00:05 So, you know your way around a Cummins engine and an Allison transmission.

00:09 Oh, yeah. Last time I did a breakdown on a Cummins, it took me 11 hours to pull the motor out of the truck, strip it completely down to a bare block. Wow.

00:22 Welcome to Six-Figure Trucker, the podcast where we share advice on how to be successful in trucking and have fun while doing so. We’ll share stories, news, and advice on how to earn six figures in trucking, and we’ll speak to guys and gals that are already doing so. Let’s get to the show.

00:45 Hello everyone and welcome to the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport and each and every one of you that you know this is a place where we elevate and we celebrate the driver. Now last week we had a great guest Collin Little. He spoke with us shared his knowledge. I would call Collin a master planner. He really puts everything together, looks at his details, looks at his plans, his load plans, plans ahead, and also shares the burden of expenses with other drivers. Sometimes he rides along with his good friend Kevin, and they share the rentals, they share hotels, share food expense, cut it in half, put more money in their pocket. Collin joins us now. He’s on the road now to his next load. Collin, I wanted to kind of dig into your background. This is not by accident that you were a driver with Norton Transport.

01:33 No, definitely not.

01:34 Now, take us back. You’re 28, is that right? 28 years old.

01:39 Yeah, I’m 28.

01:40 Take us back to how you first got into grabbing your CDL and what led to that, why you needed your CDL. So I first started out I was interested in doing towing and heavy transport for tow company and the requirements needed a CDL. So, I went and got my CDL and was driving heavy wreckers, transport trucks, more so the heavy wreckers, and was hauling around tractor trailers and learning all the different tricks to the trade and going through and I was always wanting to do diesel mechanics as well. So I went and ventured into doing mechanic work as well and started getting used to understanding the concept of everything operational on the semiis and the trailers.

02:32 So you know your way around a Cummins engine and an Allison transmission.

02:36 Oh yeah.

02:37 Tell us a little bit about that. You said you could break one down and what how long would it take you to take one apart? So, last time I did a breakdown on a Cummins, it took me 11 hours to pull the motor out of the truck, strip it completely down to a bare block.

02:53 Wow. What happened after that? What was the problem you guys had to had to pinpoint?

02:58 It ended up actually being a crack in the cylinder walls between two of the cylinders.

03:03 Gotcha. So, you had to start from square one basically.

03:07 Yeah. We had to go and get a we went and got a brand new block and then had to go through and re rebuild the whole block from the ground up and change out all the seals, all the rings and everything else in the motor.

03:18 So, 11 hours to break it down. How much to get it back in on the road running?

03:23 That that was the fun part. The fun that took us about me and I had one of my friends help me with that. It ended up taking us about a day and a half almost to get it back together because of the fact that we were going through making sure we lubricate everything and making sure it all slid in like it was supposed to and it wasn’t going to fight us or bind up on us.

03:47 Well, that’s very important when you’re putting one back together. And I got to ask you the obvious question as a driveaway driver for us here at Norton Transport. Collin Little you’re listening to here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Having that background of taking an engine all the way apart and building it back to the to its running shape, how much does that help you daytoday on the open road if something breaks down? If an ABS light comes on, check engine light comes on, whatever may come on, if you got to do a regen, whatever the case may be. How much does that background of mechanical knowledge help you? It actually helps out a lot because it also helps me with like for example, I’ve had times where I’ve picked up a brand new truck from the manufacturer and it’ll have like an STR fault for the DPF system and everybody sits there and they’re like, “Oh my goodness, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” And they think that they can’t pick up their load and take their load because of that fault light. But all that the S like an most of the SCR faults is literally just the truck saying that it needs a regen.

04:52 And a lot of the trucks nowadays actually have a manual park regen. So you can go in and you have your truck in park or in with your air brake popped and you flip the switch and hold it down for your manual regen and it’ll regen itself and you just let it sit and do its regen and then all the fault lights go away.

05:10 Let’s talk about the regen a little bit. Let’s kind of dive into this here. You don’t want to do a regen when you’re off the side of the highway over grass.

05:20 No, because the exa the exhaust actually will catch the grass on fire. I’ve actually seen that happen whenever I was driving a record. There was a guy that pulled off and he went through and was trying to do a regen on the side of a highway and his truck ended up actually catching on fire and I had to go out and tow the truck after it was already burned down to the frame.

05:42 Wow. Was this a truck and trailer or just a truck?

05:45 It was truck and trailer.

05:47 What’s it like to hook up with a heavy haul wrecker to a truck and trailer? That when I’ve seen that on the road before, I’m like that looks tricky.

05:56 It can be tricky. It’s one of those that honestly the trickiest part about it is your securement because every truck’s front axles are set up different. So, like let’s say, for example, on a Kenworth, you’ll have your shocks right next to your front axle, and if you go to put your chains around the axle to chain it down to your T- bar, it can pin that chain in between the shock and the axle, and you’ll be fighting to get it out. But there’s other times where it’s simple, easy. You go and you hook your forks up underneath it, and you lift it up and just throw your chain on. Simple, nothing’s in the way, just holding down the axle. And then you supply air.

06:37 Gotcha. What about the trailer? I mean when you’re pulling one—

06:41 So whenever you’re pulling truck and or truck and trailer, usually with the heavy wrecker, a lot of people will sit there and they’ll be like, “Okay, well, I need to go in. I need to supply air to the truck.” And in all reality, what you’re wanting to do is you’re wanting to supply air more so because of the trailer. Because if you hook up the wrecker to the trailer for applying air and then you just cage the brakes on the tractor, it makes it so that you can go through and use the trailer brakes to help you stop as well rather than just your trucks.

07:14 So you got like a second set of brakes.

07:16 Yeah. It’s pretty much literally like you’re hauling a trailer in a tractor, but it’s extra brakes for you.

07:22 Gotcha. You’re listening to the deep and wide knowledge of Collin Little here on the Six-Figure Trucker, brought to you by Norton Transport. Now, you were talking about this heavy hall record that you used to operate. Now, you were not just a driver, you were also the operator of this record.

07:36 Yes, I used to operate the record, drive the record, and I was also the fleet mechanic for the whole record company, maintenancing all of the trucks that we had. I was the guy that kept track of all the drivers, make sure all the drivers were going home happy at the end of the day, weren’t overworked, even if I had to do late hours. There was some days where I was sitting in the shop working on trucks for 10 to 16 hours.

08:01 Wow. Do you miss those days?

08:03 Honestly, no.

08:05 Why is that?

08:07 Too much stress when it comes to the record business.

08:10 What’s the toughest haul you’ve ever done on the record? Hauling a long-nosed Pete that was stretched with an equipment trailer behind it with a piece of equipment on it and trying to make it so that I wouldn’t bottom out the trailer as I was hauling it down the road because of the fact that the roads that I was having to go down weren’t the best of shape.

08:34 How far of a toe was it?

08:36 It was a 75 mile toe.

08:38 I bet that was a little nerve-wracking. Oh, it’s definitely nerve-wracking because not only am I having to compensate for the heavy wrecker being 40 feet long, but I’m having to compensate for the oversized load plus the tractor behind me and the space between the wrecker and that tractor.

08:55 This was a jerdan wrecker you were operating.

08:58 Yeah, it was a jerdan 35tonon heavy wrecker.

09:01 Gotcha. You’re listening to Collin Little here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Now, he’s got a wealth of knowledge at 28 years. He’s been on the road for 10 plus years. Brings a lot of knowledge to the table. And we were talking about your dispatch team last week. Wanted to kind of bring them back up this week in the sense that for your future decking is something you’re sniffing around. Is that correct? Yeah, I’m thinking about going through and getting my doubles and triples so that I can go through and do decking if I wanted to do decking. But at the same token, I’m also thinking about the fact of I’ve grown so much with my dispatch team that I also don’t want to lose my dispatch team as well.

09:50 You know, we were talking about last week it’s a marriage. I mean, I guess you’re not ready to file for divorce.

09:55 No, I’m definitely not ready to file for a divorce yet. What is it about each dispatcher? I mean, they all have different personalities, different skill sets, but they work as a team. What about each one helps you as you navigate through your day, your week, your load plan?

10:12 I’d have to say, so for Kelsey, she was always my first top go-getter when I was first starting out. Anytime I had any questions, if she if I didn’t know the answer, I would always call her when it came to any clerical questions and trying to figure out how I can do certain loads certain ways that would benefit me to where it wouldn’t hurt my point system or anything involving me being late. And I try to keep my percentage for my drops and completions at 100. And then for Laura, she’s definitely a go-getter. She sits there and she’ll constantly call me asking me, “Hey, I got this load. What are you thinking? Hey, does this sound like it would be something that you would be wanting to do? If so, can you give me a timeline on when you’d be able to do it?” And they’re helping me go through and think in advance. And then I’ve dealt with Haley a handful of times.

11:15 Anytime I’ve ever called and Laura and Kelsey were busy, Haley was always on top of whatever I needed help with, if it was involving, for example I did a tractor and trailer with a tra a Kubota tractor on the trailer and whenever it was trying to send me my advance fuel for the loads, it wouldn’t send through. So, you have to call into dispatch. And Haley answered and I was like, “Hey, I need this advanced for this load so I can have the extra fuel money since I have the trailer now so I can get to my drop location and get it there on time.” And she pushed it through and we kept on going about our day.

11:54 There you go. Yeah, Haley’s kind of she’s kind of cooler than the underside of the pillow. Yeah, she say I haven’t had to use Haley the Haley card that much, but I know if I need something done and both Kelsey and Laura are busy that she’s right there and all I have to do is pick up the phone and call her.

12:11 You’re listening to Collin Little here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Collin, you laid out some examples there with your mechanical knowledge how you could get out of something like a regen with an easy fix. What about other common problems that drivers may run into out there mechanically that have an easy solution? What would you pass on to them as an example?

12:32 For example I’ve gotten into a lot of trucks and I know a lot of the other drivers have where they go and they pick up a truck and it’s got literally just enough fuel that for you to be lucky to get to the gas station and get your fuel and you’re sit there and you’re going to be questioning it. And if you have an issue where you have a problem with the truck trying to lose prime because there’s a lot of air in the system as well, there’s on a lot of the trucks they have automatic primers, but they also have a manual priming bulb too on the side of the motor. So, if you have to actually prime it yourself, there is ways to do it so that you if the truck tries to shut down on you because of a fuel issue or something saying it doesn’t have fuel when it does, you can go through and try and prime it and see what you can get out to get all the air out of the system so that you can keep going so you’re not having to call in a breakdown and deal with all that of waiting and waiting for a record because there’s sometimes where you could be waiting for two hours. There’s sometimes where you could be waiting for five hours depending on the record company.

13:34 That’s a pea. Oh, yeah.

13:36 Yeah, that is a big time Peter right there waiting on the side of the road. Now, home for you is Bradenton, Florida.

13:43 Yeah, I’m born and raised in Bradenton, Florida.

13:46 Do you miss it when you’re out on the road?

13:48 Honestly, this is my vacation when I’m out on the road.

13:52 Really?

13:52 Yeah. I like being out on the road. I like adventuring and seeing new sites all the time and meeting new people and getting to know the different things that other people are dealing with on a daily basis and going through and just being on the road and helping others out. It’s the best thing for me honestly. At back home, I just sit there and hang out. I tinker with stuff a lot whenever I’m back home. So, I’m always a busy body. I’m always doing something.

14:21 Gotcha. Speaking of being at home, you’re on the road now. I’m at home having a little brown water here. What’s your drink of choice? We talked about this earlier, but share it with us. When you’re not tinkering, obviously when you’re not driving, but when you’re relaxing.

14:36 I go usually with Crown. I like Crown Apple, Crown Blackberry, Crown Vanilla.

14:43 Gotcha. Well, Collin Little, you have certainly earned that drink when you get to the end of all these transports here. Kick back, relax, enjoy it because you’ve been a great guest. You’ve shared an amazing amount of knowledge this week and last week. We hope that drivers can take this all in. And you had mentioned last week about this Facebook page that you and Kevin have started up. Tell us how people can get to it and what they can expect to find when they get to it.

15:10 So the Facebook page, it’s easy to find. If you go on Facebook and you search up Norton Transport Drivers, it’ll pop up for you. It’s going to be the same logo as the company logo as the main picture because then nobody everybody knows that it’s actually that page and we just went through used that picture off of the main Norton Transport website so that everybody knows the insignia and it’s pretty much on there just to help other drivers and if you have any questions with anything you can go through and ask and any of the other drivers that are on the page can help you out if there’s a situation you get stuck. Stuck in an area and you need help and there’s somebody in that area, just ask for help. And if you need somebody to split a rental with just to get you out of somewhere because you can’t get a rental, just put it on there. Hey, is there somebody in the area I can split a rental with since you already might have one if you’re in this area? And try and coordinate it just to benefit everybody else and not make it so expensive on others.

16:11 Do you guys upload pictures to help tell the story? I we since we’re just starting it out, we’re going through and we’re starting to post up pictures of some of our loads and stuff like that. Some of the loads we’ve already done in the past so that people can see all the different varieties of things that we can transport because at the end of the day, there could be somebody that’s on the page that hasn’t gotten to specialty rank yet and can’t do specialty and they’ll get to see, oh, once I get there, this is what I get to do. This is awesome.

16:43 Right. Right. Right, Collin Little here on the Six-Figure Trucker brought to you by Norton Transport. Collin, we appreciate you dropping so much knowledge, so much helpful information, so much useful information. And be careful, be safe out there on the open road. Thank you so much for your time.

16:58 Thank you.

17:02 Six-Figure Trucker is brought to you by Norton Transport. Norton Transport is a driveaway trucking company that customers can rely on. It offers excellent independent contract driving opportunities to professional, courteous, and qualified drivers that can provide the kind of service we deliver. If you’re interested in learning more about Norton or just want to subscribe to the show, check out Six-FigureTrucker.com. That’s Six-FigureTrucker.com.