[Keith Seymore]

Originally Posted by Stuart

I didn't know they were allowed to carry food and non-food items in the same vehicle. You'd really have to clean out the tank well in between loads.

Funny you should mention that; off topic, but reminds me of a story my Dad liked to tell:

Originally Posted by Keith Seymore

Back in the mid/late 70's he was working at Chevrolet Flint Manufacturing. In addition to the sheet metal components that they made they were also the supplier for a fiberglass (maybe "composite" would be a better word) front header panel for passenger cars. This would be the piece in front of the hood that supports the headlamps, grille, and closes out the front of the fenders.

At seemingly random intervals they would get complaints back from the assembly plants of bubbles, pits and lack of paint adhesion. Usually, as quickly as the problem surfaced, it would go away again on its own without them having a chance to diagnose what the root cause was.

On one occasion the were able to secure a part that manifested the problem and get it shipped to their chemistry lab for analysis. When the report came back there were high levels of "sucrose" in the part.

Dad called the lab technician on the phone. "Sucrose?" he said. "You mean, like - sugar?".

"Yes" the tech replied. "For the purposes of this discussion, they are essentially the same thing."

Dad put that information in the back corners of his mind and they continued to investigate.



After a long period of study, they did finally figure out what the issue was.

They were able to track the occurrence of the incidents back to one specific independent trucker. Apparently what was happening was this: The trucker was from the Atlanta area, which is where the resin for this composite part was manufactured. He would take a truckload of the resin up to Flint and drop it off (as per the plan). Then - rather than running home empty - he would head up to Saginaw, where he would take on a full load of Pioneer sugar and make a run home with that, dropping the sugar at the Coca-Cola bottling facility in Atlanta. He had quite a system going since he could make money on the return trip instead of deadheading home. That's where the sugar in the part was coming from - the contaminated resin.

I have no idea what made them think to cross reference the incidents with the individual shipments but once they confronted this particular trucker (and told him to stop) the problem went away for good.