Mackpro

Come on Mack/Volvo do we have to go to China to get a exhaust manifold pipe and Great Britian to turbo clamp. We have enough people here out of work. This is on a 2008 MP-8

We went and got the Mack recomended Toughbook computer and have our Mack programs for VMAC1-3, Eaton abs program, Bendix program, Cummins INSITE and VCADS. All work great except for the VCADS, we tried to install the Preium Tech Tool and when we did it was like watching a snail run, way to slow. You could click on Vcads then go to the bathroom then go get a drink and smoke a cig and then see if you can log on. We had to take off the Premium Tech tool till we can get another laptop, which sucks because it has the only manuals for the DPF troubleshooting, Mack dosent make any books/paper manuals for DPF's and they say they wont , you have to use the Premium Tech Tool program.

They tell me the same thing too " Oh we never had that error code" B.S.

The owner of our 3 stores about lost his mind when he got the bill for the 3 sets of breakout harnesses kits $15,000 . Bad thing is I know we will need them soon. There were 3 or 4 boxes in each kit but not worth $5,000 per shop we got charged.

It all makes sense now. Now I know why my VCADS program is a piece of sh*t. I have to call Volvo IT about 1-2 times a week to get it to work and I bet Mack gets billed every time I call because the first thing they ask is my dealer code. If I do get it working for awhile they send me an update disk which screws things up again. Well gotta get back to work( R&R #1 injector in a GU713 MP-8)

The tech tossed the old intake manifold gasket so we didnt get to check for cracks or pieces missing but we did check the others. The guy working on the V-8 has been here almost 30 years and I've been here 21 years and this is the second time something like this has happened since I've been here, you can never be too carefull. But the good news is it's fixed and running better than ever. Just wish I'd got to do the test drive. The last time I worked on that Magnum was about 20 years ago when we bought it from an insurance company. It was pulling a coal dump trailer and was dumping the trailer when the top of the ram broke and fell on top of the sleeper then the trailer bed fell onto the ram and pile-drived the ram through the sleeper down between the front seats. We repaired the truck and sold it to the guy that has it now.

Well we figured it out, seems the tiny nut on the engine brake pass-through somehow fell into the intake manifold the when we were adjusting the valves it made its way on to #8 piston. Had to pull head again, lucky no damage other than need new nut.

Well we have run into another problem. We order a new rod and compared it to the bent rod and sure enough it was bent. We installed the new piston on rod and put back in engine. We put head back on. Went to adjust valves and when we turn engine and #8 piston goes up to almost full travel engine locks up like piston is hitting head (or something), all valves on #8 are up/closed, no fuel or coolant on top of piston, all parts# are correct, part# on new rod macthes old bent rod and all other rods in engine. It seems what bent old rod is trying to bent new rod. We still have oil pan off. Any idea? Thanks guys

We put piston/rod back in engine and measured piston to block height at maximum travel. We compared reading to cylinder beside this one and found the piston in the bad cylinder was lower( not coming up to the top of the block) so it seems the rod is bent. We are replacing the rod and hopes this fixes problem. Thanks for the help guys.

It was #8 cylinder, we are doing more checkes on the engine, thanks for the info.

We dont work on V-8's hardly anymore but we have this 1985 Magnum RW in the shop with a 1000cid 500hp engine with amiss and fuel smoke. We found the bad/missing cylinder. We had the injector checked, its OK. The valves are adjusted correctly. We did a compression check and the bad cylinder had 200psi lower pressure than the others. We removed head and checked valves, all OK. Got a new piston, liner and rings to install. We got to looking at the connecting rod and to me and the other guys it looks bent. We assume its needs to be straight like E-6 and E-7 rods but we dont really know being a V-8. Need help, Thanks

Had this 2000 CX Mack with a 400hp ETECH engine in the shop for some minor repair and I noticed something weird. The customer or someone had added a homemade propane injection set-up, they had a propane tank off of a fork lift mounted behind the cab and the regulator/valve was on the driver side of the engine, it had a pressure switch with wires on the intake manifold and small hose going into the air cleaner duct. The injector and piping went in right before the turbo intake. Here are some pics. Didnt get to talk to the owner about preformance gains. I have seen propane added on smaller diesel engines but has anyone else seen anything like this on a big engine.

The problems we see are the cross members breaking on the older CX/CH frames, not the new Advantage frames. The trucks were Gas Tankers (Kenan Transport) and chicken feed trucks ( Tyson and Pilgrams Pride older trucks)

Remember all new trucks including CXU/CHU models with MP-8 engines have the DPF exhaust filter which could pose a problem on a motor home conversion. The DPF needs plenty of room/ air flow around it. I wouldn't want to cover it up with side farings due to heat issues. I could be wrong but I have not seen a frame mounted DPF with side farings covering it up. The stand up DPF would be to /fat to use on a motorhome conversion I would think. This does not just apply to Macks but all 2008 trucks, can you say " thank you EPA" As far as the MP series engines we have had good luck with them so far, very few failures and no low power complaints. Our boss has had 2 motorhome conversions done, one was a 2001 CX613 with 460 hp and eaton autoshift, the other a 2005 CXN613 with 460P ASET with eaton autoshift. He sold the first one to fund the second one. Now he's talking about selling the second one and ordering a Mack Titan for the next conversion. He pulls Nascar type car trailers.

We just sold this RW and its heading to Florida to get on a ship and head to South America. I dont know much about the older Macks all I get to work on now is MP series engines. Truck over all is in good shape. I had offered $2500 for it but we sold it for $5000. I was want one for a restore job and this would have made a great one. People overseas are buying our used trucks left and right and shipping them to who knows where.

Since you already have a 427HP, to go to 454HP if you have a VMAC2 fuel pump engine (which I think you do) or 460HP if you have a ETECH engine. Just the download is all you should need, the 427 and the 454/460 use the same injectors and turbo in most cases. I dont know what the download will cost, I have seen some that were free from Mack but you never know. Best thing to do is go to your local Mack dealer and fill out a Horsepower Change Request Form and the dealer will fax it to Mack and in a day or so Mack will fax the dealer back with the parts that need to be replaced (if any) and the cost of the download (if any). If you tell the dealer" upgrade me" the dealer signs the request form and refaxes back to mack where they turn on the download(in a day or 2) The dealer should do this paper work for free or at least we do this for free for the customer because if customer wants the HP we can at least get an hour labor for the download plus parts/labor that need changing. Most of the time Mack will want you to upgrade/replace the clutch to a larger tourque rating unit. We have never done this and have never had any problems. On ETECH engines 350 or 400 HP upgrading to 427 or 460 HP Mack will want you to change the cam keyway to an offset keyway to retard the timing,(unless you have an ETECH CCRS or ASET engine) you must do this or it will run hot in the summer, trust me ,we tried it. Hope this helps. P.S. ETECH 427's already have the offset camkey. Around 2001 the CCRS engine and in 2004 the ASET engine came out, these were easy to upgrade due to the engines all being the same regardless of HP (except for turbo and injectors and download) these engines all had straight cam keys and big balancers so the turbo and injectors and download were the only difference between a 250HP and a 460HP engine. On the MP motors all parts/engines are the same regardless of HP only the download is different.

Around 1991 in CH trucks the VMAC1 computer controlled engines came out but you could still get manual pump engines in RD,DM,Rb and MR style trucks up till around 1997. As far as bumping HP up with computer downloads, it can be done but depending on year model and how many HP you want to go up sometimes requires turbo, injectors, bigger balancer,pistons, and offset cam keyway. When we do HP upgrades we fill out a HP Conversion form and fax it to mack and they fax back what is parts to change. Say on a 1999 CH you wanted to go from 350 to 400 all required is a bigger balancer and a computer download, but to go to a 460HP you need turbo, injectors, offset cam keyway, bigger balancer and download. Really depends on year and how high in HP you want to go. These guys bring their 350 hp trucks in and think we can just walk out to their truck and plug our laptop in and crank up the HP, well it dont work that way. With EPA looking over Macks shoulder its getting harder to get the HOT downloads that we used to get, we are in a fight right now between Mack and a customer because of low power and with 4 dyno results to prove it .

Go to a mack dealer and have them look up the correct part#. Many of the switches look the same but open or close at different pressures. We have seen this on CH style trucks where the tech or parts guys guess and the wrong switch gets put on causes weird problems. Gotta a model # (MR688S) and last 6 of VIN and I can look up the part#

We had lots, I mean lots of 1999 models ETECH engines that had pistons rings that were to hard and were eating up the liners and we did alot of cheape overhauls where we reused the steel pistons and heads and just replaced the liners and rings, rod and main bearings and this solved our blow-by problems. There is a Mack service bullitin about this, mainly about the new rings, I can get you the bullitin # when I get to work. On the other hand I had a Mack engine engineer tell me not to worry about blow-by only if engine uses more than 1 gal oil every 1200 miles. We have a 99 CL with a 490XT that fogs out a steady of white stream of blow-by all the way to the ground but dosent use any oil and its been like that for 3 years and the truck is used every day( over 500000 miles on it). If the engine dosent have a coolant filter on it , it could be liners leaking coolant into the oil pan. Around 99/00 the coolant conditioner filter became an option and some engines didnt come with them, well 5-6 years down the road after the owner didnt keep the coolant DCA levels in check, the block ledge would get eaten out under the liners and coolant would get into the oil pan and steam would come out of the blow-by tube. We also have seen turbo shaft seals leak and turbo boost pressure would get into the center section/oil side of turbo and the turbo boost pressure would go down the tubo oil return hose into the oil pan where then the pressure would be forced out the blow-by tube making it look like bad blow-by, although this mainly happens while going down the road or engine idled up high. Hope this helps. Good luck.

We have had only one major engine problem here with the M series engine and it was a broken injector rocker arm on an MP-8. Mack is aware of the problem and is having new stronger rocker arms made as we speak. There will be a recall on all MP-8 injector rocker arms. It did make a small gouge on the camshaft, but being an overhead cam it was super easy to change out the cam. Only the MP-8 had the bad rockerarms, the MP-7 are ok.

I didnt know they were bringing back the Rawhide edition but one showed up at the shop today so I had to take some pics. It is close to show truck standards with all the chrome. MP- 485 hp' It was is in-transit from the bed company headed to I dont know where. Only had a blown brake light fuse so it wasnt here long.

these are only on the etech engines and some Asets engines 1999-2005

Heres a pic of a good/new pin. The floating part should be around .008 past the the threaded body. If its flush or up inside the body its really bad. If one is bad change them all. On the new style ones the floating part is silver.

If it has a jacobs engine brake, we see this all the time. The floating jake pin in the valve yoke is worn out. Mack has come out with a new improved floating pin that we use. part #421GC41CM These pins wear down and then the yoke starts to wobble and then breaks off the valve yoke pin in the head. Most of the time we can drill and slide hammer the pin out of the head. Good luck.

Does it have a manifold (turbo boost) pressure guage in the dash. If it does it should read 21-27 psi under a hard pull. If it doesnt have a guage you can get a low pressure air guage 0-50 psi and run a 1/4 inch plastic air line from the intake manifold up into the cab and hook it to the guage and run it down the road. We do this all the time to check boost pressure. The intake manifold is on the driver side of engine and has a 1/8 inch pipe plug in it, install your fitting/hose there. Does it black smoke under a load? Check air filter also. Fuel pressure is also key with an ETECH engine.