280 miles, 7+ hours, 95 degrees

[NAM VET]

After having my truck down at the beach, near Charleston for the past two months, was time to bring it back home, that being near Charlotte. It was great having it down there, so easy to toss all the beach stuff in the back, keeping the sand and such out of the cars. Kids loved riding in the back, or the cab. Found the boat launch at the marina was happy to sell me "marine" gas, or non-ethanol. Just backed it out onto the dock, and fueled up. I got pretty good backing down the curved tree-lined driveway, only crunching the wife's flower beds the first few times.

So this AM, put the M1919 30 cal in my wife's SUV for her to bring home later in the day, and fired my trusty truck up, and headed home. By interstate, it is about 200 miles door to door. Of course, one back road bridge is out, requiring me to run about ten miles on a busy interstate around Columbia on the way down in April, so I planned a different route home, parallel to the interstate this time. Very rural roads, on one, for about 20 miles, only saw one other car, running thru the woods and small hills as I left the flat lands of the coast. I cruised at about 40 mph, as my engine just seems to run so smoothly about that RPM. Kept an eye on my gages, water temps fine, oil pressure good, tracked straight and true. Good to have a big gas tank, too. It was hot, and only had a brief sprinkle to cool things down. It is a lot longer via the back roads than on the interstate. My right foot got a bit achy from the gas pedal springs. I had just put in a nifty drink holder, and had a cooler of water and pop on the floor, so drank a lot to keep my fluids up. I did stop once for a burger and a small fry in a town.

It was a long drive, but I just kept my foot down on the gas, and let the miles roll by. I have a small leak from my transfer case, so stopped once to be sure it did not need a road side addition of 75-90, and it was fine. The T case does get hot, that is for sure. Not easy to get a grip on a hot NPT fill plug to re-thread it. By the way, with about a thousand miles on this fill of RedLine 10-40 oil, it has used or dripped exactly zero oil, the oil level is still exactly at the top of the dipstick mark. Pretty good, I'll say. Charles Talbert's crew did that for my motor. I am replacing my temp sender and gage soon as it arrives.

Good to be back again to UpState SC. Oh, I was showing my motor to another chap down at the beach the other day, my 4.5 year old grandson standing there too, told him my motor did not have much horsepower, but had a lot of torque. Later in the evening, my son asked Ollie, my grandson, how his the little crane he made with plastic toy parts worked, and Ollie replied "it has a lot of torque."

So with the drive down and back, and with miles there, it was about 600+ plus miles far from home.

Drive'em, guys.

NV

[Cal_Gary]

Great story Nam Vet! Glad you had no issues, too!

I'm still driving mine-picked up a bunch of plants, mulch, compost etc. this past weekend-didn't budge the back springs but slowed the climb up the 10% grades down to 2nd gear and 10MPH. That was early Sunday morning and afternoon before the heat kicked in. We carried cold bottled water as well. Truck did fine except slower to start-I suspect because the heat started to vaporize the fuel in the line as we got into the early afternoon. Unlike yours, my truck still marks its territory so I carry the spare 1/2 drive ratchet in the glove box so I can check fluid levels underneath. With temps now reaching triple digits we make the M37 runs early or late in the day (not bad when I drive it to work though since that's the Grave shift).

Anybody else logging any miles?
Gary

[murano3]

Great story, the furthest I have driven mine is 50 miles. I have a few more jobs to do before I can head out on the highway, looking for adventure ... I have a 30mm ammo can holding engine oil, gearbox oil and diff oil plus coolant. I just need to put in the new fill and drain plugs as the current ones look pretty crusty - the good news is as I get the odd tiny patch of fluid on the garage floor so I still have fluild in all of the components

[HingsingM37]

Sounds like an awesome trip. About 75 miles one way has been my furthest jaunt in NC or Ohio. Glad all went well.
My rig does more sitting than driving nowadays but still starts right up like day one. Hope to give it some TLC and get out in the woods this month. Been busy re-doing and screening in our front porch.