The trip from hell, how I wound up owning a 70 C/10

[MrBeast]

Well this has not been a good week, this is the story of why I no longer have a 1997 Crew Cab Dually, and why now I have a 70 C/10

I punched out of Montana Sunday afternoon about 4 PM (central) and kicked it in the butt headed back towards Houston.

As usually I was going to drive to Kansas, then on to Montana.

Made it all the way to Hershey Nebraska the first night before I hung it up I had put down 748 Miles.



I slept in the truck that night, the next morning I got up at 7:30, got after it, made it 36 miles to about Mile 199 on I-80, I hit a big pot hole, and the front suspension on the truck separated.







Normally a separated ball joint is not a big issue, but in this case, something happened and it took out the engine.

No idea what but after the wreck the truck would not start again.

With that and the body damage the Insurance company opted to total the truck.

We had it towed from where I broke down to Gothenburg.



Once in Gothenburg I had to figure out how to get myself, the dog, and my tools back to Texas.

The first thing I looked at was calling Uhaul, the smallest truck they had was going to cost almost a grand to get to Houston. Seeing as this was the case, I got to thinking and talked to the guy who owned the towing company and he had a 70 Chevy 1/2 ton that he had been using as a shop truck.

We fired it up, it ran good, had a 283 in it. I handed him 1200 bucks for it and loaded my crap up after he changed the oil and plugs for me, and I hit the road.







This is where the Journey got real interesting. As I was pulling out of Gothenburg, the sky was getting dim, and I kicked on the head lights. Well as it turns out the alternator was not charging, I noticed fairly soon the truck was losing juice and I pulled into the Pilot at Elm Creek.

I had to shut the truck off to go inside, fortunately the parking lot had a good grade to it, and I was able to get the truck rolling and pop the clutch to get it started again.

I made it to the Oriley's in Kearney, got the alternator tested, and it tested bad, so I replaced it.

We jumped my truck, got it going, everything seemed to be working well, I got back out on the road, and all of the sudden the low voltage warning on my inverter started buzzing again. I got on my computer, looked to see where the next store was, my only chance was to make it to the Oriley's in Grand Island which was still 30 miles away, well I went for it, by the time I got there I was holding a flash light out the window driving with my lights off, but I made it.

There I replaced the voltage Regulator and the battery. As I was getting the truck back together and was ready to fire it up and test it, the light on the front of the store went out, and the guys went home for the night. Great!

Wouldn't you know the Voltage regulator they sold me was bad. It was only charging between 11.48 and 12.2 volts. I had no choice but to put it in the wind and hope for the best. So I did, I punched out of grand Island, didn't run the inverter or lap top, just rolled with nothing but the markers and low beams, didn't even try to run the stereo.

I made it all the way to Marysville, Ks 297 miles from Gothenburg, 40 miles from Allison's house at about 1 in the morning when the tire on the drivers rear came apart. As luck would have it, it happened right in front of a motel, I pulled in, got a room, got a guy to charge my battery with his truck for me so I could get it started and drive to Manhattan in the morning after I got a tire, went to bed.



The next morning I put 2 new tires on the back of the truck, then tore off for Manhattan after buying a spare from the guy who worked at the tire shop. When I got into Manhattan, I went to Napa, bought a new voltage regulator, put it in, all of the sudden the truck was charging like it was supposed to, I could run the inverter and headlights, and still have 13.6 volts. That was a damn big sigh of relief.

Got to spend that night hanging out with Allie.

The next morning I loaded up and headed over to Napa in Junction City where I had called over the night before for a turn signal switch, I had been running with out them the whole time. Got there, yanked the column apart, installed the switch, still no blinkers. Started to investigate discovered that some one had recently installed a brand spankin new wiring harness to the truck.

When they did they got a harness that was setup for a 4 pin key switch, but the truck had a 7 pin. When they tried plugging it in, it shorted out a bunch of things, melted the switch socket, and killed the power to the ACC side of the fuse block. Thus taking out the Blower, Radio, wipers and turn signals. I cut the melted pigtail off the end replaced the connectors with spade connectors, got it all hooked up, put the dash back in the truck, all of the sudden everything worked.

It was nice having the truck up and running, although it did chew through a good deal of time, I didn't get on the road for Houston until 1:30 with 722 miles remaining it took me until just after 2 in the morning to make it.

It was a long hard drive, especially considering the truck had no door seals, and no carpet so it is really really loud. It did come with new door seals, but they are the glue in kind, so it is not as though I could have just thrown them in. Upon further inspection I also discovered the truck has a new drivers door, and the windshield and gasket are new.

What really surprised me is the truck didn't use any oil the whole 1200 miles I put on it coming down here. Even more surprising was that it got between 15.5 and 16.5 MPG the whole way running 65-70 mph.

I had thought I was going to sell this truck when I got to Houston, but now I am seriously considering keeping it, we will see.

This unfortunately though is the close of the Tale for my 97 Dually. It was a great truck the short time I had it. it will be missed.