Comments By ironmike

I mistakenly reused.... Let me change that to..... Power Steering Fluid Reservoir.

Pitman arm

Hey John, Congratulations on passing and getting your class A license.

Here's the deal spoken from California... Every DMV examiner is a different person and may do things and see things their own way and they are continually being re trained, especially when complaints come in. If all goes well then they will just keep doing what they are doing until a complaint comes in and their supervisor sits them down and tells them no more of this and most likely sends them to Sacramento, California for re training. And be it known that most of the DMV examiners that test you do NOT have a class A license and have NO experience driving a truck. So they don't see the importance and the real significance of many things as a driver sees them such as lack of knowledge of a hazmat stop when the applicant doesn't even have a hazmat endorsement to legally haul hazmat. They are trained to "examen" and not to drive.

If you have a hazmat endorsement, the DMV examiner may make a statement to you in his or her opening introductory statement when he introduces himself and gives a little speech about what is about to happen and what he expects..... The statement will go something like, "I expect you to drive today as if you are carrying a hazmat load in your trailer". That means you have to do the full hazmat stop at a railroad crossing or anywhere it applies. If you don't do it properly to the examiners expectations, then you may fail. If you don't have the hazmat endorsement then as I understand it they are not allowed to fail you on the drive for not doing a hazmat stop. If you applied for the hazmat but it is still in process and the hazmat hasn't cleared and the examiner fails you on the drive specifically for not doing the hazmat stop, then you have an argument at the office counter there at the dmv. I personally witnessed the fail overturned into a pass when this was discovered.

You can train for hours watching you tube CDL type videos, but you can't just then get behind the wheel of a truck with a nine speed or a ten speed manual transmission and drive with passable skill unless you are "A MacGyver" of sorts. You just simply need time behind the wheel doing it and learning the gears and the clutch. You need practice. You need to learn to feel the gears and find the rhythem of the gears. If you took school training on an automatic transmission then you have missed a great deal because much is about "the transmission" and the clutch. You need to ask the trucking school, what type of transmissions they train on. If you attend a CDL school that uses school buses with automatic transmissions and trains drivers to become school bus drivers then that is not the right school for you if you want to get in and drive a manual transmission dump truck unless you are certain that you will be driving only an automatic transmission.

The steps are: First you get your permit, then you get your class A, then you get your job, then the job trains you or it's called your job training, and then they hand you the keys to the truck.

Beware of you tube! Many of the you tube videos are wrong and or are some person's opinion. You don't want to learn somebody's mistakes!

A good and efficient antenna is more important than extra high power! Your 102 inch whip is about the best mobile antenna you can get for your F150, however it is not practical for using on a commercial truck. It's too large. Many drivers run a basic stock 40 channel straight outa the box cb radio. I have a cobra 19 and a cobra 148GTL as a back up. I bought both used and cheap. They both work fine. Since you are home, you may want to try yard sales and swap meets. Some incredible finds have been made at those places such as good working basic radios for $2.00 and $5.00. If you are one of those persons who want to run high power and talk long distance then you are most certainly going to have to invest a lot of money for that type of gear.

I most certainly wouldn't want to be antagonistic and I certainly wouldn't want to make a bad impression....

This type of statement would have to be said in a respectful tone. It would depend how you said it and to who you said it to. It would also depend on your company and your companies personality, as well as the dispatcher and the personality of the dispatcher.

In the Swift handbook, under "alcohol prohibition", it states you may not consume any alcohol within 9 hours of being in service. Maybe it's 12 hours. I'm not sure since I don't drink and it isn't an issue for me.

In orientation at Swift, the facilitator told the class that if you get a call while at home time asking you to come on duty and you have had any alcohol within the 12 hours, even one sip of alcohol, then you are to politely inform your dispatcher making coming back in service forbidden by company policy.

example: ring ring, its the dispatcher asking you to leave home time early to pick up a load.... Hi dispatcher, good afternoon how are you? How's everything? Hows the weather where you are? Wow, your call has really caught me by surprise, I'm at a family reunion bbq today. We are celebrating. My sister just had twin girls and I am visiting with cousins I haven't seen in ages. I just had a beer so I am really not ok to drive today.

Thank you so much! Do I attach the wire at the bolts or the clamp? On the antennae side...

It is critical you attach the new ground wire to the ground side of the antenna which will connect to the trucks frame. So, it can not contact the center of the coax or the threads on the whip antenna that screws into the mount. The coax has two conductors inside it. One is the center conductor which goes to your whip antenna and the other is the outer shield of the coax which goes to ground and grounds to your truck frame. So, on the cascadia aftermarket door mount you can make a connection to the mount, bracket, bolts, or anywhere inside on the truck frame because each is electrically connected to the other. I hope this isn,t confusing.

I really, really like talking with older drivers who've been driving a long time like 20 plus years. They know a heck of a lot of stuff. One guy told me he handles the situation by telling the dispatcher over the phone, " well, gosh I'd like to help but I've been home drinking beer all day long, and I'm not able to drive".

Hey Reaper, I drove 3 different 2014 Cascadias and each truck had an issue similar to yours. I gave a buddy my cobra 148 GTL for his cascadia and he had the issue as well using the after market mirror mount bracket. The swr was excellent with the door open but when closed it went bad. He took it to a cb shop and they got it straightened out. I would first just try running a seperate ground wire from the antenna ground side directly to the frame so you have a good and consistent ground and see if that fixes it.

Travis, Congrats on passing your pre trip and your backing skills. I think since you passed the backing skills, you can certainly learn to make a tight right turn without hitting the curb. First of all, do the right turn exactly as your instructor has shown you how to do.

Here are a few tips: Approach the right turn SLOWLY. Stop if you need to stop in order to look at things and figure it out. Look at the situation. Look at the forward space available to you. BE CALM. DON'T BE NERVOUS. DON'T ALLOW THE SURROUNDING TRAFFIC MAKE YOU NERVOUS. Look at the space to your left on your approach to the turn. Can you use some of the space or lane to your left as you approach? If there are vehicles in the lane next to the right turn lane, and you need to use that lane, just wait for the vehicles to go and then hog up part of that lane too if needed. Use all the space you need... Now a word about Ca cdl examiners. The examiner may or may not allow you to hog another lane. It could be points against you for striking lines or improper lane usage. You may need to say to the examiner that you need to use this lane or hit this line to miss the curb. In the real world though, this is how we do it. Have ya all seen that commercial, "I'm not a real security guard, I'm just a security guard monitor" ? Look forward in front of your truck. Can you go forward into another lane safely or cross an opposing lane safely? Will you have to wait for opposing traffic to pass to do so? Look at the entire scenario and plan it out. While stopped at the intersection, Look at the curb next to the right of your truck and trailer and look at the curb forward going around to the right where you will be going. You don't want the trailer tandems to come closer than a foot or 2 or 3 or maybe 4 feet to the curb as you make your turn. And you sure as heck don't want to hit it or it's game over. Also, you don't want to go too wide so as to leave 8 or 10 feet or so where a little car may want to turn and pass you on the right in your blind spot. 4 wheelers will do this. This could result in an accident. The cars will always blame the truck driver for this accident if it happens. So you want to minimize your space so as to block a 4 wheeler from getting in there. Use first gear and go slow. Ride the clutch if need be. Don't shift gears in the turn. Look at your trailer tandems in the passenger side mirror and look at the distance the trailer tandems are from the curb as well as the distance the tractor tires are from the curb. Estimate as you move forward, keeping the front wheels straight and moving forward long and wide before beginning to turn the wheel while watching and estimating so as you begin turning, your trailer tandems do not hit the curb.TO REPEAT You want to move straight forward and as you move forward estimate when to turn right so that the trailer tandems do not hit the curb. Begin to turn the wheel to the right while watching the tandems in the right mirror and also watching in front of your tractor so you don't hit anything there. In the backing skills, you learned to watch your trailer tail begin to move and you made the quick minor correction to keep it straight. You want to use the same skill here and watch the tandems as you begin your turn and if you see your tandems moving too close toward the curb, you need to turn the wheel back left or delay your right wheel turn so the tandems won't hit the curb. If your trailer tandems move in too close to hit something, STOP. Don't panic. You can always wait for traffic to clear to fix it. A HINT : With an average sleeper tractor and a 53 foot trailer, the point in time to begin turning your wheel right while moving forward is roughly about or close to when your passenger window area is close to crossing the curb line of the street you are turning right on to. Three things to definitely watch while turning are your front steers, your tandems, and the front of the trailer which will swing wide on a turn. Oh and yeah, tail swing too. You will have tail swing. Remember to always slow down for turns. This ain't nascar.

Good luck and let us know if this helped and how it worked out for you.