Vladislav

Mack Superliner only had custom or aftermarket chrome grill. Factory grill was a grilldensor made of aluminium.

When i built the building (and actually it will be built more upwards in the future) I put 4 U-channels and welded wiring to them and connected to the main slab mesh. So they are both integrated into the slab to increase its load capacity and allow to hang sufficient loads on the hoists. Currently i made two cross beams in the half where the truck was parked to dismantle engines etc and only one so far at the right where the cab was lowered down. The matter to make 3 was the length of the beam I bought for - 12 meters gave me 3 parts of 4 meters.

Almost agree Paul. But taking that to account you should pay even more care to a choice of your purchase. Since the amount of efforts fixing the object is usually huge or at least sufficient. So making a step aside from the most valuable vehicle you put you on a track which will bring you too far away from the most desired result. And sure a long while will pass by as we all here know very well.

Paul, mate, I'm happy if I could please you. i remember you showed interest and I promised to share my progress so now i do. Unfortunately it takes time and attention. I still can't figure how and take my hat off to you representing the story of rebuilding Mrs Mack with so many detailingly filmed movies being in a tight shedule with managing your property. No, the cab didn't get any damage if you hook it up right. Worth to note i saw multiple samples of bent roofs and doors or at least drip rails on R or DM cabs even in Russia. So knowing of what you should not to do is easier to find a good way of things. For proper attachment you should use strong elements of the structure. Also you should distribute the stress to some area and not concentrate it in a small spot to avoid local depressions. The way I did is putting 150x100 mm wooden bean through the door openings. I even did the same to the completely painted cab when brang it back home from a paint shop (I will post those pics when the time comes) and didn't do any damage to fresh paint. Just put a thick pack of newspapers between the beam and the cab and also glued 3 or 4 layers of paper masking tape onto the painted surface. R-model cab seems is a tough enough structure to be lifted that way. This one was up with no doors and seats but I had experience doing the same to a complete cab. Also I parted many Mercedes G-model for business and we took complete bodies hanged to an overhead hoist using the same kind of wooden beam. I even used one hoist at the front putting the chain through the roof vent (which is quite large there though). It was funny when I took the body off my personal G when revised the chassis a couple years back. I hanged a complete body together with front end, doors, windows and interior including heavy seats. When got it off the chassis I found the balance was 99 to 100% of the weight was applied to the front hoist (usually we put 2nd one to the rearmost body to chassis mounting holes). That case all the body turned out hanging on the only chain went through the roof vent and attached to a beam I put through the door openings. And that turned out fine. No damage to the shell and no crackings in the windscreen which even had a couple to the moment. Put it back that same way after completed the chassis in 3 months.

Me either but it takes more time than I would like it to be taken. Thank you for the kind words.

I was thinking that buying each of my trucks. Don't want to figure how many I own at the moment but the purchase count was 10

Keith, I just try my best. And really enjoy fixing the things the way I would like to.

That was one of my original ideas also. Good thing that all is good. Knock on wood

What a beauty! Asks for love by all her look.

Spinning thoughts is mostly always a good deal to do indeed. Of the truck the purchase idea is what my hell part of the mind tells. And the angel one advices to not get in rush and wait for a B with big alu grill which is rarer and more to my taste but would involve about the same amount of job activities and costs. In the particular case the only possible way to import that truck is taking it apart in NJ and load into a sea conteiner. I would pay nearly $1 for every pound of the shipping weight. Taking to account I have a complete bogie with camelback springs, Mack axles and 22,5 Dyton hubs and also short block of something like 237 engine (it was tagged as EM6-225) completed with crank, rods, pistons and heads it seems I would easily get rid of that Cummins engine in the B as long as the rears and split the weight down to 2-3 ton. Would be $5-6K to import it anyway and a need to transport to NJ and spend there a week or 2 to convert it into a pile of parts. The cost of the truck doesn't seem very friendly also since it's not road ready to be driven to NJ, plenty of rust and the rears are really slow as I could figure from the content the seller posted on here in the past. He noted good tyres but you never know how such are really good until check out in person. On the brighter side I could purchase a B-model and that would be the only B in Russia. Again, in a case if no one else more crazy than me and with a thicker wallet would import a complete or restored truck during the time I would tinker with one more pile of scrap metal

In a memory of Tilted Kilt Good job I even feel it's time for me to pack my bags and fly to Florida. Oh, no, probably it's too late...

All that surgary took 3 or 4 months looking the calendar so the weather got cold. We loaded the cab on a small trailer, waited for a good freezy day and sandblasted it all over including the insides of rockers and rear cross channel. The cab still layed on its back that time. I could lift it up a bit and put a wooden plank for support so the rear wall was partly blasted too. But actually it was mostly covered with paint so seemed possible to work out later with sandpaper. After the sand shower I put the cab in a warm shop for further actions. To be continued in a day or two.

Had to remove the sealer from the roof drip rail since it showed cracking and I planned to sandblast everything to be sure of no rust anywhere. Quite hard material being 32 years old but got soft after applying heat.

The last rusty neck of the woods over the cab floor was rearmost seam where floor sheet was attached to the rear crosschannel. In fact that channel was inside the cab and you could see it behind the seats. Stamped part you could see is its top. From the bottom it's covered with rear end of the floor sheet where they're spot welded together making a closed tube. My idea was cutting off a strip off the floor sheet and drill the spots to open the channel at the bottom. After that was done and I saw rust in the sandwich I figured the time was not wasted.

Next point was rocker panels. They were not really bad but showed some rust where were sandwiched to the sills. Also someone in the past installed lights in them so drilled holes which I preferred to get rid of. By chance I could purchase a pair of new rocker assemblies so resolved to pull the trigger. In fact you can not remove rocker assemblies complete not bothering the sill panels. The latters were good enough so I looked for options. Figured I could keep the rearmost portion in place making a cross cut. And than later fabricating connecting parts to unify them with new rockers. Getting a bit further I can tell the plan was to make the most connections with bolts and nuts to avoid welding. Worth to admitt the front ends of old rockers also gave us sufficient headaches to get free from the cab but with some cutting/drilling and standard lot of cuss words that hill was climbed up.

The main target of the work was to remove all rust spots including potentional ones. Such areas took place between the floor sheet and floor support reinforcements. I took measurements off those channels, made scatches and ordered new ones to fabricate in a steel shop. Got parts in a week or so and after that my guy drilled off all weld spots (and drilled some through) and the old parts were removed. Good thing the rust protection coating used at the factory was asphalf (bitumen?) based. So half a jerrican of gas made a job removing that stuff away.

Next step was putting the cab on its back. We removed front reinforcement parts, front cab mount brackets and the airbag assembly. Steel bolts got almost stuck in aluminium mounting brackets so regardless extensive penetrating with WD40 and hitting by hammer we got a dozen of them broken down. Could remove the brackets from the cab pockets. Than later having them on a bench I welded nuts to the ends of broken bolts and after multiple attempts combined with heating, hitting and penetration removed all the restovers.

Had to make reinforcement straps to support the roof which lost its original strength. Used steel stripe 6mm (1/4") thick and 50mm (2") wide. Bent in shape to follow the roof curve but also to stress it upwards. Made two such straps.

No that engine was not military only. It was originally offered by Mack as a part of the newly designed Thermodyne family in November of 1938. So it was before the beginning of WW2. I'm not ready to share facts right at the moment but suppose they were also installed in commercial trucks after the war until newer generation of the same basic design came into produdtion. Worth to note the military version had some specialialities such as modified oil pan and pump to clear up the front drive axle since those were used in 6x6 trucks. Also they didn't have dual ignition being not a firetruck engine. But the 2nd spot in the block for the additional distributer drilling and the 2nd geared area on the engine shaft were all there.

After that I invited my friend who is a body guy to get the roof closer to its normal shape. Seemed like during the years of service many folks made dancings on that roof so it became more as a pan than a dome. The pics are of the before and after. And also one from the net taken at some time long back at some truck stop by some driver who asked the Mack driver for permission to pose on the hood... In fact that was not the truck I took the cab off but the second one and illustrates really well the actual grade of respect people payed to the rigs they worked for living. To be continued

Having all the parts in place I drilled holes for pull rivets from the outside to attach the wall sheet to.

If you look from the opening there was a gap occured between the steel sheet and reinforcement channels where the wall didn't have depressions. The task was to have a tight fit so we had to fabricate spicers. My helper cut pieces off the same square channel the way I showed him and than tinkered with the final shape for a couple of hours following my directions. Those metal pieces looked funny but fit well. It took him a couple more hours to duplicate the part for the other side. After that I welded both spicers in place. Some grinding smoothed the look and the result showed up. Than we had to make something similar to the side areas since there were gaps either. But those spots were much easier having no angle crossing of the surfaces.

The first thing I wanted to do was to correct the sleeper entrance opening. When I made new sleeper it was done a bit longer than the original one to be able to walk into. Originally it was a crawl through style so the cab had only the rear glass removed and cut out for 100-150 mm lower the window lower edge. A long while back Dan Bruno had scatches of the sleeper of the Rubber Duck RL700 on the fan-site page he ran at those times. I took general sizes of the opening from there and used them making my sleeper. So now just needed to cut the cab the same way. Cutting itself was sure not a problem. The difficulty was to organize some thicker edge to the cab wall to be able to fit the entrance boot in the future. Also I wanted to reinforce the wall after I cut alot of it away. Measuring the distance between the inner interior lining and the metal it seemed suitable to use rectangular steel pipe. Or a channel. In Russian we call such beam as a pipe but seems American terminology is different. Nevermind. I used pieces of the channel to put vertically and attached by a pair of machine screws at each end. Made them having the heads outside in the rear wall depressions so they wouldn't rub the sleeper wall. Also they're difficult to see on the truck when the sleeper will be in place. Than I cut two pieces for diagonal portions, fit them in place and welded to the stakes.

We stripped the cab to the bare metal.

I ordered my helper guy to remove everything from the inside and off the firewall. Said him to mark as much as he could or what seemed notable. I went off for a couple of days and when back found a funny fact. He needed to put marks on the paper masking tape he glued up but he didn't know what was what in the most cases. That way he marked many spots with what was written on the shields and gauges. So I could see the badges written in English and that was done by a person who could not say or wright any word in English at all! Sure no problem, worked out fine.