Dodgy Headlight Again

I didn't end up doing a reset. I was waiting for my laundry to dry and re-added my work hours. I'd just messed up the math. I called the Columbus manager (this is Monday morning) and told him I'd be there in about half an hour. I drove there, they unloaded me right away and I drove straight up to our terminal in Detroit. I delivered there (and my headlight was intermittently going out again) and figured I had about another hour of daylight, so I drove south again. I had a fuel stop in Ohio at the Love's off of I-280 (east of Toledo) which was right before I got off interstates and took smaller highways most of the way to our terminal in northeast Ohio.   I drove to that truck stop for the night.

And then I remembered something they had told us in orientation. How you could split up a fuel stop (like doing half of it the night before and the rest the next morning). For some reason, I'd completely forgotten about it. I put 50 gallons in that night (and had a very hot shower) and then filled the rest of the tank in the morning.

You'd think somebody as prissy as I am (and as fond of hot showers) would have remember that little trick long before now.

I delivered at our terminal in northeast Ohio on Tuesday morning. I turned in my trip envelope and hit the road. I had another load already, this one going from Massillon, Ohio to Winchester, Virginia. It took about an hour and a half to get to the shipper. I dropped and hooked and was ready to go. I'm so glad I'm getting more efficient at some things. My phone's gps wasn't working in northeast Ohio for some reason, so I called the shipper and got very good directions from the highway to the facility.

My routing took me southeast at a diagonal on small highways (to eventually hit I-70 and take that east). I got lost and probably wasted about an hour trying to figure it out (no shoulder or anywhere to pull off and check the map, I just had to keep driving and hope I eventually found I-70, which I did. It just wasn't where I was expecting it to be).

My headlight was being dodgy again and when it started to get dark, I was in Maryland. My initial plan was to drive as far as I could (as long as there was daylight) to make the most of my 14-hour window and then find a truck stop and replace the headlight (because I hadn't bought bulbs the last time my light was acting weird). I forgot that there are pretty much no truck stops in Maryland. And very few rest areas.

I was taking I-68 east and didn't have enough hours left on my clock (and no daylight left) to make it to my delivery, so when I got to the junction of I68 and I-70 (which is right on the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland), I took I-70 west (north) and two miles down the road, there was rest area/welcome center. Yay! Lots of open parking at that point in the evening.

I parked there for the night and then got up early in the morning, figuring that if my headlight was working, I'd drive to the shipper then. If not, I'd wait until dawn. (I just didn't want to get a ticket for having a headlight out). The headlight was cooperating, so I drove an hour south to Virginia and did my drop and hook.

Then, I drove straight to a Flying J five miles north of there and bought two headlight bulbs.

I had been looking in truck stops for an H-11(which is what another driver from my company told me to I would need) and couldn't find any headlight bulbs that corresponded to that letter/number. When I got to the truck stop, I just took the bulb out and figured I'd go find a bulb that looked the most like that one. Then I found the H-11 bulbs at the Flying J this time. Yay! I guess they just didn't sell that brand at the places I'd been looking, but so glad to have found them, so yeah.... I bought two.

I replaced the bulb and it lit up just fine.... until I closed the hood of the truck. Then it when out. I opened hood back up and checked to make sure the bulb was hooked securely to the plug and that I'd put it in correctly. It looked fine. The bulb wouldn't come back on though (and yes, I made sure not to touch the glass part because it is a halogen bulb). Grrrr! I called the shop in at our main terminal and asked if it could be a problem with the wiring. They said yes and I'd have to have a shop look at it.

I sent some qualcomm messages to my dispatcher explaining the headlight problem and asking if I could deadhead to the North Carolina terminal. I was in northern Virginia, so it was going to be quite a ways. No response. I called him twice and left a voicemail the second time. I then called someone else I knew who worked at the terminal and asked what to do. He told me to keep trying to contact the dispatcher and the NC fleet manager and if I didn't get a response after a while, to just sent a qualcomm message telling them I was deadheading to the North Carolina terminal. That's what I ended up doing. By this time, it was more than two hours since I'd replaced the bulb.

So I spent most of yesterday driving to the terminal. I got there a little after 5pm. One of the shop guys look at the headlight. The headlight hadn't come back on since that morning, but of course, it came on just fine when I turned my lights on for him to see what was wrong. What gives!? He looked at the wiring and he said that I'd put the bulb in correctly, but he didn't see anything wrong. I told him I'd let him know if it went out again while before I left on my next load. I also had him look at my wiper fluid hoses. The passenger side wiper had stopped spraying about a week ago (I had pretty much convinced myself there must be a separate reservoir for wiper fluid for that side and I just couldn't find it). The bracket holding the end of the hose to the wiper arm had slipped about six inches. He moved it back and it works fine now.

And so now I'm in North Carolina waiting on a load. I stocked up on food at Walmart, which is good. I was getting so sick of having peanut butter for dinner every night.

On the bright side (pun intended), I now know how to change a headlight bulb and I have a spare one in the truck for next time.