TeamsterGrrrl

The New Flyer articulated busses seem to be more the work of "folk engineers", and bad ones at that. Ever since Issiginonis gave us the Mini and Saab built cars, it's been common knowledge that if you want a stable vehicle, you put the largest masses like the engine and transmission in the front. New Flyer having missed that basic lesson, you'd think they would at least have implemented traction control on the drive wheels so the rear ends didn't spin out into the curbs or whatever. Heck, do these things even have traction control? All the buyers seem to care is that their busses are low floor and powered by the "green" fuel de jour and/or hybrids, and safety doesn't matter. Heck, Metro Transit even had Bombardier build a custom front end with an oversized body on their light rail vehicles, then demanded that their bus makers copy the ugly front end styling of their light rail vehicles on their busses!

Metro Transit in Minnesota USA has the same busses and the same problems- If they get traction on the drive wheels and the front wheels are pushing deep snow they jackknife, If the spin the drive wheels they slide sideways into the curb or whatever stops them.

I think a lot of this trend comes from Volvo's desire to build the cheapest truck possible- It's a lot cheaper to build a transmission with just one countershaft. Same with the axles- cheaper to buy in axles from who knows where rather than build 20,000 or so a year for Mack exclusively. Today's fleet truck buyers aren't helping matters any either, they write a truck off for tax purposes in 5 years or less, and if the Volvos they buy have lousy resale, that's just more depreciation for them to offset taxes on profits with.

Thats the problem with the transit market here- The agencies start with UMTA's wish list of specs, then add on whatever fantasy the local politicians want- low floor, hybrid powertrain, and powered by the fuel de jour. No wonder we end up with stuff like the New Flyer articulated bus with the engine in the back of the trailer unit. I predicted they would handle like pigs on the snow and ice compared to the previous MANs with mid mounted engines in the tractor unit. I was right, first icy day and a bunch of them were jackknifed!

Used to see a lot of these on the eastern Turnpikes, they needed the big engines to pull Turnpike double 45s but in a short BBC so they could pull a single 45' trailer in the 55' overall length then allowed off the Turnpike.

The 903 was a wide engine, and a lot of manufacturers used various tricks to make it fit. IIRC, Ford used a drop front frame section on the Louisvilles to make room for the 903, and some other manufacturers shaved off the top flange of the frame and even some of the web.

So when will we see Scania busses in America again?

Excellent marketing!

TDIs are cheap enough now that I wouldn't even mess with a pre-TDI VW diesel. I've got a 2003 TDI, no rust, good tires, and uses no oil... I doubt I could get $3000 for it!

Haven't read of a V6 option in the current Ranger, but I've been told that the Ecoboost V6 will fit and will likely appear in a high performance Ranger. One of the problems with the current overhead cam Ford V8s is that they're probably too wide to fit in the Ranger and that width is the reason Ford based the last couple Mustangs on the wide body 67 model rather than the skinnier original 64 1/2 model. With the narrower 60 degree V6 Ecoboost engine, Ford could build a proper reproduction of the original 64 1/2 Mustang again, as well as a high performance Ranger.

None of those are "American" companies anymore- They all do as much or more business in the ROW as they do in the U.S.. And to survive in a niche market like heavy trucks, you have to market beyond the U.S.- The small American market by itself will not pay back the costs of new product development.

We've had these "freight shuttle systems" for a couple centuries now... They're called railroads.

Well, Navistar was kinda getting to be an old maid. And while Papa VW may be a "Sugar Daddy", he ain't no spring chicken either...

I follow the bids our state government buying pool gets on trucks and tractors, and a 2nd steering axle was always a pretty expensive option, usually $20,000 or more. While back I noticed that Western Star was quoting a more reasonable price in the $10,000 range, and now Mack has matched that in their latest bids. Our state has a couple twin steer trucks that carry bridge inspection manlifts, so it's not a huge market. But with the prices for a twin steer getting into the same range as steerable pusher or tag axles, perhaps we'll see more of them in the U.S.?

If they weren't rated at the rear wheels, I suspect a lot of Mack engines were underrated. For example, the 11 liter 285 HP Maxidynes we had at the Postal Service gained 4 valve heads and grew to 12 liters, yet the HP rating only increased to 300? Even in high gear hill pulling where the Allison automatic was no advantage, those trucks would pull with Cummins and other 350s with similar loads. We also had some Volvo/Whites with the supposedly equal 300 HP L10 Cummins, and the 300 Macks would run away from them.

The drop section on the front of the frame seems odd for a Mack Western- seems like they all had straight frames front to back. Or is that a change they made to accommodate the wider V8 engine?

Yup, noticed that change on the Freightliner cabovers back around the mid 80s when Daimler redesigned the electrical system and moved it to the top of the doghouse, replacing the padding. Wiring looked similar to my BMW motorcycle, and made napping across the doghouse a lot less comfortable! But after the redesign, the Freightliners didn't catch fire quite as often...

Gives up a late model conventional for a decades old MH... I like your kid!

Fact is, America is less than 5% of the world's population and 20% of the world's truck market. We're also something of an oddball with our preference for conventional cabs, big sleepers, low weight limits, and single cargo carrying units. We also have a deep distrust of new technology, which means we still accept stuff like drum brakes when the rest of the world is going over to discs. Then add in our oddball EPA regulations and system of measurement, and is it any wonder that the world's vehicle makers don't send they're best stuff here? That's not anti-American, it's just the facts...

I like the "one Ford" concept, makes a lot more sense than trying to fool the customer with a half dozen or more brands of the same vehicle like GM did and now VW seems to be following that bad example. but getting out of tractors and then big trucks was one of Ford's biggest mistakes... The volumes are small, but with those markets now consolidated they're profitable. There's also a lot of halo effect and economies of scale as the big trucks and even tractors share parts with smaller trucks and cars. And when a Transit customer needs a bigger truck, you don't want to force them over to the Freightliner dealer and have Daimler seduce them away with a package deal on an M2 big truck and a fleet of Sprinters!

Your Eaton 8LL will work fine, just have to shift more. A wide ratio Maxitorque 6 or 7 speed would be nice, but probably not worth swapping on a 23 year old truck.

The Canadian B-trains don't suffer so big a weight penalty in the northwestern states that go by Formula B, except for the 105,500 pound cap in ND, OR, and WA. With 8 axles they can run up to about 110,000 pounds, or around 123,000 pounds with a couple lift axles. But in an 80,000 pound state the Canadian B trains really lose a lot of payload due to their heavy weight. Thus when I see them complete and with a heavy load, I get kinda suspicious, used to see a lot of 6,7, and 8 axle Canadian rigs trying to steak across northern Wisconsin, by the low speeds the climbed the hills at t'was obvious they weighted way more than 80,000 pounds!

Last USPS purchase of tractors was Pinnacles with a 300 hp e7 and Allison automatic in 2006, though there may have been a few MRs in that purchase. There was a smaller purchase in 1998 that I'm certain included some MRs with the same powertrain. Most of the USPS MRs were in the 1996 purchase that was just about entirely MRs, they had the 300 HP 12 liter electronic engine with ABS but the rough shifting HT740 pre-electronic Allison. Before that there was a big 1991 purchase of MRs with mechanical 300s and the same Allison, but no ABS, and before that a 1984 purchase of MRs with the 285 HP Maxidyne and a Maxitorque 5 speed manual. As the previous poster noted, the pre-ABS tractors were truly scary bobtailing in the wet, never mind on snow and ice, so I'd avoid them. The HT740 has a nasty habit of shifting so rough that it locks up the rear wheels on ice and snow when bobtailing on single axle tractors, but the tandems were OK. The 1998 and newer MRs with the electronic Allison and traction control would be a big improvement, but good luck finding one as USPS bought very few. So the MR you're most likely to find is from the 1996 purchase, and they were supposed to all have been sold off 10 years ago when the 2006 tractors replaced them. But some of the VMFs held onto the older tractors as spares when the new ones came in, and recently I saw an MR still in USPS colors in a Manhattan street scene, so there appear to be a few out there. But who knows when USPS will sell them, they can't afford to replace the 2006s and they're leasing the Ryder units to comply with California emission laws and to supplement the 2006 models elsewhere.

It's a divisible load, so doubt it'd qualify for an overweight permit. Could be Chinese, Korean, or Japanese steel that came in through BC, those B-Trains can run at 63.5 metric tons in Canada. With the lift axles down they could legally run at around 55 tons metric through Montana and South Dakota, then they've got just a 15 mile or so run from the border to the Bobcat plant in North Dakota and there's no scales on that stretch.

Saw what looked to be a canadian style B-train flatbed combination in Gwinner, ND friday near the Bobcat plant. Was empty so I didn't stop for a look, as we see the occasional Canadian 8 axle B train in the Dakotas. Coming home on sunday I see two similar B-train combos, but loaded with big coils so I stopped to take a look. Company was out of Michigan with MI base plates, and two extra lift axles spaced just over 9 feet from the other axles so they could haul the maximum 18k pounds on each for a total of around 150k pounds in Michigan. A good sized coil on each trailer, so must have been overweight even for North Dakota's 105,500 pound weight limit, and way over the 80k pound limits in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. The B-train with all the extra lift axles must be pretty heavy, so no point in running it at the 80k pound limit. I suspect the load originated in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, or Ontario... So did they take the long way round through Ontario, or sneak across IL, WI, MN, and ND?