45 days and 45 nights, updated :)

Ya know where breakfast is coming from in the morning then.


Yep. Much easier to get back on the road that way too.

headed to Omaha and will do the zoo thing there. Omaha is supposed to have a wonderful zoo. They changed a few things up so it’s just a few hour outside tour instead of the freelance do your own thing they used to be. Still should be fun.
 
Stopped at the Omaha Zoo for a few hours. The Omaha Zoo is awesome! Lists to see and the facility is really nice. If you are in the area, I highly recommend their zoo. Much better than the NC Zoo.
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And the trip wouldn’t be an adventure without some mechanical issues...
Purge valve on the air dryer stuck open. The one thing I didn’t really service aside from changing the filters. Thankfully Freightliner in Omaha is open 24/7 and has the parts in stock.

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I am going to change my now...just because it is sitting in the driveway!. Hopefully that is your last issue.
 
I am going to change my now...just because it is sitting in the driveway!. Hopefully that is your last issue.


Yep. Changed the filter but never serviced the purge valve. Apparently a lot of people do the purge valve with the filter. The things I learn on medium duty trucks...

hopefully this is my first and last issue.

Can’t say enough about Freightliner, especially in Omaha. They are open 24/7, which is awesome! And a Freightliner mechanic wasn’t doing anything and offered to just rebuild my dryer and valve on the spot for free. Awesome service. That’s why it pays to have a chassis with good road service centers across the country.
 
I am following your thread and taking notes. Being new to the DP crowd I have a lot to learn. I look forward to hopefully taking an extended trip in the near future. ( unfortunately not as long as yours) . Keep the pics and updates coming! Safe and uneventful travels man,!!
 
This is stupid, man.
Those girls are way too big.
Wtf happened.

y’all have fun.
 
not how I expected to spend Father’s Day.

Rebuilt purge valve didn’t work. Replaced governor didn’t work. After 12 hours of tinkering with it through the night, I gave up and called in the pros. Looks like the air dryer went bad.


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Dang dude that sucks. Hopefully this is the last kink you have to work out.
 
Hopefully you are back on the road now and that is it for the rest of the trip. Curious as to what the symptoms were that lead to the air dryer?. Keep the updates coming. Happy Father’s Day to ya!!
 
The air dryer...

we pulled into the Omaha Zoo parking lot and got a “low air” warning.

I checked it out and air was constantly coming out of the purge valve. These have a tendency to fail open and cause this issue. So naturally I did that first. No go. So I tinkered with it some. Found that if I have everything hooked up, I got just about 45psi of air instead of 125psi, even when I plugged the newly replaced purge valve. Hmm. So I started to focus on the compressor and governor. Pulled the hose off the air dryer coming from the governor and she built up to 110psi, even with the governor hose disconnected and blowing free. So figured it was not the compressor (whew!).

so I started to focus on the governor not controlling the air to the dryer. Bout a new one and replaced it. Same condition as before but the purge line quit blowing off constantly. Partially fixed! Now to get the air up to 125psi. Looked up some schematics of the dryer and saw some internal components that I hadn’t and couldn’t service.

the road mechanic arrived and hooked up his air and verified the new governor operated correctly and the compressor u loaded at the proper psi. They both functioned good. We bypassed the dryer and everything worked flawless. So we determined something internal to the dryer had failed. So I drove to the shop and they swapped it out for a new one, never mind the new $125 filter and $110 purge valve that was now installed on it. Ugh.

But, it’s all fixed and now back on the road. For anyone with an older Bendix/HDX air dryer, I’d upgrade to the new, ADP one. It’s newer technology, easier to service, and parts/replacement is much cheaper.


We are now a couple hours away from Mt Rushmore.
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Another few more pics from today.

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boatswain chair from construction of the sculpture. That’s a big NOPE for me even though I don’t mind heights as an old iron worker.
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Original scale model. Shows the original intent of the sculpture but due to budget cuts because of WWII, sculpting stopped where we see it today.

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If you have time ( and are still there) the pigtail bridges and Needles highway makes for a great kid friendly ride. The mammoth dig in Hot Springs is also a nice kid spot .
 
There is so much to do here. Pleasantly surprised. We could spend 10 days here and still not be able to do everything.

the KOA we are in (Mt Rushmore KOA at Palmer Gulch) is a little pricy but is convenient and reasonably nice. Great for kids. Some of the budget RV spaces are on top of each other. But it’s a private campground, so naturally they are going to try and maximize $.
 
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