Saga of the Truck

EVERYTHING SHINY AND NEW

The heart of a full-timer's life is the rig they live in.  And if one lives in a trailer, then the lifeblood is the truck that tows it.  Big Gulp has been our lifeblood since 2006 and has seen us through thick and thin.  Some of the thin would be Big Gulp itself.

The day we took delivery of Big Gulp
March 31, 2006

It was a proud moment when we picked up our truck from the custom up-fitter in Valparaiso, IN.  It symbolized a new beginning, a whole new way of living.  A nomadic life filled with adventures of all kinds.  And with this truck, dubbed Big Gulp for the copious amounts of fuel it consumed, our adventures began.  Small ones at first because we were both not yet retired, but vacations and long weekends helped us hone our skills for the full-time lifestyle.

THE SHINE DULLS

The warm glow of the possibilities before us were soon tempered somewhat when we began having mechanical failures, all associated with the Ford-built diesel engine.  The 2006 model was the first year that Ford coupled an in-house built motor to one of their trucks after a lengthy and bitter battle with their previous motor manufacturer, Navistar.  It wasn't much longer before the realization set in that we had the worst built diesel engine in the history of diesel motors.  Anyone that owned a Ford 6.0L all came to that same conclusion sooner or later.

The first six years the breakdowns were a nuisance, repairs were done mostly under warranty and we were still in a bricks-and-sticks home with three other vehicles at our disposal at those times when the truck was in the shop.  Luckily there were no major breakdowns when weekending or vacationing with our 5th wheel attached.

Spring 2008
Long weekend at Lake Lanier, GA

The above picture shows the 5th wheel we were pulling those first six years, a Newmar that weighed no more than 13,000 lbs fully loaded.  The 6.0L was a strong motor when it wasn't broken and had no problem with such a small and lightweight tow.

Multiple trips were made from our then residence in Georgia to be with family and friends in our home town in Texas and many other locations in that giant state and Oklahoma.  Never less than 3,000 miles per trip, many times in excess of 5,000 miles.

Again, breakdowns in the form of failed fuel injectors, broken turbochargers, and faulty EGR valves happened in that time frame but luckily not in a way that stranded us while on the road.  However, the cost of keeping this motor running was swelling.  The warranty eventually ran out and all repairs were coming out of our pocket.

THE NEXT CHAPTER

2012 rolled around and full-timing was about to get very real.  Big Gulp spent much less time towing and a lot more time hauling.  We distributed furniture and household items to family and friends as far away as South Carolina.

Summer 2012
Load of Furniture Bound for South Carolina

By late spring of 2012 our house sold and with downsizing complete we moved into our 5th wheel.  We are now full fledged full-timers.  Our only remnant of our previous lifestyle was Cyndee's little PT Cruiser.  We were both going to be working for another year and it was prudent to each have a vehicle to drive to work.

Cyndee's PT Cruiser
The last of our pre-full-timing vehicle stable.

Always part of the plan was to acquire a 5th wheel that was built for the purpose of full-timing.  That meant much heavier framing, solid wood cabinetry and heavier duty everything.  But we did want to stay as close to the length as we had (shorter than average) because we knew many of the places we wanted to go would be tight on space.  But those decisions, those choices had consequences.  The full-timing rig was much heavier.  Big Gulp was about to fulfill the job it was built for, heavy towing.

Solid oak cabinetry.
This is the wardrobe and dresser for the bedroom.

Incredible framing. Beam-welded-on-beam chassis, 
square tube framing, gussets everywhere.

  

In August of 2012 our built-to-order full-timing 5th wheel was finished and ready for pickup in Junction City, KS.  940 miles and 14 driving hours away.  Cyndee could not get off from work but I had weeks of vacation to work off before the end of the year so I went solo to Kansas to bring our new home, home.

The picking up of the new 5th wheel is a multi-day process, with doing a walk-thru, developing a punch list, getting the fixes done, getting a certified weight with my truck, etc., etc.  No use in pushing it and trying to do the drive all in one day so I decided to drive until it was dark and past the heat of the day.

I left in the early afternoon and drove almost nine hours before the hot August day had turned into the less hot August night.  Overnighting in a roadside rest stop was a new experience for me.

Big Gulp had been built with a fully reclining rear seat.  When made down it was somewhere between the width of a twin and full-size bed.  The length was just barely over five feet.  Not the way I would want my bed for every night but plenty good for the short layover.

It was a four-day process after all was said and done at the factory pick up.  There were a few finishing touches that were being completed on the afternoon of  my arrival and then the walk-thru inspections and follow-up punch list.  There was almost a full day fine tuning the electric/hydraulic brakes so that they would work with the integrated brake controller in Big Gulp.  The brakes working properly was an absolute must for this beast.

When we made it to the scales for title certification the trailer came in at a hefty 19,000 lbs/8,618 kg  (later, when loaded with all our stuff, it was 21,000 lbs/9,525 kg).  Combined with Big Gulp and the stuff in it, including two people, we tipped the scales at a whopping 31,000 lbs/14,061 kg with a bumper to bumper length of 60 ft/18.3 m.

Never had I seen Big Gulp look so small than the first time I hitched up the New Horizons trailer.

I can't tell you how many truck and RV forums I have read that the poster is bragging on their truck saying it was so big and powerful that they "don't even know the trailer is back there".  Those guys are so full of s**t!  Even when towing my previous 5th wheel that was only just a little more than half the weight of my new one, I knew it was back there, especially in a hard braking situation or steep hill climb or descent.  If you can do those things and still not know it is back there, then your sensory nerves are dead!

But again, Big Gulp was up to the task.  It was now doing what it was built to do and if not for the frequent motor component failures, life would have been grand.

THE ADVENTURES BEGIN

The next year was like being a kid waiting for Christmas.  It took FOREVER!  But retirement day finally arrived and we were off.  Our first volunteer assignment was at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  But we had about 8 weeks to get from Georgia to Arizona and we were going to need that time to move our home base from Georgia, returning to our native state of Texas. Plus many other stops before and after our new home base in Livingston, TX.  Big Gulp did great, until it didn't.

BIGGER PROBLEMS

All was well, until it wasn't, we had traveled several thousand miles without a hitch.  We had just finished our tourist stopover in Winslow, AZ and were moving to Flagstaff, AZ as our last staging point before reporting to the North Rim.  We were about half-way between Winslow and Flagstaff on I-40 when Big Gulp had a catastrophic failure.  The exhaust gas return (EGR) cooler had ruptured, dumping a large amount of antifreeze/coolant directly into the engine block.  Instant and complete shutdown.  For the first time we were stranded on the side of the road in a relatively remote area.

Our emergency roadside service sent out an eighteen wheeler tow truck.  By and large it was a good experience in that he towed the whole rig back to Winslow, dropped Big Gulp at the Ford Dealership and then towed our trailer to a run down, virtually abandoned RV park up against I-40 in Winslow.  We arranged for a rent car and occupied ourselves for the week it took to get the repairs done.  This was our first experience with a repair that required the cab to be taken completely off the truck.  It really affected our psyche.   But we got back on the road and had an uneventful period while volunteering the summer in the Grand Canyon and the winter in Big Bend National Park.  But the uneventfulness didn't last.  We were eventually plagued by a number of breakdowns, two of which were the same EGR cooler failures.  At $4,000 per fix just for the cooler, repairs were unbearably affecting our budget.  We knew it was really bad when Enterprise Rent A Car just had to hear our name and they knew what we needed and why.

This was becoming an all too familiar sight for Big Gulp

By 2018 Big Gulp was 12 years old and beginning to show its age.  It had well under 200,000 miles on it but up-keep costs were mounting as if it had a half-million miles.  The interior suffering the passage of time too by wear on the seat cushions, an entertainment system that the buttons needed "encouragement" to work and a navigation system that had been abandoned by its manufacturer (Alpine) long ago.  The maps had not and could not be updated since about 2010.  On the exterior the air systems for both the horns and the springs developed slow leaks that soon enough became quick leaks.  Everything had a fix of some kind but it was getting to be constant and we had developed a confidence crisis about traveling with our home attached.  We just didn't trust Big Gulp to get us there without breaking down.

DECISION TIME

In 2019 we could not put off the decision to pull the trigger on purchasing a new truck.  We had been hunkered down in one place since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis and Big Gulp hadn't been driven a hundred miles in eight months.  But we knew this would not stay this way, at some point travel restrictions would be gone and we would get back to some level of normalcy that would see us seeking new adventures in remote locales around the country.  The reason Big Gulp had been driven so little was because we acquired a second vehicle.  With what we were spending on rent cars we decided to buy us a little grocery-getter.

This is Cyndee's car.  No more rough riding truck for her.

So in mid-year 2019 we chose to do what was necessary to get a new truck under us.  Arranging finances required some careful planning and several months transpired.  I'll admit that I did not get in a big rush to complete all the things I needed to do in an expeditious manner.  After all, there was no rush.  Places we wanted to go were not open at the time and volunteer systems all over the country let their phones go unanswered.  That casual approach would come back to haunt us.

SAY WHAT?!?!

The first business day of 2020 I called my up-fitter and told him it was time for me to get a new truck.  There was a pause, then a light chuckle, then he told me that he could not take my order.  He said that the shortage of more than 200 truck components and computer chips had shut the commercial truck (all the chassis cab vehicles) production down in October of 2019 and not made a truck since.  And it was not known when they would again.  I asked about a waiting list; "nope, not one" I was told.  All I could do was keep checking back.

I spent all winter, spring and summer going on-line to Ford's commercial truck website.  It would let me go through the process of "building" a truck only at the end to roll me over to a dealer near me to tell me that they couldn't help me.  I also tapped into some Ford truck forums.  Most of that was people's conjecture, nobody really knew anything.  Until one day they did.

I was checking my sources for the week and came across a forum where someone posted what looked like credible information from a credible source.  The information being put forth said that Ford would start taking orders for 2022 chassis cabs on October 13, 2021.  That was only days away, I jumped on a phone call to my up-fitter immediately.

After a few days of going back and forth with the exact specifications for the order my up-fitter said he would place the order after the upcoming weekend.  That would have been October 18th.

With great anticipation I waited for the email confirmation and invoice to arrive.  I waited until Friday and couldn't wait any longer so I called the up-fitter to see what was going on.  The person answering the phone sounded like the guy I had been talking to but come to find out it was his brother and he didn't have good news.  The weekend before, the up-fitter severely injured his back.  He had been in the hospital, sedated and getting stabilized enough for surgery.

A few weeks and several surgeries later the up-fitter was in condition to order trucks.  I talked to him in the late afternoon of November 10th and we got all the documents lined up for placing the order the next morning.  On November 11th I got a call late in the afternoon and it began: "You're not going to believe this".  I've never had anything good happen after someone has said this to me and this day was no different.  It seems that we missed an unannounced order cutoff day by 24 hours.

It wasn't so much a cutoff day as it was that Ford had reached a production limit for the year.  Normally they would build 200,000 units of my truck but this year, again still due parts shortages, there would be no more than 50,000.  They got their 50K orders and closed the books for 2022.  It would seem that I am out of luck until they open orders for the 2023 models.

So, here we are again.  In a year long holding pattern with no guarantee that it is the end of it.