Joseph Cummings

It's a 41 year old cabover, repowered with a 30 year old M11, with paint and lots of shiny stuff bolted to it. It looks like problems. They only made the MH for about 8 years. There are not many left to rob for parts. They haven't made them in 34 years. Salvage yards don't save old cabover cabs, you are going to be searching some farmer's junk when you need anything. And who the hell did the M11 repower? Did they even have a clue as to what they were doing? And why a M11 and not an N14? Why do you want a MH so bad? There are lots of better more plentiful trucks out there. And if "looking cool" is any part of your business plan, you are going to mess up

They throw around the word "Nazi" too much "A homonymic term Nazi was in use before the rise of the NSDAP in Bavaria as a pet-name for Ignaz and (by extension from that) a derogatory word for a backwards peasant, ." Basically it's calling someone a stupid hillbilly. It reminds me too much of how Hillary Clinton called those WV miners a "Basket of Deplorables"

We were cutting them like crazy then. Even fairly late models. Hardly anyone wanted them. Lots got made into conventional gliders. If you are doing local work and in and out of the truck all day, all that climbing gets hard on the body. Most of what people call "Cabovers" that are designed for city work are actually cab forward trucks with low entry

Local 825?

Good thing it wasn't a Big Mac. I wouldn't trust the "special sauce"

I never had any problem with any of my in-chassis rebuilds not lasting. In construction or city service one million miles really never happens. By then the truck is worn out. And when you are working on a contract, what are you going to do, have a month of downtime while some automotive machinist plays with his wiener? Half the time one of those bastards touch something it comes out wrong anyway. They hire from the same pool of idiots that everyone else does. It's not like they have guys that grew up in a machinist monastery. And I think it's a hell of a lot faster and cheaper to cut one journal and roll in rods and mains than to take the engine out of the truck and tear it in a million pieces. Again, it all comes down to downtime. Contracts have lots of penalties in them for not completing them on time. Not to mention if you play around you can lose your ability to get a performance bond. Even without contract issues, if you let a customer down and he has to call someone else because he needs stuff done, you stand a good chance of losing that customer.

Forklift certification, what a joke. I was on a forklift before I was a teen. When that "certified forklift operator" thing came out I thought "What kind of idiot can't operate a forklift" But then again, today we have grown men that can't jumpstart a pickup or change a tire. If we are going to Make America Great Again all these nancy boys are going to have to be thoroughly re-educated

We did lots of stuff that wouldn't be "approved" or even believed by the "techs" of today. Like grinding one rod journal in the truck with one of these and having the truck back in service and working the next day Hell we used to do an in-chassis and have the truck back to work within a day or two even if something was slightly worn beyond tolerance. The techs nowadays will put someone out of business with downtime. Lost truck revenue and failing to fulfill contracts doesn't even get factored into their thinking process

I was just remembering back in the day when I used that pallet jack. I used to use this place in Trenton NJ called "Trenton Brakes" on Princeton Av. I took the whole assembly there, drums, wheel spiders, rims, tires and they would cut the drums with everything together. Then they would reline the shoes to match the diameter of each drum. The shoes and the drum would be a tagged and matched set for each wheel end. When was the last time you saw that done lol? On the way back there was a Polish store a couple blocks up and I used to stop and buy this dried sausage then stop at the Extension Tavern (Longest Bar in NJ)for lunch. Then I'd stop at The Cycle Kings clubhouse to BS with those guys. I'd be the only White guy there lol. Needless to say after lunch I didn't get a whole lot done lmao. Damn if I could just go back 45 years

You know truck driving is like the only occupation that OSHA exempts from rules about working at heights and climbing. Something about it falling under the jurisdiction of the DOT or FMCSA and they do not address the issue. In an industrial setting you can only climb a few feet (like maybe 3) before all kinds of regulations about fall protection and everything kick in. I've been in plants where they require you to wear a harness and be clipped off just to run a scissor lift

Back in the day I used an old pallet jack I found in the scrap and fixed for a wheel dolly