bandit1trucking

We bought 2 Mack dumptrucks just north of Denver at an auction in '88, one was a '72 R700, the other was a '73 R600. We had driven the motorhome up there, and visited some family and friends on the trip also. We INTENDED to buy one dumptruck, but due to a lack of communications, dad and I both ended up buying one... Long story... Anyway, I was just 16 at the time, but the plan was for me to drive the dumptruck back home to Tulsa... Since we ended up with 2, I drove the R700 back. The R600 had holes in the back plate for a hitch, but no hitch. So we made a template of the holes, and when we got home I fabricated a hitch for a 2" ball to bolt to the plate. We had a Pontiac Phoenix to pull behind the motorhome, so we built a hitch on the back of it, and dad pulled the car toter trailer back up there with the Phoenix, bolted the hitch to the back of the R600, loaded the Phoenix on the toter and headed home... Made the trip OK, but that camelback suspension shook the piss out of the toter and car. Towbar would probably be a much better method. Or if he had found somewhere to put half a load of dirt or something in the bed it probably would have helped also.

Yes it was. "Screamin" 8v71 powered, air over hydraulic 666d. Dad bought it at an auction for $17,000 in 1986, we used it on 3 jobs, then sold it back to the company we bought it from in 1990 for $27,000. Not a bad deal...

The picture of the Koehring, it was grossing somewhere about 150,000 to 155,000. We only hauled it like that once, then started taking the bucket and counterweights off getting the gross down to about 115,000. That picture was in 1986, the next one up sitting by the chevy was in about 1991. Then the one with the Komatsu crossways was in 2008. That's the last load it hauled, I was doing 2 jobs a couple of miles from each other, and had to keep shuffling the trackhoe back and fourth. Only about a mile down the road, so we'd just block the road on each end and haul ass... RIght after this pic was taken, when we got to the other end, you go down a pretty good hill, several curves and at the very bottome of the hill the road t's to where we were working. it had rained some, and where we were working was dirt, headed uphill for about 100 feet, then it kind of leveled off. We were cutting a new road thru the hill. One of the guys was waiting there when I got there, and he was parked right in the way, so I had to stop and have him move. So I had to take off going up hill, with about 30' of pavement before I hit the dirt... I started out in Low 1st, hit direct, then direct 2nd and HAMMERED ON IT... I was headed uphill, so didn't think much of it... When I got to the level place and stopped, TJ came running up and said "can you do that again??? I want to get a picture" I asked what the hell he was talking about... He said when I hammered on it after the last shift, the front end came off the ground for about 20 feet... Old Bullpup still has it...

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I got it out of the barn and into the shop today, I'll look at it a bit closer tomorrow. I didn't see any letters before the numbers, but I'll investigate further. This isn't any type of rush deal (I havn't used the truck but twice in the last 11 years), but I think it'll be a cool project. I want to fix it up, paint it, and do some other work to it. My long term goal is to keep it hooked up to my tandem lowboy mainly, and keep the Peterbilt hooked up to the tri-axle lowboy. So the Mack would mainly tote a backhoe around, and occassionaly a dozer.

Ok, I wallered the spare transmission around today, and found some numbers on it. What I found is 1076. Is that a 5 speed or a 6 speed?

I have thought about staying with the 2 stick 6, and going with the air shift 1241c auxillary.

I have a 1980 R600 we bought new. It has the 285 (I think) with the tip turbine, and a 2 stick 6 speed. I don't know the rear end ratio, I do know it would run right at 70mph at 2150rpms, on 10:00R20's. It now has 11:00R20's on it. This is a winch tractor, with a Tulsa 34 winch on it, and very low miles for it's age (under 200,000 original miles. I quit using this truck about 11 years ago when I bought a '91 Pete with a 3406 and 15 speed, but am in a position now where I want to restore the Mack, make it really nice and start using it again. This truck always pulled pretty good, I've grossed up to 117,000 with it. It really was slow going in hills though when loaded heavy. You had to drop down to around 40mph before you could downshift... One thing I would like to change is go to 11:00R24.5 tires, which will help with ground clearance issues with my 3 axle lowboy. This will rob some power, so I'm thinking of adding a 4 speed auxillary. Namely a Spicer 1241c. We used to have a '68 and a '69 model, both with the 237 and 5x4 setups. So I'm familliar with driving these. I was about to do this conversion when I bought the Pete, but didn't get past the thinking about it stage. My main question at this time, is about the 2 stick 6 speed. Is this the same transmission as the air shift 6 speed, except the top cover? Or would I need to change the complete transmission? I have a spare transmission that I was told was an air shift 6, but I don't have the shifter for it.