BillyT

One of the best looking cornbinders there was a steel hauling fleet from the Pittsburgh area ran black and white ones the were called " skunks" I forget the name!

Remember the overhead sleeper freightliners? Allied van lines ran a few! All kind of innovation to beat those length laws! Couldn't legally sleep in one when running,but I'll bet a few did!, wouldn't get me in one while moving!

Saw the K 12 video before, just caught the "ether injection" system! Hilarious! These guys are like the old street rod builders Barney Navarro, Joaquin Arnette, (gas welded a blown piston in the engine at El Mirage!) They broke the mold! What a loss, all of them! And only 3percent of Americans of driving age can drive a standard shift!

The K12 and the LJ are both rolling orgasms, these guys are my hero's!

Just glanced at that video the first time I saw it, it's obvious when you look at it closely! Also seems to be a lot of slop in the shifters!

Did you try J B Weld on that piston? Lol

That's a two case job for sure Straub please!

The wheel lift has changed the equation on wreckers, especially heavy truck wreckers! When I was in the towing business in the early 70s we used a sling to prevent damage when cars and light trucks had steel bumpers ! The wheel lift became necessary with the fiberglass front end like corvettes camaro, etc,and then the rubber front front ends on everything including big trucks! The lever arm principle teamster Grrrl mentioned is mostly applicable on a "boom type" wrecker like a Holmes 850 the newer ones have a wheel lift as well, but use the split booms for winching! A short or "shorter" wheelbase wrecker with a wheel lift or even a boom will actually lift the steering tires with a heavy load! I once hauled a 50s Gmc dump ( road tractor spec chassis) with a 40 series Chevy wrecker to the scrap yard and every time we hit a bump the steering tires would leave the ground! My helper and I had to lean up against the windshield to turn into the scrap yard! Unsafe as hell, but must have been comical to watch!😁 Think of that fulcrum and lever you learned about in grade school!

Underdog did that Volvo come from the factory with the chopped top? Speaking of car hauling anecdotes, Nu Car Carriers had a photo at their Ayer Ma. Yard of a unit the driver drove right off the end of the headramp AT I in Pittsburgh had a picture of an old 6 car rig that bottomed out on a rr crossing and got hit by a train! Fortunately the driver escaped! The units spread out over 1000 yds of track didn't!

Underdog,you got that right! Every bridge in New York state is marked a foot low except those in the city ( we mean it!😁 ) are those rental cars?

Post of the decade gents!! I'm not usually at a loss for words,but I am now! Did that lady catch her old man cheating?LoL!

What a surprise the truckload carriers today and the ATA disapprove of trailer side shields...they cost money! And prevent the company from squeezing the last ounce of payload into the trailer! The ambiguous "work on crash prevention" sounds good to the public and who doesn't love crash prevention! I suspect they would reinforce the trailer and add resale value! They have almost become standard equipment for fuel conservation,take a page from the race car builders book, and use aircraft aluminum struts! They could even be swapped to the next wagon! Deregulation, with its low rates and wages has removed the term professional driver from the equation and it's up to 80 percent turnover is guaranteed to remove any chance for stability which =safety! The carriers have gotten exactly what they deserved and the drivers and general public are paying for it! Ok I'm off my soapbox...for now!

Several things,as usual each member has an insightful comment! Poor highway design,one of my.pet peeves for the last 40 yrs! Two examples, I 40, Ok City westbound as I remember there is an overpass where The highway dips down to go under the bridge! No problem in the day,it is obvious,at night if vehicles are going N or S across the bridge and you were tired or dozing, It looks like you're gonna hit them broadside! Of course you aren't supposed to drive when you're tired so of course nobody does right?😁 Of course if you aren't fatigued you realize you're on an interstate and there is no cross traffic ( hopefully!) I can imagine a fatigued driver seeing the lights of those vehicles for the first time and locking it up! My "lock it up" reflex entered my mind even having driven thru there many times! The other one should get the award for potentially fatal highway design! 84 Pa where nb I 79 crosses I 70 ! There is a 90 degree turn, very well marked, but if you're new to the area you aren't gonna believe how tight it is! So many truckers were killed there that the Washington County coroner sat there several days to figure out how to make it safer! I lived three miles away for ten yrs! They finally put up a shiny smooth concrete barrier for the trucks to rub on to prevent them from turning over! Haven't been thru there for years,so I don't know if they have improved it further! How about "a 1000.00 fine and 10 days in jail if you hit this wall? Maybe that would get their attention! Another situation that every driver puts up with is the penchant of every big box store industrial park, and parking lot owner to plant trees and shrubbery on the corners of every street in their facility so it blocks your vision when you try to pull out! Also in many cases the stop signs are too low to see if you're in a higher truck or Cabover! Should have a second ss up higher! Every Wal Mart in America has this situation! Car lot, there was an article in Car and Driver concerning the Legalities of driving an autonomous vehicle! Who is responsible when the collision mitigation feature fails or the brakes lock up for no reason? The builder or the rider? Like you said wait til the folks who have been staging accidents for the insurance money home in on this opportunity! I was looking for a video of the Edmund Fitzgerald for my grandson ( he's a fan of maritime disasters) and I came across a survey of otr truckers some media types did at the Petro in Effingham! Very depressing! Every member needs to see this! I need all of the members especially OD since he runs long haul and seems to still love it!,to see this and comment! A couple of real truckers among them,the rest hmmm? The 22 year old from Maine has potential! If I was younger I'd love to apply at one of these diploma mills or truckload carriers who train steering wheel holders and pretend I've never driven! What a rush! But how do you pretend you have never driven a stick? Whoops I forgot you dont have to!

41, my daughter and her friend loved the story about the farmer and the lawyer!😁

Speaking of big trucks with chopped tops, M/L transport(a division of Ryder) had some S model International tractors with chopped tops! I think they came from the factory that way! They were chopped so the headramp would be lower so they would be under 13'6" None of the major car haulers will permit a driver to leave a facility over 13'6" The first outfit I drove for had an an aluminum "stick"that you measured your load with.Leaseway had a metal framework with cloth strips that were set at 13'6" that you drove under.

Thought I've seen everything but I've never seen that model,! What are the specs? Strangest tractor I've ever driven was one of those compact "cornbinder" Cabover with the five speed column shift wtf! Wilson Freight Mckees Rocks Pa! 249 extra list! Nice company to drive for one of the many victims of deregulation! Anybody see that Barnum and Bailey Circus just did their last show? Sad! I'll bet the flags are flying at half mast in Gibsonton Florida! For the uninitiated,"Gib town" is a small town where circus people live, performers, vendors,etc near Tampa Bay.

Wow Superdog,what a dinosaur! ,I love old wreckers,especially homemade ones! Having built a couple,when I was in the towing business! Has a set of dollies on it,so they must have towed cars with it! Talk about overkill! Some of the more difficult sheet metal repair stuff looks repairable, especially the windshield area and doors! However a picture only shows so much! Good luck! Got the bulldog too of course! Is that a Brockway I'm seeing in the background? Hmmm!

I actually had a little pedal airplane when I was about 3 (1947) similar to 57s little car only had wings and a.red star (like a ww11 trainer) Those things bring crazy money today!

Hobert that insurance is really reasonable, but you gotta break your wife of drinking that yuppie coffee!😁

Great looking job Freightrain!

If you primed it with that Eastwood Por 15 (I hope I got the name right) You it would never rust again!

Couple of nice Buckeye bulldogs!

As usual the only winners are the lawyers!

Mower man and Vapatentman,this company has a lot of turnover, you seldom see the same helper twice! Don't know if they fall off and the driver just leaves them in the ditch!😁,actually you just KNOW the driver handbook prohibits them from riding on the back! (Wink,wink) possibly the company denies them workmans comp if they fall off! But if the guy had to run up and get in the cab when the stops are a hundred yards apart he'd be worn out at the end of a two hundred stop day! I was thinking the helper could have a belt with a metal loop on it that Snaps onto a belt hanging from the truck! Or a half round cage on the corner of the truck ( like they have on ladders going up to water towers)!

Fxfymn, on a serious note, I saw the "helper" on the back of our local refuse contractors clinging to the handle on the back of the packer at 60mph on a four lane expressway! The thing has a little two ft step for him to stand on! Designed I'm sure for 10mph stops in local neighborhoods! I think the fire trucks have a safer place for them to stand on don't they? If that packers driver hit a bump or made a sudden move the helper would have been " gone" perhaps literally!