Red Horse

An outstanding success! I think all five that were built are still on the show circuit!

Thx Jim I'm sure your advice is right on-just wonder how you can bend a rim as heavy as they are. Friend of mine just bought some new 24"- $$$$$$$! By the way I did make a quick attempt at rotating- needed a good nights sleep and gave up. think a peavey would work??

Ok guys- my frustration level goes up. Screwed around with this some more and 1/2" is best I can get. have space between clamps and spoke so that is not an issue. One thing I see, when I look at inner rim, the inner bevel edge on one of the spokes does NOT make contact anywhere with the angled edge of the rim. My next move is to flip the inner with the outer wheel and see what that does. By the way I've had more than one experienced guy tell me..."1/2"? forget about it-" I do use the truck, not uncommon to hit 38,000 lbs (its a single axle) but I'm always on rural/secondary state roads.

Also construction equipment-in particular a line of scrapers-both crawler drawn as well as rubber tired self powered

Point of info, Bob West passed away at age 92-93. Went to bed last night and did not wake up. Understand he had pulled a load as little as a week or two ago. RIP-good way to go

Hah! Euc TC-12! nice handle-you must have some grey hair!

Further to this subject, replaced my spacer with a 4". Clamps now are not touching the spokes. Question-what is acceptable runout? I've had someone tell me anything up to 1/2" is acceptable.

Just out of curiosity, what percentage of Volvo's business isin construction equipment? This new guy I assume has no experience in that field. Also, I see words like.."streamline operations" and .."cutting overhead costs" and the standard "synergism" buzzword comes to mind. Hope this does not spell trouble for Mack

So Matt, you ruined my night. Took the B out today for first time to get inspection sticker and mentioned my right rear had a wobble that I could not get rid of. My buddy looks at it and says.."squashed spacer" Plus wedges are in contact with spokes. Looks like spacer is 3-3/4, one on other side is a 4"-runs true!. So I order a 4"-have to pick it up in AM. Truck is a 61X, 11:00 24 radials. If I stick my fist between tires with 4" it swallows my hand. do it with the 3-3/4 my fist is flush with top of tire (scientific huh?) so what is with your comment on .."4" screws everything up"??

Bad picture -try again

Haybag-another one: Dennis Day, Sterling MA 978-422-6694 Excellent work IMO

Well done-you should be very proud of your work.....but just where did you put the DEF tank?

Wow-is that Cobra for real or a Factory Five??

HMNN- Liquid load and winding roads- don't think you should HAVE too much speed. Better to get to the scene than end up in a ditch. Want a super clean C-8000 E-One pumper? Buddy of mine has one for sale- first line truck for a lot of departments I'm sure-but around here where big tax dollars rule?-Nah -not good enough- "we need a new $400,000 piece-the taxpayers can afford it"!

Amen! See my earlier post

Couple of shots of the cab back panels and the windshield "a" pillars will be helpful to those interested.

Matt, Tell the old man he should drill a well because your rates will be going up!

The 7.8 at 240 HP was a very popular engine in LN-8000's in home heat service. 33,000 lb GVW "tax cheater" 2800 gals of no 2 heat. some outfits also used 3000 gal tanks so that put them closer to 35,000 lbs. This engine was an Ag engine so very durable block. Only reason I believe it went away in favor of the Cummins 8.3 was it would have been too costly for Ford to "clean up". Goes back to the day when Ford and International slugged it out for class 7 sales crown.

LN's 93" BBC Great truck. Great visibility, and as you said, great for getting into tight places

No experience with Huskidrive but as I recall, the dash mounted flipper was to discourage guys from thinking they were driving a "five and two" and would end up splitting gears if the selector was located on the stick. As for the PT-270, we were a big White customer and a bought a lot of 4564's- all NH 250's. Well we wrecked one and bought a 4564 with a PT-270. I think White had built it to our specs/color hoping they would get a shot. Had a RR, RT-906. 906! 3 holes then pull the button and grab the other three! Never saw another one. Agree- Mr May and Mr Pelizonni truly invented a better mousetrap! Now 40 years later I recognize what an advance it was.

Like I said before- what a marriage-two partners who have more outstanding "legal baggage" in back of them than the rest of the industry combined. Or am I out of touch and all of the legal cases have been resolved?

Not exactly on topic, but as KSC mentioned Liugong, a friend of mine bought a new 3 yd. Liugong loader early this winter. UNDER $90,000 brand new. A 3 yard CAT for under 90,000 would be used with about 8000 hours on the clock-unreal pricing. Very impressed at first. However, the nickle/dime stuff has started. It is Cummins powered,not sure about rest of driveline. From time to time I run a 966 Cat with over 10,000 hours on the clock. Wonder how that Liugong will perform at that stage in its life. Back to topic and inline with KSC's comments, I hope these guys get the book thrown at them. It is a free country. You want to quit and take your mind to the Chinese? Fine. When you go to the extremes these guys did, different story- Hang 'em out to dry!

Direct drive and 2.64 gears? Kind of tall isn't it? what do you haul?

Hmnnn...Looks like a duck, walks like a duck etc. Nothing like a fair trial but does look like a blatant case. How many others like this are out there.

Further thoughts on this 12.2 MPG "success story": -The route was a 312 mile RT On I-35, San Antonio-Dallas. Can anyone comment on nature of this route? Relatively flat? Significant issue. -GVW was 65,000 lbs. Why didn't they use Federal max of 80,000 lbs for five axles? -Engine was a 10.7L @ 375 HP and speed was limited to 65 MPH. That is a "safe" HP rating and a "safe" max speed to generate good MPG. You could say this would be a reasonable baseline for a "corporate" operation. Typical owner operator? Not likely -Rear axle ratio of 2.28. While I have no clue what trans. ratio in top gear was, I have never heard of a tractor with such a tall rear end ratio. Such a ratio IMO would work on only the optimal route-namely flat, minimal wind conditions and something less than max GCW. If ever there was a tractor that could "smell a grade", this would be it! No doubt some of this will "trickle down". But how much and at what cost. And by the way-as I've said before-old guy here! Not that old however that I go back to the days of "bull nose" trailers, but I go back to the days when the Rudkin -Wiley cab airshield made its debut-followed by the various bulbous "nose cones" that were affixed to the nose of the typical square nose box to improve economy. These were relatively low cost add ons that did improve economy. And speaking of economy, 4.5 mpg was not considered outrageous at 73,280 to 80,000 lbs when you kept a diesel at 2100 RPM. I'm not trying to be argumentative. Just trying to say with these test parameters, not shocked by this success. And like I said, F'liner got 40 mil of our tax dollars for this "experiment"? As I see it, Daimler got a good deal courtesy of the US taxpayer. Typical government sponsored exercise.