did I say back to normal?

Well, I spoke too soon then.......Sunday night enroute to the customer in Tennessee Lola had another "episode" of the clutch overheating.  I'm moving right along on Hwy 64 through Bolivar, TN when the transmission gets hung up in 8th gear.  Fortunately I was able to coast into a vacant lot where I could shut down the engine and allow the clutch to cooldown.  Without that my only other option would've been to shutdown in the turn lane with flashers going dead in the water.  This time though instead of just the usual warn engine amber light a 'CA' code started flashing.  Bingo!!!!!!!!  International refused to replace the clutch before because they couldn't replicate the problem and there were no engine fault codes indicating there was a problem.

So what does 'CA' stand for?  Well according to the guy with Road Rescue it stands for clutch abuse, lol!!!  No clue if it does or not but I'm just glad the code finally popped up because that means it will actually get fixed now.  Between Sunday night and the incident on Mines Road last week in Laredo this was turning into more than a nuisance, it was starting to become dangerous.  I REALLY do not want this to occur in rush hour traffic on a freeway (Austin, anyone?) and not be able to move over to the shoulder in time. 

Monday morning after getting backed into the dunnage dock I sent a message to my dispatcher telling him that we would need to relay this load out at N. Little Rock, my home terminal.  Got that okayed and made it back to the terminal in time to get one of the mechanics to follow me over to the dealership (this is all under warranty by the way) in order to shuttle me back to my pickup.  I did have one other glitch in trying to get a different person with road rescue to call International and ok me dropping it off.  He kept asking did I do a reset on the truck, which would've cleared out the code!!!!!!!!!  It's not a software problem here, it's a mechanical issue, the clutch itself needs replacing!!!!!  He then asked why couldn't we do it at the company shop--errr, under warranty.  Oh there were several other things and I just had to keep repeating that this was a recurring issue, the shop foreman had already said it was the clutch, and the guy the night before on RR had confirmed that it needed to go.  Finally got him convinced but not before I was thoroughly peeved.

This leaves me at home this week, just me & Elsie :-))).  While I don't like taking the unplanned time off I am looking forward to me time and some good cycle training.  It's only 3.5 weeks to the Hotter than Hell 100 and I'm getting nervous.