Lmackattack

damm.......not being a smart ass here....But is the radiator cap venting off excessive pressure like it should? I would think you would louse water first thru the cap before it pops the radiator.?

There were a few diffrent ways they built the western R models. takes a little bit of looking at the hood , air tank and battery box arrangement to see the differences. I notice them more as people are posting pics of them on the internet. What really throws me thru a loop is all the export stuff as they look like a normal R model from far but sometimes very different when looking up close.

Being a 1972 it should have been a early style hood, I cant zoom in but it looks like its a early hood without the dropped sides. the clue is that the wheel to fender gap is larger than seen on the later style RS/RL700Ls

From the trucks I drove it sounds normal to me. as long as it does not go over 1050 I would not worry about it. also depends where the probe is. most are after the turbo.

never noticed any differences in the sides of a +3 cab. Did you restore that truck? or Is it possible that when it was restored that it was modified? or aftermarket panel was installed?

Does the truck have straight rails or are they flared out like a standard R model?

If its like my 1977 western its bolted to the outside of the rail. Just pull the pitman arm off, slide the steering shaft off . remove hoses and unbolt it?

I know coal traffic is way down on the Railroads. started shortly after OBozo took office 9 years ago and forced coal fired plants to shut down with EPA crap. The railroads then started shipping our coal to China for them to burn and send the fumes right back over us...so tell me again how did we save the planet? not to mention how many jobs lost and people out looking for work from his clueless actions.

most times it found it was the striker or door latch not adjusted right. but if left to rattle over the years the hinges needed to be replaced due to the slop in them....the later style latch was a better design in my opinion.

The railroads tried hydraulic transmissions in the 60s.

dont do drugs

the article was started in 1950 and finished in 2017 due to the complex chicken scratch writing. Must take for ever to write a book over there...???

I can see air brakes becoming a thing of the past on Electric trucks if they advance building on them. I can see weight savings being a major issue with the added weight of electric motors on all corners. A electric motor can act as just as good as a Air brake all depending how well you can control them. they may even have better stopping power if every wheel, including trailer wheels were powered.At that point why even have air brakes ? One thing I have not heard any one talk about is if its feasible to build a electric truck like how a Diesel electric locomotive is. I would like to know if there is any benefit for a truck to have a smaller diesel that powers a generator that make on demand electricity to move a fully loaded truck over a highway. I dont think trucks that we see it are going out of style any time soon but my grandfather once said to me that he came in to this world riding a horse and buggy and 90 years later had watched us put a man on the moon and people living in space ....

Correct. I guess what im trying to say is that the detent ball and spring had to go "home" all the way when the rod was installed in the cover. So in the perfect wrorld the rod should be able to push the detent ball back up as its pulled thru the large notch. (That is unless the bar needs to be turned 180 when ever installed to avoid this issue?) I do wonder if that large notch was large enough for the spring and ball to fall out as he said? only way to get it back in is to turn it upside down an start shaking it while saying a prayer.... I lent my mack book that the museum sent me to a friend, I wonder if it went into detail with top cover repairs?

I have no first hand experience working with the detent of this top cover but I do know with other gear boxes that you have alot of leverage when using the gear stick. what seams tight by hand will be easy when moving the stick thru the detent. Are you sure you cant force the detent back up in the housing by hitting the rail with a dead blow hammer or by pulling on it with comparable force when using the stick. Reason I say this is that the detent had to get in there before the shaft was put in so it should force the ball up if pulled hard enough. Unless im missing the something?

only thing it needs is a heated seat!

next you are going to tell us that volvo made the seal so it only can be installed from the inside..... LOL

I think that's what I'm going to suggest. I don't know who's driving it back but I know the truck has plenty of gauges and the biggest hill is Mount Eagle in Tennessee. It's also fairly cool out most of the trip.

Question for you guys. Friend just called me with a question on a company truck they run. It has a exhaust leak at the head/manifold.. its a Electronic Cat (Think its a C15 or 3406E) He wanted to know if its safe to drive it 1000 miles home to have it fixed or if it will burn up a turbo or valve going that far? I had told him it can be a risk depending how bad the leak was with wires or hoses near the leak......but then thought about how many trucks I drove that had leaks near the head that ran fine for years.....reason Im on the fence about him driving it home is that on my 77' Mack I bought 10 years ago had a failed gasket. when replacing the gasket I found out I had a bad turbo housing. the failed manifold gasket may have caused my hpusing issue as it melted the diverter plate in the snail all the way around. Anyone seen this same issue from a failed gasket before? can it burn up a valve? He has a day to make up his mind before the trip home. Thoughts Thank you

at the job I worked at for 14 years full time and still do part time. we had 5 trucks total and 2 of them needed cups. Both were 3406E model Cats at 425 and 550 HP settings. both trucks had around 500,000 on them at the time a cup failed .

I can see this as a nice feature but again I have to ask 3 things. How easy is it to service. and how much does it cost. and whats the service life. If any of those 3 dont offer a owner an advantage than its of no use.

I recall Pittsburgh power made a conversion on a Electronic cat over to mechanical. I think it was before the days of people getting their hands into the ECM and such. Wonder how reliable it was? I would love to see a mack MP8 or MP10 done up the same way and see if it performs better or worse than these current ones with all the garbage bolted to them.

just seeing how things are done in auto racing where they push things to extreme weight savings and built with little regard to a long life cycle as the race parts just get replaced very often anyways. I see this similarity in new gas and diesel engines. These auto and truck mfgs are not pushing for longevity and simplicity they are pushing for a light weight complex engine that runs great when the 20 things bolted to it are working. but if one part rusts clogs, or a sensor goes bad it then takes out other possible major parts with it and makes the engine a turd. With a truck you don't even want to think about this kind of stuff. A truck should make it until half or 3/4 of a normal service life of a tractor for when nickle and dime stuff starts to fail. This is where I just cant wrap my head around the concept of a Class 8 engine builder building a solid engine platform and then littering it with lots of high cost complex parts. I know the EPA is a major blame to this so I do see the issues from both the builders perspective as well.

Am I the only one here that is thinking all this "forward thinking" is nothing but foolish ways to make a diesel more complicated than it needs to be. Air and fuel is what a diesel needs. Stuffing a valve cover with electronics and fuel lines around moving parts just makes repair tasks and costs that much more. A turbo with a trick expensive device that puts more HP into the engine yet will likely fail a few times in the trucks life time or cause a major failure of the engine? did that "50hp" device truly deliver a need for the engine vs bumping the fuel up to compensate some more HP? I can under stand a common rail thru the head (not valve cover) as it heats the fuel and centralizes the fuel feed path in the heads for all injectors. but as we saw with other Diesel engines that can put fuel in the crank case/or coolant system when it does fail. You know what I think more people would like to see. A engine that they can work on and trouble shoot. Could you imagine fleet spec trucks that the company mechanic could do most of the work on? I look at older engines both gas and Diesel then look at the new junk and have to wonder who the hell really thinks we have built better new designs than the more simplified older engines. Some things we cant argue like today's machining process and tighter fitment of parts for reliability emissions etc...but they way we have arrived is 180 from the standard. end rant Trent

The railroads tried hydraulic transmissions in the 60s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krauss-Maffei_ML_4000_C'C'