CaptainCrutch

I will say the loudest part of a garbage truck in the morning is it dumping the bins, but I do like the idea of a fully electric truck by Mack. I’ve though about what a good idea it’d be to take and old cog driven Mack and put an electric motor on the cog, but I’d love to see what Mack does here. One method is literally just replacing the engine and transmission with an electric motor or putting and electric motor on every axle/wheel. The best part about electric motors is that they’re insanely torquey but lack too much speed, which is perfect for the application of a truck, yet everyone seemed to go with a car first. I’ve been looking into this industry for a few years now and was really excited at the prospect of a Tesla Semi, and even after it was shown off I wanted to see it in commercial use. Glad Mack is jumping on board the electricity train.

I saw this one rolling through downtown a while back. Hauling a small flatbed trailer.

It’s kind of funny being able to say you’ve got 5 pedals when you’re talking to someone who doesn’t quite understand fire apparatus. You always say the other 2 are for the siren and you alsways hear “what’s the 3rd one for?”

Olsons just sent us our gaskets, they’ve got a few left. I’d try them first.

Of course I do, to be more specific they were volunteers at the time but were working on becoming career. They treated her like they would in a real emergency. I wish I could see an antique rush to an emergency again. There’s nothing quite like it. Hopefully my L comes back from her trip to the vet sometime this week, then we’ll be able to have some fun, seeing as the snow is melting now.

Shouldn’t you actually take the shirt off in some cases? What’s the point in it being there. Although it’s not as bad as the woman who claimed she was raped because the life guard gave her CPR without her permission. Then she tried suing him.

I will say that was no competition and thank god because they discovered in a few minutes that the plugs were missing and there was a big hole in the main reservoir. It also didn’t help that the only hose at the event with no couplings attached had them detached because it leaked like crazy. The plan was to have ‘Old Lady’ as we call her (the beautiful white hose reel) hook up and spray into this little wooden hose thing built the day before but the museum told us we couldn’t. That pumper was also supposed to roll out to the sound of the old bell ringing but that idea also got scrapped. I can’t wait for Pump Primers this summer so I can show off both our engines pumping like they still can. My L actually won a competition in the 90s for antiques pumping, which engine would be the first to put water on a fire. Of course it helped that she was manned by professional firefighters but they couldn’t have done it without her.

I’ve got to say he’s right about at least one thing, it’s hard to own just one. I remember actually being there and seeing everything from an old El Camino to a Superliner hauling a house on a flatbed. These truck deserve to be on TV.

The only issue here is when you’re really using it, other than that nobody is going to stop you. A couple of guys have been pulled over thinking it’s because of the siren taps but really it’s just the cops wanting to let them know how cool they think their rig is. I definitely think the L would look really weird with all the red lights removed. I just hope whoever buys this piece doesn’t fall for that and plugs everything back up when they get home. It’s a great rig and deserves to shine in a parade, if not still in service like I know it could.

Here in the US I know they don’t care, especially if it’s tagged as a historic vehicle. We like to hit the sirens real quick whenever we see really excited kids or something, and then always lights and sirens for parades and stuff. I remember Jay Leno talking about how he does the same all the time and he’s in the super strict state of California where we got ticketed $100 over a GPS being an inch too high. You can see our CF like that in this video at about 1:50. Followed by the L 3 minutes later. And all the other beautiful trucks of course.

Usually when it’s not the stock R cab it’s a 4 door. I’ve found a few more with cabs like that but half of them have the pump panel on the extended part of the wall. I will say I’ve never seen the pump panel right behind and facing the jump seat. Its a shame they’re going to make you “disable” all the sirens and lights before you leave the property, but I’m sure they’d accept just unplugging it. I’m actually pretty sure that rule is total BS but oh well. Interesting find to say the least.

In case anyone else ever needs it. It does look exactly the same as on the early pictures of my truck and the others with similar gold leaf. I’ve done some more research and found 20+ more trucks with that exact look, just never a good picture of it. Thanks a bunch yarnall!

The 44th annual PA Pump Primers firetruck muster is going to be on July 13th, 2019. Plenty of antique and modern fire engines, and from experience I know the majority of them will be Macks. There’s a parade just before all the engines pull up to the river to show off their pumps. Info at: https://www.papumpprimers.org/events.html

We’ve finally received all the parts so she should be back together and running in the next few days. Can’t wait to finally hear that old 707 chugging the way she should after all these years. I’ll see if I can get some new pictures of her when we have her out.

Thanks everyone, I’m a Mack man all the way so it looks like I’ll be looking into getting a Mack B-75, B-753 or a B-755 when the time comes. I have the 2 fire trucks but I want one of those B-75s to be my first real semi truck. Once you go Mack you never go back...

I really love these models of trucks because they have the B fenders I love with a huge radiator and the option of an L cab that I also adore. I’m just wondering what the difference is between the B-73, B-75 and B-77. I plan on trying to buy one at some point in the future to haul my antique firetrucks with I just can’t at the moment.