-26C (-15F) was childs play..... er Bikini weather. It got down to -38F ( -39C) between Regina and Saskatoon when we went through..... and that doen't include wind chill w/ 20 mph winds.
This trip sugged and it still ain't over for a few more days but I'm spent for today and stopping for the night.
Trip started OK friday then going through the Chicagoland area on 294, the throwout bearing on the clutch really started howling. We stopped in Beloit WI for a bite to eat and when I pushed my clutch in to start the truck it wouldn't move so I pushed harder and managed to make the slave cylinder explode and blew it completely off the transmission. DOH!!!
Managed to secure parts friday night and found a Dodge dealer that could fix it saturday morning and was back on the road saturday afternoon. Can't ***** too much as I had 177,000 miles on it. Clutch plate still looked great and could have gone another 100k.
Cought up to my running partner in Jamestown ND and headed for the border, no problems there, just a 20 mph head wind killing fuel economy.
Temps were dipping to -20F shortly after crossing the border and I was slam full of winterized #2 diesel (wasn't planning to run #1 until we stopped in edmonton but temps dropped faster than expected... OOPS) so we double dosed it with Power Service and gave the Aux tank a shot of FPPF meltdown to unfreeze the line between my aux tank and main tank. My buddy was already having to change a fuel filter and his aux tank wasn't pumping.
I discovered later my aux tank wasn't freezing in the line but my mounts broke from the rough ride
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and pinched my fuel line. We used blocks of wood and straps to move it back into place and all is fine for now. His tank still wouldn't pump, his fuel looked like Corn syrup.
In Chaimberlain SK we both lost power and had to swap fuel filters in -38F temps, my fuel wasn't gelled but the filter was full of algea. Evidently all of the additives were really cleaning my fuel system out. We stopped in Saskatoon and bought more spare filters, fortunatly we never had more fuel problems the rest of the trip.
Unfortunatly in Lashburn, SK his chevy blew up the transfer case and had to be towed into Lloydminster AB to the GM dealer, I went to Lloydminster, dropped my trailer and went back to recover his. Towed in Monday afternoon, they pulled it tuesday and it was destroyed. $3500 for parts or $2800 for a reman were his options...... This is where he got extreeeeeemely lucky...... He had just picked his truck up Jan 1st after having his transfercase rebuilt by a GM dealer, it was his first rip with the truck since then and it was under warranty, didn't cost anything but a couple days down time, tons of phone calls and hotel expense.
The found a reman for him in Edmonton, had it shipped and we were on our way about noon local time.
Rest of the trip went OK, 1000 miles of driving on nothing but ice from High Level AB to Yellowknife NWT and back to High Level. Made delivery 3 days late but all was OK and no damage.
I will say the McKenzie river ice crossing into Fort Providence was "crunchy" and had a lot of wet spots on the ice. Last ice bridge I crossed didn't make that much noise and was dry.
Coming home was going OK so until today for me. Border crossing was no biggie. 45 miles later the road was blocked by a malfunctioning RR crossing and traffic lined up for a mile each side so I decided...... Hey, I don't have a trailer and looking at google maps on the Blackberry I see a way around it by going around the country block on a few back roads. That was a huge mistake and the beginning of the end of the day for me.
When I got to the RR crossing on the back road there was a foot deep snow drift that caught my right front tire, ripped off my air dam and spun me out 90* and buried me in deep snow straddling me across the RR tracks
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RF tire got caught between a tie and the rail...... If you've ever driven a 2wd dually you know they get stuck if you even think about getting stuck. It just ain't gonna move.
I'm was so peaveed and frustrated with this trip at this point I just wanted to watch a train roll over my truck, hey, it's insured and I have gap insurance too right...... A moment later I decided I didn't want to make the evening headlines and called 911 so they could notify the RR, was told no movement on that line was expected for a few days, then they got me a tow truck..... 30 minutes and $90 later I'm free.
About an hour later the adreniline rush wore off and I'm beat so I holed up in a hotel for the night. Will resume the push to Indiana in the AM.
I don't mind a bad day so much as hey, Sheet happens.... But dayum.... A bad couple weeks hurts. Nothing like working for 2 weeks for free EH!!!
So ya say ya wanna be an RV transporter.
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.... It's one of the best ways to ruin a perfectly good pickup
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I can't wait to get the pickup off the road and get the medium duty out there.
.... There were 2 of these loads and they were not offered up on the dispatch board to everybody. 
!!
