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Good evening, so I bought this beautiful R model off of hicrop10 last September. The truck was shipped to me and it was everything that he said it was. I’ve put some new parts on it, rear fenders, new roof lights and horns, new mirrors, new steps/toolbox, front bumper and grill guard, muffler and stack, rear plate for brake lights and backup lights, mudflaps, and a few more things to do. But the purpose of this post is to say that my dad drove truck, he LOVED Mack trucks. Tonight I was installing the grill guard, I finished and took a picture like we all do. After I took the picture I looked at it and realized that in the reflection, was a picture of my dad, nephew, and I, along with a Mack sign that is hanging on the side of the bathroom wall in the barn. It wasn’t planned, it just happened that way. My dad passed away in 2018. I know he was here tonight while I was working on the truck. Just a cool story I wanted to share. I’m sure many of you have similar stories, I’d love to hear them. Have a great night guys!

Progress.... I put the "newer" valve spring on #5 intake, set head on and just snugged the bolts. Will torque after front head is installed. I received my reman 673 water pump and got it bolted on, along with torquing the oil filter housing once everything was lined up. I got the fan hub slipped on and nut tightened down. You can tell this is "new" as the bearings and seal make it snug to turn. Unlike my original one from who knows when?? My injectors are ready to pick up. They had to dig into their cores for a few parts to get them up to spec. I get them Thursday night. About $650 total. I still am working on getting copper seals out of front head. My round file isn't large enough to grab the copper. Will continue to tinker with that situation. I do need to come up with a plug for the puff limiter in the front of the pump. Limiter was broken off when I got motor. A question I will ask at pump shop. I did start to get the gold paint put on. Just quick coating over most of bottom end. Will need a couple more cans to actually finish it but first coat will be set. I need to determine what that hose is sticking out of top of water pump housing. My 673 didn't have that. Not sure if that heater connection? Mine has nipple that I put into new pump down by oil cooler neck. I can always swap it back for the plug that was in that hole. I think that pipe just had a cut off black hose and assume it might be heater. I know this 300 motor had water shut off on rear water manifold just like my 673/237. The 300 pump didn't have a hole down there by oil cooler like 673 pump. I did order new lock tabs for exhaust bolts. No sense in using old rusty ones. Speedi sleeve should be here Thursday for crank hub.

Today was my last day at the dealership, very bittersweet. I saved my list of old truck VINs, which hit 81 before the end, last of which was a 1991 Superliner II with a mechanical E7. Customer wanted rear hood bushings. I'll still be around here for as long as I can operate a computer! Long live Mack trucks.

SUCCESS! 3/4" hole drill, turned 1/4 turn at a time by hand with vise grips got them to pop loose. No damage to head as it didn't have to cut through. You could feel it POP loose and spin with no resistance after awhile. Now onto putting heads on. I washed up the intercooler housing this morning at the shop so it is ready to put in once I torque the heads. Then exhaust manifold once I get studs reinstalled into heads.

Some progress today: And then.... Tadaaaa. I picked up a 5 gal pail of 50w gear oil for the transmission. I need to plug off the cooler fittings before filling as I don't know if that won't just puke everything back out. I am going to just loop the two lines for current operation. I don't think I need a cooler. Maybe I will look into a small alum cooler and mount on the frame down in the air just for the shitzandgiggles of it. I received the steering column yoke and.....it was packaged wrong and is not correct. The eBay seller promptly refunded my money. I got lucky and found one in a truck parts warehouse in Tn and should see it early next week. Once that fits, I can get box mounted and work towards getting it connected to the column. I am feeling good today.

I couldn't take it....I had to light it off tonight. Primed it up with fuel and it took right off. Now to get radiator hooked up so it can run with water.

Little update. I found a wrench to get oil filter housing off 237 without any fuss. Happen to have an offset box end wrench that just fit. I got twin filter mounted and painted with motor. I have turbo feed line 1/2 installed but will wait to cut other end to length until after I get valve covers fitted and make sure line is correct length. My package showed up from Kevin with my offset plate for tip turbine along with dog leg rubber feed hose. I did find that these valve covers don't clear the mounting bolts for rockers(on top of Jake's). I think my 237s don't have this reinforcement plate under mounting holes. Or maybe it is just because I don't have gaskets in place yet? It's close, so maybe those will shim covers up enough. Will check into that. EDIT: with two gaskets it looks like it just clears. Likely just like the 237 was. I didn't got out and look at 237 covers. I am painting pieces and mocking up. Very close to getting intake pieces in for good. Kevin sent me a template to mark frame for R power steering box. Something else to get working on. Hoping to maybe prime this up by next weekend. I have filters and oil for it. Once I get turbo feed line on, it is ready.

This didn’t begin Friday. Carter started it. He watched the Islamic Republic take power, watched American diplomats get seized and paraded on television for 444 days, spent the rest of his presidency negotiating with people who had already told us exactly what they were. Reagan facilitated it. October 23rd, 1983. A Hezbollah truck bomb funded and directed by Iran killed 241 United States Marines in Beirut while they slept. The deadliest single day for the Marine Corps since Iwo Jima. Reagan’s response? Tehran was heard clearly and never forgotten kill enough Americans at once and America will leave. That lesson became the operational blueprint for every Iran-backed proxy attack for the next forty years. Clinton ignored it. 1995 — a car bomb in Riyadh kills five Americans. 1996 — Khobar Towers. A massive truck bomb kills 19 United States Air Force personnel in Saudi Arabia. Nothing. 1998 — Embassy bombings in Africa. 2000 — USS Cole. Seventeen sailors killed. Clinton launched missiles at an empty training camp and an aspirin factory. Eight years. Hundreds of Americans dead or wounded. Zero consequences for Tehran. Bush handed them the keys. He called them the Axis of Evil correctly. Then invaded two countries simultaneously and handed Iran the greatest strategic gift in its history. Iranian Quds Force operatives flooded across the border funding, training, and arming the militias killing our soldiers. And the response was to continue the war while avoiding direct confrontation with the country killing our people. By the time Bush left office Iran had deeper influence in Iraq than we did. Obama funded it. This is where failure becomes unforgivable. The Green Revolution of 2009 where millions of Iranians in the streets begging for American support ignored. The protesters were crushed. The regime survived. Then came the $150 billion in sanctions relief, sunset clauses that expired within a decade, zero restrictions on ballistic missiles, and zero restrictions on funding proxy terror networks. Then came the cash. $1.7 billion. On pallets. On an unmarked plane. In the middle of the night. Delivered simultaneously with American hostages. The regime used the imagery as propaganda for years and used the money to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthi expansion in Yemen, and the proxy militia networks in Iraq and Syria that spent the next decade killing Americans. Obama literally funded the apparatus that put the drone into Tower 22. Biden surrendered to it. 160-plus attacks on American forces from October 2023 forward. American soldiers killed in Jordan. Two Navy SEALs lost at sea intercepting Iranian weapons shipments to the Houthis. Houthi missiles disrupting global shipping lanes. Iranian proxies running operations across five countries. Three Georgia soldiers died in their beds. Then came Trump. He looked at forty-five years of this record and did something no president had done since the hostages came home. He said no. Maximum pressure. IRGC designated as a foreign terrorist organization. Sanctions reimposed. The JCPOA abandoned. Soleimani the architect of Iranian proxy violence across the entire Middle East, personally responsible for hundreds of American deaths killed in a precision strike in January 2020. The regime paralyzed. The proxies recalibrated. The nuclear program set back. For the first time in four decades the regime faced a president it genuinely could not predict. Then Trump left office. Biden came in. The pressure evaporated. The appeasement resumed. And the regime, patient as it has always been, went back to work. And now we’re here. So the next time someone tells you this is Trump’s war tell them they are brainless twats. This isn’t Trump’s war. This is forty-five years of American presidents refusing to finish it and one president finally deciding that the bill comes due. If you are not capable of comprehending that move to Iran and defend the regime personally. Insurrection Barbie

More progress this afternoon: Heads torqued, valve train sitting on there waiting to be torqued. I loosened all the adjusters about a turn just so nothing would happen to touch when I start to roll it around. It shouldn't be too far out but remember : Safety THIRD! 😂 Exhaust manifold snugged on Tomorrow will be torquing things and adjusting valves. I found some HPC reinforced silicone plugs for the two water fittings. Same basic stuff I am using for other couplings. I tried to get dual filter housing off 237. The intake is in the freaking way! I need to fabri-cobble a socket/wrench to get the center bolt out so I don't have to remove manifold. Even 1/4" drive is too tall. Box wrench won't fit in the recess. F-me. In all, glad to see this coming together this far. I can see in another week, I could fire it up. I have my old extra radiator like I used when I ran it last summer in the driveway for about 45 minutes. Since it is on metal legs I feel a bit more secure then when it was just sitting on wood blocks wobbling around.

In the more money than brains dept.

I have boost and pyro. Tonight's fabri-cobble. Jake brackets. Since finding real ones would be hens teeth I just took a few hours to come up with this. Looks like it will work fine. Had to fab up 237 also but this pump works backwards compared to 237 so I had to reverse it. Now I can wire it up and test it. New clutch. Was going with organic but for a "few dollars more" I can add 300 ft lb of capabilities. Why? Just because. It was what was in it when I took it apart. I was able to find yokes for steering column(I hope they are right). Will get them in a few days and I can start on steering column. I will bring Miller 211 mig home from work so I can fill in extra holes in frame where I removed original steering box. I have a big Miller but can't fit it in front of truck in my little stall so the 120/240 machine at work will be easy to work with.

Back to square one. Was able to fit in my small mill at home. Drill/tap insert thread insert. I also took a quick pass across the mounting surface with a face mill. Got rid of the rust and rough pitting. It's all back together and running. Question to the guys in the know: Does the valve train not get much oil? Valve tips are not getting much. A few more then others. The rockers are getting oil at the shaft as you can see it drip out but the rocker tip not so much. These are the rockers from the 237 and they didn't oil much. I did clean them and used air pressure to make sure the rocker passages are clear. Moving rocker up/down you can feel air spurt out at the tip. It didn't seem to have issues on the 237 with wear or anything. Is this normal? The studs I got were just a smidge short on thread length so I had to stack up a couple washers to make sure the nut didn't bottom out before tightening.

Well, I posted a video on FB last night of it building oil pressure. I am getting closer to making noise. Need to paint second valve cover and get them bolted down. Intake tube from turbo needs painted. Make up fuel line and get some diesel out of the truck. I want to get my other radiator out of the basement again and hooked up so I can run it for a longer time like last summer.

much much betterrer. i was 170 pounds leaving the hospital, the 3 weeks of stress and worry really did a number on me. i also realized i had warning signs before the "stay" that i did not see... lack of appitite and a weight loss of 15 pounds being the two largest during january. i am back up to 190 pounds this am. and my appitite has returned, though my taste buds seem to be off kilter. foods and drinks i used to love now taste like crap. the bright side though is i am eating much healthier. i am still weak, but every day brings slight improvements. i am now walking close to 3/4 mile weather permitting before getting sore.. three weeks ago i was lucky to get 30 feet before "running out of gas". i am being extra cautious though, as i am still concidered a fall risk as my balance is off a bit. the dumb mutt no longer avoides me either. i guess she smelled i was sick and wanted nothing to do with me.

It amazes me that everyone forgets what these people have been up to the last 40 plus years. Then again, seems no one can remember what they were doing almost 25 years ago either. From FDNY and Never Forget to mondomi (or whatever his name is. That's not even scratch'n the surface of Minnesota.

It is with a somewhat heavy heart I announce that I will soon be leaving my role as a dealer parts salesman and moving on to a different job. It's a net positive for me, except I won't be able to look up anything for ya'll anymore. I won't be leaving the forum or anything, and my love for old Macks isn't going anywhere either. I just needed to make a move that benefitted me. I might still have an answer or two for questions I have them for, but for the most part, the parts guy role has faded. Guess I picked a good time to move too, considering the Mack I fell in love with just isn't present anymore. Like I said, I'm still here and will continue to be active, maybe even more active now, I just wanted to make a statement so everyone knows. For the mods that might read this post, I'll post a condensed version in the dealer section closer to my final day at my current job in case any changes need to be made on your end.

Paul,, Its in my living room next to my Toy Box,,, I mean Curio Cabinet... You can see that I have a few toy's in the Box, I mean Curio... 🍻

So I am on A big restoratrion project.. Here's a few Pics...

I will, I'll be working for one of the largest lease/rental truck companies in the US. They surprised me with the pay and benefits, not to mention a lot of my former coworkers are now working for them too; one of which will be my coworker again. It'll be a good change for me.

That's PRESIDENT asshole to you! He's the Commander in Chief of the US Military and wore a white USA hat, not a "baseball cap". He represented no baseball team. He represented the United States. And, as military regulations require, he saluted when appropriate, just like the other military officers who attended.

A few of the pictures wont upload, but you get the idea...

offal ???? sounds like it's awful here too

I bet they do.... Who doesnt love a sandwhich or breakfast hash made with lips and butt holes... Deeee.... licious..

Well, you have the prescription on how to make a million in trucking down... Start with 2 million!

I have had my B87 tractor painted.The frame I had a local tow company do it an they did a great job,but I had sandblast it first.Then the cab and fenders and so worth I had Mickey Delia from Frenchtown NJ do that and again fabulous job.I had sandblasted the cab my self.All in I’m going to say without including my time I have $25,000 in it.Hersome pictures of it.

That reminds me of a St. Patrick's Day story. Actually it was the day after St. Patrick's Day. Back in the 80's several of us had to layover in Elizabeth, N.J. I think we had to load copper in the Bronx the next day. There was myself, Easy Pickings, Gravedigger, and seems to me somebody else, but I don't remember now. Me and Gravedigger both drove big F model Mack trucks, and that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, but gearhead grrrrrrl used to like to keep everything truck related. So Gravedigger dropped his trailer and everybody got in his truck to go find a bar. He didn't drink, so he got to be the designated driver, and designated drivers hadn't even been invented then. We went to this bar and they had draft beer for $.25 a glass. It was green because they had dyed it green for St. Patrick's Day and they were just trying to use it up, and we helped them all we could. It didn't taste green, at $.25 a glass it tasted great!😃

Can't belive! Sounds very drammatic. What I can say... Diesel is about 80-70 American Cents per litre here in Russia. Slowly creeped up from 50 or so Cents a year ago. And with no affect from the Middle East events. Sanctions work two ways. The 2nd is limitation of oil products leaving the country's inside market. But honestly I would better like the both events to not take place.

Paul, Diesel up here has gone up about a dollar and a half a gallon since this started. Gas also but not as much. I can understand with the Straight closed the import of crude is down and this will affect FUTURE prices. BUT BUT why has the price of the already refined product jumped overnight??????? I think the oil companys are ripping us off!!!!!!!!

I think I have mentioned this in another thread about doing wheel seals and torquing axle nuts but Harbor Freight makes this device. Turns any breaker bar into a torque wrench up to 750 ft*lb. Works very well. It is made in Taiwan not China so the quality is good an its only $65 3/4 in. Drive, 150 to 750 ft-lb Digital Torque Adapter

For the first time since WWII, the United States Navy silent service has sunk an enemy vessel by torpedo attack. The IRIS DENA, an Iranian missile frigate, is now at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, off Sri Lanka; courtesy of an MK-48 torpedo fired by an unnamed US Attack Boat. There are two types of ships- submarines and targets. Myself, Dad and "Large" on board the USS Nautilus SSN-571 about 12 or 14 years ago.

It's a Volvo with Mack badging. If I wanted a Volvo......I'd simply buy a Volvo (I wouldn't because Scania trucks of course are superior, particularly when equipped with the Mack-born V8). What foreign aggressor Volvo has done to Mack Trucks, reduce a global icon to a mere shell of its former self, should be a crime.

This could also be said for the USofA.

Well... Today is Harley Day in the shop. The Tri Glide got a P.M. service, and the sporster got the same and a Carb re-build. The carb was nasty inside. The Sporty sits a lot because I had the Softail Custom to ride. Now that the Soft tail has turned into a Sweet C-10, Sporty is back in action. As far as 'Tino' goes... He kept me safe from the boogie man. He likes to stand guard.