Saga of the Truck - Chapter 4

 

So, I've been carrying on about 'build the truck, build the truck' but I haven't really said how that gets done.  I can say with conviction, it's a process.  There are a lot of hands involved, beginning with acquiring the truck, something usually done by the upfitter as part of their custom build service.  But this time the upfitter I am working with, Classy Chassis, was caught up in all the shortages just like everybody else.  The finding and purchase of the chassis cab were left up to Cyndee and me.

We chose Classy Chassis based on our previous experience with them when we built our first truck in 2006.  After sixteen years the business was still in good standing and appeared to be thriving.  The same principal people were still doing their thing and with the exception of all the shortages brought on by the pandemic they seemed to be in top form.  We all went to work on spec'ing out what had to be done and got busy.

There is an order to doing things and nothing gets started until it is confirmed there is a truck in hand.  I detailed that happening in the last post and once that was confirmed I sent the first check to begin the ordering of parts and systems.  The next order of business was getting the truck to Valparaiso, IN.

 Valparaiso is a large small town with a population of roughly 34,000.  It lies very near the foot of Lake Michigan with wicked cold winters and sweltering summers.  Lots of farm land south and east, Chicago-land to the northeast.  And a top-notch truck conversion shop smack in the middle of town.

It will be a 650 mile drive from our location in GA, taking 11-ish hours with stops.  The plan is for Cyndee to lead the way in Pepe (her Hyundai Santa Fe) and I will try to keep up in the truck (Cyndee has a heavy foot 😉).

We set out on a Sunday so that we could drop the truck first thing Monday morning and be back to our campsite in time for bed that same day.  It was the first week of March and the weather was warming and early bloomers were beginning to show in north Georgia.  Not so much in north Indiana.  Our arrival at the hotel in Valparaiso Sunday evening was accompanied by blustery, cold winds.

Dropping Quasimodo in Valparaiso, IN
March 7, 2022

Stepping out of the hotel the next morning was a bit of surprise as we were greeted by a heavy fall of big puffy snowflakes.  And the ground was cold enough that it was beginning to stick.

But no problem, this was just another day at the office for the folks around where we were.  We showed up at the truck conversion shop and they were waiting for us.  I handed over the keys and we "toured" a Dodge truck getting the same build as ours.  It was nearly finished and looking at it got me really wound up about getting our truck finished.  But that was tamped down when I was reminded it would be August, 6 months, before I would be behind the wheel again.

After a couple hours of touring and reviewing the specifications of the build for our truck we were back on the road again and as planned, back to our volunteer post campsite before bedtime.

The next step in the order of things to be done is to replace the rear suspension system.  I had sent a check a week before our departure for Valparaiso to begin the acquisition of  this system but it would be another nine weeks before it would arrive and installation begin.

The folks at Classy Chassis discourage the urge to call them and ask how the build is going all the time.  But they have an alternative to keep customers updated, Facebook postings.  Almost every day they post photographs, and sometimes videos of the work done that day.  If you don't see your vehicle in the post then it wasn't worked on that day.

So for several weeks I didn't see any activity on my truck.  But then again I wasn't supposed to, all parts were on backorder, but I looked anyway.  Occasionally I would catch a glimpse of my truck when it appeared in frame of something else being photographed.

There were many shots of the truck sitting 
on the front row of the lot, waiting for parts.

Then one day in late April there was finally a picture of the truck somewhere besides parked next to the street.  It had been moved inside and there was a box of hardware for installing the air ride system sitting on the floor next to it.

And then a few days later there were shots of real work commencing.

Those as some big air bags for a non-18 wheeler.

The linkages system is a brute.

Under the hood and in the cab to hook up power
and install controls

Then on April 29 a video showed up and it was a demonstration of how the air ride system works and they were using my just finished installation to do the demo.  

Link to Classy Chassis video

With the completion of the suspension system install the work could now begin on building the tow body.  The truck is to be moved to Elkhart, IN where the fabrication and paint shop is.  It will be several weeks before the truck is seen again.

Patience, I keep telling myself.

Saga of the Truck - Chapter 3

 My last post left off with me headed to California to retrieve the truck I just bought.  I dreaded the thought of getting on another airplane.  I had sworn off airplanes in retirement after a 35 year career that had me traveling an average of 200 nights/year.  It seems it has been long enough (ten years) that my memories were only half as bad as I thought it would be.

My departure airport, Atlanta, is the busiest airport in the world.  So that place is pretty much a zoo 24/7.  It doesn't matter what day, what time or what airline you book, it's a mess.  My flight to San Diego was Spirit Airline's earliest flight out and I was required to be at the airport by 5:00 am to check in for an 8:00 am departure.  They were adamant and hounded me with multiple emails telling me to arrive early, specifically 3 hours early.  I wish they had been so conscientious about emailing that the flight had canceled during the night and that I was rebooked for the next day before I got to the airport.

With me standing in front of the ticket agent just as the email notice arrived about the flight cancellation I got a little extra consideration and was booked on a Delta flight that left in ninety minutes.  Besides getting moved to a plane that has adult-size seats I also got a direct flight.  Score!  My Spirit flight had me making two stops, one with a plane change.  So now I am leaving later in the morning but getting to my destination earlier.  What a deal.  But still, what a mess.

The pleasant surprise of the whole airplane ordeal didn't come until boarding.  I was really dreading the smell that had always been present during my traveling days.  Every plane had it, some tried to mask it with air fresheners but the smell was always there and it followed you out of the plane, permeating your clothes, your hair, your very skin.  But on this day I stepped into a plane that had no smell.  It would seem that the protocols for cleaning airplane cabins during the pandemic was doing a job beyond its primary function.  All the deep cleaning, wiping, fogging, and removal of items that could harbor germs was also good for eliminating the accumulated odor of thousands of people.

Okay, enough about airplanes and my 35 year accumulation of aversion to them, this post is about the next chapter in the saga of getting Cyndee and I a new truck.  We're essentially stranded, not in the strictest sense, we could do a tow of our 5th wheel if we had to but it is unlikely we could get where we are going without a major breakdown.  So staying put is possible (we're in a great situation regarding somewhere to be) and that is what we are doing until we can get something reliable to move our home on wheels.

As a recap, it has been roughly a twenty month process to find and acquire a replacement truck.  The pandemic and all the shortages it has caused really mucked up anyone's ability to buy a special purpose truck.  In particular a chassis cab, class 5, medium duty truck.  The Ford truck plant in Kentucky went so far as to completely halt production because of shortages of more than 200 components with computer chips being the most problematic.

Chip shortages affected nearly everything, but
particularly "specialty" things like chassis cab trucks

Everybody really honed in on the chip shortage, seemed like that is all the news talked about for months.  But there were at least another 200 components in short supply that kept trucks from being built.  Case in point; rear differentials.  Factory closures shut down manufacturing plants and even when they started back up it was barely with enough people to function.  There just weren't enough parts to go around.  Ford typically makes and sells 250,000/yr of the truck that I am getting.  During the twenty months I have been in the hunt they topped out at 50,000/yr.  That kind of a change compressed a lot of purchasers, most of them commercial, into competition for the few trucks built.  I was up against large fleet purchasers looking to replace critical service equipment.  Of course I too, to me, was replacing critical service equipment but in the big scheme of things what I was doing didn't even register in the medium duty truck world.

F-550s, like I am trying to acquire,
are used heavily as ambulances.

Or as dump trucks.

Tow trucks too just to name a few.

And Fire and Rescue.

Despite everything said, there was a spark in the universe and Cyndee, through exhausting, dogged searching, found us a truck.  It is a shame that it was someone else's hard luck that made our good fortune but their inability to take delivery of what was undoubtedly their dream truck (it was an individual like us) made it possible for us to move in the direction of being mobile again.

The flight itself was uneventful and we even got to approach the runway from the west, circling out over the Pacific and then back into San Diego.  For those who have flown to San Diego you know that typically the approach is from the east and you essentially have to do a nose-dive as soon as you clear the mountain in order to make the approach to the runway.  It can and does take your breath away.  Landing from the west was so nice.

Oh, and another nice thing about dealing with El Cajon Ford, they met me at the airport and drove me to their facility.  This, plus the process of making the purchase was the best dealership experience I have ever had.

Within a couple of hours of arriving I was on my way east.  Interstate 10 was to be my road of choice until Texas where I'll jump to Interstate 20 and make a stop in Dallas to see my brother and sister-in-law.

I had no more than left the city limits of El Cajon and, BAM!, 70 mph crosswinds started hammering me.  They were coming straight out of the south and carrying half of Mexico with them.  Large amounts of fine and coarse sand were airborne up to a couple thousand feet high.  My brand new paint was getting peppered.  While the wind storm was unexpected, the stiff ride I was anticipating did not disappoint.  This is a truck that has gigantic leaf springs that were meant to handle a 5 ton load and I had absolutely zero weight on them.  It might as well have been a rigid suspension, there was no comfort what-so-ever in the ride.  Every crack in the pavement was a stab in the back, I can't even describe the molar dislodging pot-holes. 

The leaf springs are a temporary thing though.  I just have to endure this drive from California to Georgia and soon after from Georgia to northern Indiana and the leaf springs will get tossed in favor of a four-bag air-ride suspension.  Plus a couple thousand pounds of tow body.  It will still be a heavy truck but the ride will be significantly better.  But it is still a truck, Cyndee keeps saying.

The wind storm raged as I crossed California and Arizona.  The coming of night didn't slow things down any.  The window of my hotel room whistled and groaned with the pressure changes and sleep wasn't an option by 3:00 am (local time, my body thought it was 6:00 am) so I checked out of the hotel and got in several hours of driving in a less windy (only 50 mph) and relatively cool night.  As the sun rose so did the wind.  It resumed its 70 mph howl as the heat of the day set in.  The rest of Arizona and all of New Mexico was an exercise in not getting blown off the road coupled with dodging flaws in the road that would knock my teeth out.

My second night layover was in Van Horn, Tx.  Typical southwest desert town, severely weather worn and probably looking worse than usual because of the dust storm.  This night was a repeat of the last, up in the wee hours and many miles down the road before the sun came up.  On this day I also plied the maze of highways that are necessary to get to my brother's place.  The visit was all too short but I had a long way to go.  Although I didn't get far.  By the time I got to Tyler, Tx the past 72 hrs of very early starts and physically demanding driving I was spent, a stop for the night was necessary.

I was out of the wind storm area now and it was a quiet night.  Sleep came easy late in the afternoon and I did not stir until the sun was well up the next morning.  But that good night's rest gave me the energy I needed to complete the drive to north Georgia, nearly 900 miles away.

I pulled into our Allatoona Lake campground well after dark and had a heck of time backing this half-of-a-truck into the campsite.  It was pitch black outside and backup lights so small that they might as well have not bothered.  I got in without banging into any of my other equipment in the driveway but was definitely not square with anything.  That would be corrected the next morning.

Well, here it sits.  It's the first week of March '22 and while having cost a pretty penny, it is of no use.  But the work to change that is about to begin.  A trip to the upfitter in Indiana is in the works.  We're being told to bring it up immediately and that we could expect to pick it up in August.  Sheesh, talking about an exercise in patience.  Twenty months to get to this point with another six months to go.

We're calling it Quasimodo for the time being.  Gonna figure out a better name once it's finished.