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Always a great show. I just couldn't get up there this year.

Not much in the way of public collections in the area that I know of. The Keystone is probably your best bet. Show season has pretty well wrapped up as well. I assume you are doing the tourist thing? If so there is plenty to see and do in DC and the Metro area. Make sure you get to the new(er) addition, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, to Air and Space at Dulles Airport. Just doing the various Smithsonians can eat up a week if you want to really look at each exhibit. If you are a Civil War buff Gettysburg is only a little over an hour from DC and there are numerous other battle grounds just south of DC like Manassas and Fredericksburg. Mount Vernon estate in VA and of course Arlington National Cemetery are also well worth the time to visit as well.

The "dog box" will not cause an overheating problem. All fire apparatus is designed and tested to run at high rpm's while standing still and cannot overheat.

Find the voltage regulator and ensure it is grounded properly.

Not to be too obvious, but have you checked the fuses? If none of the lights work I'd also check to make sure you have a good ground by checking continuity to the frame from the body.

Has the coolant system been flushed recently? It sounds like you might have some crap in there that is intermittently blocking some of the flow. Flush it after using a cleaner and re-fill it with fresh coolant. A little late now, but that would have been my first shot.

If someone isn't willing to pay the price, it is not worth what the seller thinks. To me the only opinion that has any validity is the one with dead president's faces on it. I hope my wife can find the same expert when I cack out and she has to sell my "valuable antiques". And I hope he brings a buyer along that agrees with him. We both know that a fully restored AC is selling for less then what they think this is worth. No skin for me, but you know how this will turn out. The truck will sit neglected for years since "no one will pay what is worth" or "I'm not giving it away". After all that it will need a total restoration and or just be a parts truck. Either way a truck with a unique history will be lost. This truck, or any truck, is worth what someone is willing to pay in a fair and unbiased negotiation. Put it in a good well advertised auction without a reserve and then you can find out what it is worth.

The AC is neat and unique. The seller needs to put into a good auction so they can face the reality of what it is really worth.

Maybe we could do a planned meeting of the BMT folks at the museum? There are lots of restaurants and hotels around there where we could go get a meal after touring the museum. I also have a friend in the area of the museum who has a fire truck and fire memorabilia collection that is a good take in. I'm sure he would welcome the group if we wanted to visit. I'm thinking sometime around next March would be a good time. The weather here is usually pretty nice by mid-March and the show season hasn't really begun yet.

I hate it when that happens! I have had vehicles we responded to do that, including one that almost ran over a member trying to open the hood. Now SOP is (or at least was when I was stiil there) to flatten the tires and chock the vehicle as soon as you could.

I just left the dealer; about $65K plus tax, exorbitant fees, and tags. I keep a truck as a daily driver as well as using it for long road trips with the RV and the antique trucks, so I'm looking at the long term comfort and the options I want to make it a pleasure to drive. I climbed on the merry-go-round a while ago, so my present 3500HD is worth enough to make the new purchase a lot less painful. I could keep it, but I really try to balance re-sale value versus lower cost of ownership, versus the price and rebates of a new truck. This thread did get me to thinking that I might wait a while to see if Ford starts rebates when the novelty of a new line wears off.

You sold something? I thought I felt a cataclysmic shift in the force.

I drove a 2017 Ford F-350 4x4, 6.7 diesel, SRW with a load of goodies. List price: just north of $72K. No incentives. It is a very nice truck, but it might be cheaper to hire someone to deliver the Mack to shows than it would be to buy a new Ford.

Does your truck have a tach mounted on the pump panel? It should as it is a requirement. If so, how is it driven? If it is mechanical, as most Macks were from this era, it should have a "splitter" in the drive cable that will allow you to add a dash mounted tach as well. You will probably need to get a custom cable made, but that is not a big deal. Mechanical tachs are pretty common at flea markets as well. I would check the ground pretty carefully; even if it was changed from 24v to 12v I'd be surprised if the grounds changed as this requires a change of all of the gauges as well.

And don't forget it is a positive ground. Make sure the tach can be hooked up that way.

Yep, I know; sometimes its our lot in life to bring some levity to the world. The switch is located under the driver's door on the outside of the battery box.

That is correct. The battery cables are not protected by any fuses or circuit breakers, so a short in the cable will continue until the wire burns through, the battery goes dead, or the heat ignites a nearby combustible. In a storage situation you can simply disconnect the batteries and apply a maintainer. The issue with this solution is inevitably you will fail to disconnect them "because I plan on going out again real soon". The rescue squad I spoke about had responded to calls all day before it caught fire that night, so incidents can and do occur even after a short time of non-use. One other virtue of using a disconnect is it is a theft deterrent, particularly if you put the switch in an out of sight location. I know of one truck that has a disconnect located in a fabricated box under the running board. If you don't know where to look it is pretty difficult to figure out where the switch is. My Freightliner FL70 toterhome came from the factory with a disconnect switch. What does that tell you? I'm kind of anal about things like this because I know of far too many cases where a collection of antique cars or trucks have burned up. Most storage facilities are unattended and very few have fire protection or even detection, so the only logical thing is to do everything possible to prevent an incident from occurring.

Ken, you are making me chuckle as you try to chase down this ghost. We had a 1969 C cab Ford rescue squad that leaked air right from the git go. It went to the shop more times than we could count and they never could find the leak. It got to the point that we threatened to drive it into the Potomac river to look for bubbles (the shop was not amused by this suggestion). We finally jury rigged a double male quick connection to plug into the auxiliary air outlet so we could keep the station's air compressor plugged into it to keep the air pressure up. Point is you may never find all of the leaks. DOT has a rule on leak down rate which I'm sure someone on here will be able to quote. If it passes the DOT test you may just have to suppress your "anal" gene and live with it.

Here is my take on the need for a switch...We burned a firehouse down when the battery cables that ran from the rear of a rescue squad truck, a Mack R model, shorted out between the batteries and the cab mounted cut off switch. Is it worth it to spend less than $100.00 to help protect a multi-thousand dollar truck?

It might be too late in the season, but if you visit Portland light there is a food truck there that makes the best lobstah roll I ever ate. (and I've eaten hundreds) The Maine Diner in Kennebunkport on Rte. 1 serves a mean lobstah pie and sea food chowdah as well. Safe travels.

Randy, we are supposed to make him feel better, not turn his stomach. Get well soon Ron.

If you ever go through there again call ahead and they will make sure someone is on hand to pull the truck into the firehouse for you. It is a very sharp truck.

and on a couple of our open cab fire trucks you could end up throwing out a perfectly good fireman if you weren't careful. Nothing like turning a corner and looking over at an empty officer's seat that was occupied a few seconds ago.

Did you get the Berlin VFD to pull the AB out of the trailer so you could get pictures?

Find the chassis number and send it to the Mack Museum with a letter asking for any information they have about the truck. After 4 to 6 weeks you will get a very nice package containing the delivery information on the truck, an owners manual, maintenance information, etc. from the museum. The service is offered at no cost, but a suitable donation to the museum should be made so we can all continue to enjoy this valuable resource.