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Fuel Gauge Warning Light
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You guy’s scare me with depending on a anolog fuel gauge. Running fuel low to see if a low fuel light works is nuts.
Put yourself in this situation, when you must do this truck stop as you will not make it to the next, there is no fuel available.
What’ya going to do now ?
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Exactly my point Al , what happens if no fuel at next stop , has happened more than once to me!!!!
Oh crap my fuel light works but at next stop no fuel , good thing it works though!!!!
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This topic is really a risk versus reward discussion. Each of us can keep records, short term , about how much fuel we take on and how many miles we traveled for 5000 or 10,000 miles. That will provide accurate information on AVERAGE MPG. Then when planning a fuel stop it is fairly easy to determine approximately how far we can go before we need to refuel. We don’t have to rely on the light or gauge.
However, we have a lot of factors that influence our mileage such as speed, winds, hills, what we tow, etc. They can make a difference of 20% in some cases so we really have to treat all three pieces of information (gauge, light, or estimated distance from mileage) as approximate. I lack the guts to trust any one explicitly so when I calculate my distance to a planned fuel stop using past performance, it is only a tentative plan that I will deviate from if the fuel gauge shows empty. We just have to decide our tolerance for risk.
Running out of fuel is not the wisest thing to do, and the term running out of fuel is not limited to what is in the tank. You can run an engine out of fuel with a plugged fuel filter so as the operator of the bus it is in all of our best interests to not put ourselves in the position of ignoring the signals we might not be going much further.
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Happened to me this spring arriving at a jammed up truck stop entrance. A portable parking lot blocked the entrance. We were waved off by other truckers blocked as the portable parking lot ran out of fuel in the entrance line with enough length to upset any other 18 wheeler moving into position for fuel. Had I arrived a couple minutes earlier I’am pretty sure the toad would had to be unhooked to get out of this mess.
This was the Flying J or Pilot off I-75 in Florida, very small staging area as lot size goes, exit off Interstate and your real close to the entrance, hard left and your in line to pumps then about 100 feet on lot sharp left to pumps. That’s where the truck ran out of fuel blocking the entrance.
Sort of reminds me of the tiny Loves in Norman, OK off I-35 across the street from casino.
My fuel level was 1/4 so this was no big deal to the next truck stop.
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Al: What is a portable parking lot?
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Dick, one you can move around. Geo.
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oh. How profound.
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He is breaking your chops Dick. A “parking lot” in truckers terms is a car carrier. We are stagecoaches, a dump truck could be a gravel buggy. Truckers have names for most things. A full grown bear is a state trooper, a county mountie is the sheriff, a city kitty is a local cop.
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Dick, us racers are nothing if not profound. Geo.
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Where’s Bernie….
He knows lot of those over the road calls. Most OK …. some I’am sure eliminate a lot of guess work.
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Portable parking lot? I like that.
I do not want to know what Bernie would call us. I know we have the Godfather, Cow catcher, etc. etc.
Go easy Bernie.
Mark
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Unfortunately the day’s of needing an extensive vocabulary of truck speak or CB lingo are long gone. The guys out there now are listening to Sirius radio and don’t have a clue.
I to this day cannot drive any long distance without the white noise of the squelch crackling in the background.
The other day a driver asked me what I’m doing and I said I’m sitting here with my 2 stick bitch, kicking that cat and walking that dog.
As most of you out there ,he didn’t know what I just said either.
MM, you will always be Marky Mark to us.
BA knows more than you think and he pulled his radio out.
I knew when I named the Godfather the Godfather that would stick, he earned it but that goofy ass straw hat he was wearing the other day he looked more like my Uncle Heini from Westfallen.
Later
bv -
The two bitch stick is duoplex or quadroplex for us old 2 stick guys, kicking the cat is having both feet flat on the floor wide open throttle on your catapillar and walking the dog is hauling ass and there’s nothing better than the rocking chair.
C’mon
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You steel haulers forget driver- Walking that dog= pulling that beautiful Great Dane stainless reefer.
Running the front door is where it’s at, don’t want someones bird dog going off when everybody in line has their brake light switches off. .
Later
bv
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