Unplanned Stop

DATELINE: SPRINGFIELD, IL, 5:37 p.m. CDT

Miles Today: 291

Well, that was a bit fewer miles than I wanted/needed/expected to drive today. It all started well this morning. I woke up at 4:00, took a shower, and hit the road at 4:45. I was making good time, even made it through St. Louis at rush hour without any traffic slowdowns. I was making my way up I-55 when, around 10:00 or so I thought I heard a strange sound from up front. I eventually thought it sounded like gurgling water, which made me think about the water temperature gauge. So I looked it it, and saw it was reading about 220 degrees. Uh-oh, that's too high; it normally reads around 180. So I slowed to take the strain off the engine and pulled off a few minutes later at the next exit.

I pulled over to an old gas station and got out to check the engine. The first thing I noticed was coolant dripping--no, pouring--on the ground below the engine. Not good. So I called the Breakdown department and told them of my predicament. The checked their list of approved garages and found one only 2 more miles up the highway. So after a period to let the engine cool off (during which I poured some water into the coolant reservoir--it poured right back out the bottom of the engine), I put the hood back down and drove carefully to the shop.

At the shop they took a look and quickly noticed a broken water pump. The pump's belt pulley was sitting at an odd angle--further forward at the bottom than the top--and when they poured water into the coolant reservoir, it poured out at that spot at the bottom of the pulley. A definite sign of a leak. ;-)

The shop where I was couldn't fix that, so USA arranged for a tow truck to take the beast to an International dealership (did I ever mention my truck is an International 9400i?) here in Springfield. I waited over 2 hours for the tow truck, but it finally came (actually, there were 2, one wrecker for the tractor and a "regular" truck to pull my trailer) and brought me to the dealership. There, of course, I had to do some more waiting while they checked out the problem, wrote up an estimate, and called it in to USA to get approval. Which USA gave. Since the dealership didn't have a water pump on hand, they had to order one for overnight delivery. Which meant that USA would have to put me up in a hotel for the night. Aha! The silver lining! (The downside: fewer paid miles. I'll have to make sure I get breakdown pay to cover that.)

So now I'm sitting on my hotel bed in air conditioned comfort, watching ESPN, blogging away. The dealership expects to have my truck done in the early afternoon tomorrow, so I'll sleep in late in the morning, expecting to get a load assignment when the repairs are complete and driving late into the night.

Now it's time to answer reader Dennis the Accompanist's next query: "How high are the trailers?" Answer: The standard 53-foot long "dry vans" like those USA drivers pull are 13 feet, 6 inches tall. Rand McNally publishes a Truckers' Road Atlas that lists low clearance locations so when we truckers are plotting our routes, we can avoid those places. The lowest clearance bridge I've driven beneath is 13'-7". Seemed to clear it without a problem.

So that's today's report. (Wow! Three days running!) I hope it was worth your while. Please let me know via your comments, and keep on truckin'.