Blue Ridge Parkway

August 25, 2009
Today I spent the morning on the phone with the company that build our truck trying to figure out a power issues. The voltages are dropping really low when we have our strobe lights running during collection and the alternators are not kicking in to recharge the batteries. I could also hear a belt slip every once in a while. I think I ruled out the regulator so we took the truck to a Ford shop to have them look at the belts etc... and they said that the belts and tensioners looked fine and they thought it was an alternator and something was shorting out. I found an alternator shop in town that can work on our truck starting tomorrow, which is great. I'm dropping it off in the morning. We have three alternators on that truck and the oldest one was installed in December of 2007 so I'm guessing that is the one that is going bad. We'll see. I was explaining the truck to the alternator shop guy and he said "you have three alternators" and I said "yes, it is a specialized truck" and he said "do you know how much money you have in alternators on that truck" and I said "yeah, a lot" and he said "you have more money in alternators in your truck than most people spend on a car". I don't know if I'd go that far but I did tell him it was a million dollar truck. I hope he can get the work done and i'll be grateful because getting those alternators out is the worst job. There is not much space to work under the hood.