A little background on the Million Dollar Baby

A little background on the Million Dollar Baby.
The truck is a 1992 Kenworth B Model W-900. It has a 425 h.p. 3406 B-Model Caterpillar engine, a 15 speed deep-reduction transmission with 3:55 Eaton 402 rear ends. It has the V.I.T. Kenworth interior and the Aerodyne I style 60" walk in sleeper with double bunks. It had a 270 inch wheelbase before I cut it down, and I haven't measured it since.
It has approximately 1.5 million miles on it, and I drove it about 900,000 of those miles. I had an inframe rebuild done to the engine in 1999, and it's been running untouched ever since. (Same turbocharger since then too! Today's lesson is change the oil regularly!)
It's on the third clutch since new, and I put an Eaton reconditioned transmission in it at about 1.3 million miles. (It didn't need a clutch then, but I put one in it anyway since the transmission was out already.)

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Load Securement is VERY IMPORTANT!!

Hey, how many of you truckin' people have seen a load securement incident like this one? This was a serious case of dumbass that happened to a guy when I was a driver manager for a large trucking company. (1,000 plus truck motor carrier.)

This one isn't is bad as it looks; not nearly as bad as the one I seen down on 51st Avenue and Buckeye Road in Phoenix back in 1992. That one, the driver didn't build a bulkhead out of dunnage to put in front of his load of steel rod. He was going through the intersection and a car ran the light. The truck driver jumped on the brakes and broke the steel rod loose, and about ten of the bars penetrated the headache rack, the sleeper and the back of the cab and killed the driver.
I have been a load securement instructor for three flatbed motor carriers, and I am currently an instructor for a privately owned fleet. I take this stuff seriously, and I hope all you professional flatbed operators do as well.
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