Handled with care

At 1.8-million klicks, it was high time something on Brian Steckley’s old Kenworth gave. And something did. The odometer bit the dust. “That was a few months ago and I’ve been driving steady since, so if you looked at my truck now, the new odometer says there’s only a few hundred thousand on it,” the Ontario-based owner-operator says into the phone from his cab somewhere in upstate Pennsylvania.

The fact is, the stately red 1994 Kenworth K100E that Steckley and his brother Kevin bought new almost a decade ago has clocked more than two-million kilometers. The only unscheduled downtime the truck has seen came a few months ago at the 1.3-million mile mark when the turbo let go and Steckley replaced it. He did the rad at the same time.
Otherwise, the old 430 Detroit Diesel Series 60 engine that powers this beast has barely been touched. “When I was turning a million miles,” Steckley says, “a guy at Detroit Diesel looked at it and declared the injectors perfectly clean.

“People are amazed,” he adds. “It’s just had regular maintenance. Now I’m trying to see what I can get out of it. I’m pretty curious, so I’m doing oil analysis.”

Two-million-plus kilometers. Virtually zero breakdowns. What in the world is Brian Steckley’s secret?

Clue No. 1 is the simple fact that Steckley’s a careful man. To whit: while he was discussing his beloved truck, Steckley was hauling agricultural products for Brent Hill Transport out of Drayton, an Ontario village located not far from the foot of Georgian Bay. Officially, he was travelling with two other Brent Hill trucks, but his colleagues were long gone, miles ahead of him. Steckley drives conservatively.

“A lot of the reason the truck lasts so well has to do with attitude,” he says. “I don’t push the truck as hard as I could.”

Another thing is he owns it outright. There are no payments to be made, and he’s in no hurry to start paying down a new truck. “If people know they’re getting rid of a truck,” Steckley feels, “they’ll drive it rougher. I’m going to hang on to this one a few more years.” There’s something to be said for comfort.

It’s common knowledge that the fewer drivers a piece of equipment has, the less wear-and-tear it’ll suffer. Especially if the few who do get behind the wheel are careful like Steckley is. “You wouldn’t believe how many drivers don’t go slower when the roads get bad, but not me. I slow right down.”

You get a clue about the way Steckley drives–and how he treats the truck in general–from more than just his Kenworth’s engine (the motor’s linked to 3.70 Eaton rears through an Eaton Fuller 13-over). You might expect a clutch to pack it in at, say, 300,000 kilometres or so, sooner if it’s abused. But Steckley doubles that and a bit more–he’s just at the tail end of his second clutch in all those miles, with the pilot bearing now starting to go. And kingpins? Never touched ’em.

In fact, the only other component of any expense or consequence that he’s had to replace was the fifth wheel. And the first one lasted until last year.

“Whatever it needs,” he says, “I put it on. The truck’s never really had a chance to get old. She’s still pretty tight.

“And if you lift up the hood, everything looks new.”

Even the paint is original, aside from a little patch on one front corner where somebody nerfed him lightly. The continuing gleam in that red finish may have something to do with the polishing prowess of his four kids Kaela, Kyle, Katelyn, and Kaleb.

The Steckley brothers paid about $120,000 for the Kenworth when they bought it from a London, Ont., dealer in 1994. For a few months, they team-drove back and forth to California for Erb Transport, based west of Kitchener, but then Kevin bought the truck outright and drove it for almost five years until he sold it back to Brian, who says Kevin’s just as careful an operator as he is. “I know we saw how each other drove, and I know that he babied her during those four years when I wasn’t with him,” Steckley says.

They adhered to a strict maintenance schedule and never went more than 25,000 kilometres between oil changes. “We never scrimped with mechanics or maintenance,” he says. Plus he and bro are zealots when it comes to fuel additives. He swears that the automatic transmission oil that he poured into his two diesel tanks every month helped keep the engine in top shape, and he also poured extra oil, a few gallons each cycle, into the crankcase.

(Experts say there’s no evidence that adding tranny fluid to fuel improves performance or contributes to longevity, but Steckley’s not the only owner-operator who swears by the practice.)

He admits the engine was a bit of a “smoker” but that doesn’t bother him, and neither does the extra expense, because he says the long life of the engine’s worth it. It’s a comfortable ride, too, the comfiest cabover Steckley has been in. “I think it’s because this design doesn’t transfer a lot of the weight to the steer axles, but anybody who’s been in it comments on how nice it rides.”

“I guess that’s why I don’t buy a new truck,” he says. “A new one would be nice, but I prefer to be comfortable.”

And comfy he is in that lush, paid-for VIT interior, though he does have a complaint along those lines. Certainly not against his beloved Kenworth, rather against the roads he’s forced to drive on. Interstate 69 through Michigan is an example.

“I take care of my truck, but they don’t take care of the roads the same way,” Brian says. “I’m keeping up with my equipment the best I can so I can come home to my family and not hurt anybody else along the way. But the highways departments don’t do their share. It’s a no-win situation.”1) Pay now or pay more later. Brian Steckley’s advice: “From the time the truck was new, we told the mechanic, ‘If it needs it, put it on.'”

2) Drive conservatively. “Use progressive shifting, and go slow on rough roads,” he says.

3) Beat back rust. Buy a non-corrosive cab with fibreglass structures.

4) Grease the gears. Use extended life coolant and synthetic lubricants for the
transmission and axles.

5) “Air” on the side of caution. Maintain
proper tire pressure.

6) Bathe frequently (the truck, that is). Wash away winter de-icing agents.

7) Make paranoia your friend. Drive as if you and a partner own the truck and the co-owner’s looking over your shoulder.