A few weeks after I told the seller I'd take the truck, a work trip put me within 20 minutes of Greensboro. We had a job installing equipment at a facility nearby, which meant I could work the morning, grab the Mack over lunch, and come back to finish the day. Doesn't get much more convenient than that.
I left at 5 AM with three coworkers. We got to the plant around 8 and worked through the morning. Around noon we broke for lunch, and then I took one of the guys with me to pick up the truck — somebody had to drive my pickup back once I left in the Mack.
The Pickup
The seller had everything ready when we pulled in. We loaded the fifth wheel, the hydraulic wet line tank, and a few other loose items into the bed of the pickup. Signed the title, shook hands, and that was it. The whole handoff took maybe 15 minutes.
My coworker headed out in the pickup first. I climbed up into the Mack, let the air build, and pulled out behind him toward the interstate. It was the first time I'd driven the truck since the test drive a few weeks earlier, and there's something about pulling out of a seller's driveway that makes it feel different. It's yours now. Whatever happens next is on you.
Ten Minutes Down the Road
I merged onto the highway and heard the air governor cycle — that familiar sound of the compressor cutting out and releasing pressure. Normal. Except the gauge kept dropping. Not building back up. Just falling.
At 60 PSI I knew something was wrong. By the time I got to the next off-ramp and pulled toward the shoulder, the gauge was down around 25 or 30 PSI and the spring brakes locked up. I was glad to already be stopped.
I climbed out and could hear it immediately — a small air line going into the main air tank, hissing steady. The kind of leak that's nothing to fix if you have a knife and a wrench, and impossible to fix if you don't. I had neither. No tools on me, nothing in the truck. I'd owned it for 20 minutes and hadn't thought to throw a toolbox behind the seat. That won't happen again.
My coworker had already driven past the exit and was almost back at the plant by the time I called him. He turned around and came back about 15 minutes later with tools — some he'd grabbed from the plant, some from the pickup. We cut about an inch off the hose where it had cracked, reused the ferrule, and reconnected it. Pressure built right back up. The whole repair took maybe five minutes once we had something to work with.
The Drive Home
I drove the Mack back to the plant and we finished the workday. Around 5 PM I headed out. My coworkers followed me for the first 30 minutes or so, just to make sure nothing else decided to let go. Everything held. I waved them on and they passed me.
The drive home is normally about three hours. This one took over four. Traffic on I-85 was terrible around Gastonia and Gaffney — stop and go for long stretches, which is the worst possible situation for relearning a low/high range transmission. I hadn't driven one in a while and it showed. Every time traffic stacked up I was hunting for the right gear, getting use to floating gears again while keeping pace with cars that didn't need to think about what gear they were in. You get the rhythm back eventually, but rush-hour I-85 is not where you want to find it.
I pulled into the driveway just past 10 PM. No more issues. The truck was home.
← Part 2: The Purchase | Part 4: Taking Stock →
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