time!
ReplyDelete@ Kilroy
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was replaced back in January, I believe. I don't remember whether or not I've had any issues with it since then, but I can't think of anything right now. They said that they're going to replace the filter at the TA here since that's the first step in diagnosing problems (and, hey, it's a cheap fix), but they said that the problems are generally associated with a restriction in the fuel flow. If it's NOT the filter, what else could it be? The filter was my first guess as well, mostly because it's nearly the only component under the hood that I know anything about.