Road trip 2020. To Texas and Back during the Covid Pandemic

[Pullstart 62,787]

We just made it in to Michigan!  1 hr, 40 minutes to home!  A big rig standing on the Jake Brake woke me up from a cat nap and I’m ready to drive if Mrs. P needs me!

 

We woke up at 4am Dallas time and have tag teamed it home like champs!  It’s either 1 am or midnight right now, I think the truck is on MI time and the iPad isn’t yet.  When we started our trip I guessed 2 am, but wouldn’t have been surprised to see 4 am when we pulled in.  It”s looking like our 60-65 mph speed has proven just that.

 

 

[Pullstart 62,787]

We’re just a couple hours shy of making this trip in three days... but we’re getting home safe!  Leaving Sunday at noon and being home in the wee hours of Wednesday is still quite an accomplishment and we’ll be ready to pull the blinds and wake up when we wake up.  Thanks all for the well wishes and for following along on our journey!

 

 

[Pullstart 62,787]

Home, home, home!

 

 

[Tractorhead 9,064]

Every Journey have it‘s Story.

 

Goos to read it seems a Success.

[squonk 41,022]

9 hours ago, WHX24 said:

Some day when we get to talk face to face Kev I'm gonna ask why you went on this stupid quest .... for a pos Chevrolet none the less but now seeing the the light...quality  time with my girls! 

You're right! If it had been a POS Dodge, he prolly could have found a dozen donor trucks 10 minutes from his house! 

[PeacemakerJack 10,738]

Great trip Kevin!  Thanks for taking us on the journey and recording all the cool pics.  Looks like Mrs P’s SUV did a great job handling the towing duties and gave a comfortable place for everyone to relaxing for over 2,000 miles of travel.  So glad that you and your cargo made it home safely and without incident.

 

Now you have some work to do...

[ZXT 2,401]

How did I miss this thread? Just now ran across it. Sorry that I wasn't around to meet up with you! Maybe next time!

You're braver than me to haul that on a dolly all the way back. I don't like pulling those across town.. Squirrely little things!

 

What are your plans for the remains? Looks like it's a pretty decent truck.. Is it a ZF6 or auto? 

 

And I'm with @WHX24 For that big of a trip and that kind of money, I would've just Cummins swapped it and never looked back 

[WHX?? 48,775]

Guess they wanted 5k for head work on the Duramax ZXT and got a feeling he got a steal on the TX truck plus quality time with the fam = money ahead. Plus he just stuffed a HD clutch in Norman. You ever see the business he hauls around to shows?? Thought I had a pic of what he run to a show here last year. That was a lot of stuff on any 3/4 ton then tooling down an interstate!

[squonk 41,022]

15 minutes ago, WHX24 said:

Guess they wanted 5k for head work on the Duramax ZXT and got a feeling he got a steal on the TX truck plus quality time with the fam = money ahead. Plus he just stuffed a HD clutch in Norman. You ever see the business he hauls around to shows?? Thought I had a pic of what he run to a show here last year. That was a lot of stuff on any 3/4 ton then tooling down an interstate!

Needs a dually and a phone call to this guy! 

 

[squonk 41,022]

up to 912 HP 

 

 

[SylvanLakeWH 25,490]

26 minutes ago, squonk said:

up to 912 HP 

 

 

 

So... @pullstart... Maybe drop this in putt putt and see how she plows? 

[Pullstart 62,787]

1 hour ago, squonk said:

Needs a dually and a phone call to this guy! 

 

I was talking to a guy about a one ton dually flat bed down there, but it didn’t pan out.  I would have been so happy to make Norman into a dually and maybe a double decker!  
 

912 horsepower?  Ask @BOB ELLISON how well this thing moves down the road, I honestly don’t think it needs any more power, just reliability.  I plan to head stud the new block before I even finish the swap and will add the lift pump system too.  One thing that the GM design is lacking is fresh clean fuel being pushed to the CP3 injection pump.  The filter system isn’t filtered enough for what the injectors were designed for, then injectors get the blame for being known to fail.  The fuel system fails the injectors, if you ask me.

[Pullstart 62,787]

1 hour ago, ZXT said:

How did I miss this thread? Just now ran across it. Sorry that I wasn't around to meet up with you! Maybe next time!

You're braver than me to haul that on a dolly all the way back. I don't like pulling those across town.. Squirrely little things!

 

What are your plans for the remains? Looks like it's a pretty decent truck.. Is it a ZF6 or auto? 

 

And I'm with @WHX24 For that big of a trip and that kind of money, I would've just Cummins swapped it and never looked back 

It’s ok Jonah, I’m sure I’ll land in TX again for something this clean.  All you up north fellas, ever seen a 20 year old body bolt unzip with an 18 volt impact in about two impact hits?  We pulled the running boards for dolly clearance and tossed ‘em in the back.  I could not believe how clean everything was!  Body bolts in a northern truck could be an all day if not weeks of soaking (think WH steering wheel removal) project!  
 

The dolly was good the whole trip, shy of movements, swaying and noise... but I’ve pulled a lot on them and was prepared.  The lack of a steering wheel lock was a big struggle, I’m glad I packed a couple 2” straps to lock down the center link in the steering system!

[Pullstart 62,787]

3 hours ago, PeacemakerJack said:

Great trip Kevin!  Thanks for taking us on the journey and recording all the cool pics.  Looks like Mrs P’s SUV did a great job handling the towing duties and gave a comfortable place for everyone to relaxing for over 2,000 miles of travel.  So glad that you and your cargo made it home safely and without incident.

 

Now you have some work to do...

The suburban did an awesome job on the trip, I’m so glad we hauled with that instead of a truck!  Honestly, other than Norman, it has the best tow capacity in our fleet.  
 

You are correct, now the real work starts!  I’ll spend some time taking this one apart before getting a Norman in the shop.  As mentioned, an experienced technician can FRAME swap a truck in 12 hours!  I’ll see if I can engine swap in the amount of time it took me to go get it!  

[wh500special 2,160]

On 7/7/2020 at 7:19 AM, pullstart said:

 

 

 

 

Glad you made it home safely.  Hopefully you didn't pick up any bugs along the way!

 

This picture reminds me of back when I was a lot younger and dad had sold his 1983 F-150 4x4 that had the gutless straight 6 and a 4-speed stick and which had lost all of its oil pressure and had compression so low that you couldn't park it anywhere but a flat spot because it would roll away even in first gear.  Of course the parking brake kept rusting up tight and broke multiple times which made for fun times on the boat launch (it can be done, but you have to strategically place big rocks on the ramp before backing down so you can chock the wheels. We also had a 2x4 that we could wedge between the brake pedal and the seat frame to hold it there). 

 

Anyway, the guy that came and picked it up knew of all of its warts and inexplicably wanted to buy it anyway.  He put it on a dolly like that and put the transfer case in neutral...or ALMOST in neutral for towing.  As he drove away down the street we could hear the gears grinding themselves away.  We looked at each other and shrugged since there was nothing we could do at that point and he had a 150 mile tow ahead of him to Cuba, MO.  Nobody had a cell phone in those days.

 

I wonder if he indeed put it back on the road and fixed the dozens of things that troubled it...low compression, no oil pressure (shot bearings I guess since a new oil pump didn't do it), broken slip joint on the right front axle drive shaft, rusted brakes, broken window regulators, broken heater cable in the dash, paint that wouldn't stick, rusted out cab lower panels, rusted out exhaust manifold, dead AC compressor, dry rotted dash board, sagging headliner, on and on.  Oh, my favorite thing was that if you forgot what you were doing and accidentally touched the horn button, the truck would pop about 6 fuses in the fuse block and you'd lose everything in the cab.  Pulling the horn fuse did nothing to ameliorate the phenomenon.  Ghosts in the machine.

 

That truck had a primitive form of traction control too.  Even in 2wd on ice, it wouldn't spin a tire because it had such low power.  Top speed on the interstate with the foot to the floor in third or fourth gear was a blistering 62 mph.  It did get 18 mpg though, so that was pretty good.

 

Geez, Detroit pumped out some junk in the 1980's...that truck barely hit 10 years and 100000 miles and was literally falling apart despite being maintained rather well.  A neighbor said it was built on the day after a three day weekend and called it the "hangover effect."  But it did always start right up, so it had that going for it and we drove it on the dolly for its ignominious departure from our stewardship.

 

Pretty much the same view as in the picture above, but I think you have a much better starting point than that poor ol' boy from Cuba.  Of course both you and he had to also deal with a broken tailgate release handle.

 

Good luck with your project!

 

Steve

 

 

[Pullstart 62,787]

@bcgold, here is the computer data for fuel mileage ...

 

This is driveway to driveway, including a 2 hour idle time for a roadside nap with our navigation lights on and a/c running.

[ebinmaine 67,271]

Ain't too bad at all

[D_Mac 8,593]

144 gallons of gas. What was the best gas price you seen on the trip?

[Pullstart 62,787]

3 hours ago, D_Mac said:

144 gallons of gas. What was the best gas price you seen on the trip?

seems like 1.79 was our best price but somewhere when we crossed the Mississippi Mrs. P. Thought she saw 1.25.  I am not sure?

[953 nut 55,071]

Glad you made it home safe and sound.                       I've come up with a fool-proof, never fails method of finding the lowest gas price.     I fill the tank and the next exit will have a price significantly lower than I paid.     

[ZXT 2,401]

12 hours ago, WHX24 said:

Guess they wanted 5k for head work on the Duramax ZXT and got a feeling he got a steal on the TX truck plus quality time with the fam = money ahead. Plus he just stuffed a HD clutch in Norman. You ever see the business he hauls around to shows?? Thought I had a pic of what he run to a show here last year. That was a lot of stuff on any 3/4 ton then tooling down an interstate!

Oh I've seen the pictures. It's quite the tow rig. I like Duramax's just fine, but I still make fun of them 

10 hours ago, pullstart said:

It’s ok Jonah, I’m sure I’ll land in TX again for something this clean.  All you up north fellas, ever seen a 20 year old body bolt unzip with an 18 volt impact in about two impact hits?  We pulled the running boards for dolly clearance and tossed ‘em in the back.  I could not believe how clean everything was!  Body bolts in a northern truck could be an all day if not weeks of soaking (think WH steering wheel removal) project!  
 

The dolly was good the whole trip, shy of movements, swaying and noise... but I’ve pulled a lot on them and was prepared.  The lack of a steering wheel lock was a big struggle, I’m glad I packed a couple 2” straps to lock down the center link in the steering system!

I'm willing to bet that the frame still has its factory paint on it too. Before I got on a couple of Dodge and Chevy truck pages on FB, I had never seen real rust. It blew my mind how bad the salt eats stuff up there. Down here guys look at 50 year old trucks that have rusty floor boards due to leaky door seals and sometimes consider them too far gone. 

 

Is the steering wheel lock broken or did it just not have one? 

[Pullstart 62,787]

37 minutes ago, ZXT said:

Oh I've seen the pictures. It's quite the tow rig. I like Duramax's just fine, but I still make fun of them 

I'm willing to bet that the frame still has its factory paint on it too. Before I got on a couple of Dodge and Chevy truck pages on FB, I had never seen real rust. It blew my mind how bad the salt eats stuff up there. Down here guys look at 50 year old trucks that have rusty floor boards due to leaky door seals and sometimes consider them too far gone. 

 

Is the steering wheel lock broken or did it just not have one? 

 

the lock is broken Jonah.  It is just a little wheel under the steering column but it’s well sheared off.  Not sure why, don’t care to find out!  

[ClassicTractorProfessor 5,314]

Glad to hear y'all made it home safely and didn't have any major issues along the way. Hopefully the engine swap into Norman will be as smooth and uneventful as your trip was

[tom2p 2,394]

22 hours ago, pullstart said:

It’s ok Jonah, I’m sure I’ll land in TX again for something this clean.  All you up north fellas, ever seen a 20 year old body bolt unzip with an 18 volt impact in about two impact hits?  We pulled the running boards for dolly clearance and tossed ‘em in the back.  I could not believe how clean everything was!  Body bolts in a northern truck could be an all day if not weeks of soaking (think WH steering wheel removal) project!  
 

The dolly was good the whole trip, shy of movements, swaying and noise... but I’ve pulled a lot on them and was prepared.  The lack of a steering wheel lock was a big struggle, I’m glad I packed a couple 2” straps to lock down the center link in the steering system!

agree agree agree - nothing like clean / rust free 

 

western PA cars and trucks might be as bad or worse than in MI

 

had three out of state cars back in the day - and they were a pleasure to work on compared to the PA stuff with a lot of rust 

 

[tom2p 2,394]

On 7/8/2020 at 2:47 AM, pullstart said:

Home, home, home!

 

 

great trip - following it put a smile on my face !