Vladislav

Those panels on Eastern and Western R's are completely different. Eastern ones are MUCH longer and I"m afraid (not sure) are less of the higth (narrower). Also Western parts were made of alu and had surface stamped by leaned lines which cross each other. Eastern panels were different as I said but what's important (to Eastern R owners) they were at least 3 (known to me) styles. Early ones were alu with four (some with six) holes for screws in the corners. The surface was of horizontal stamped lines combining polished and ground (sand-scratched) areas. Those were installed (as I could figure) on early hoods on non-CMAC trucks. The trucks with aircooler (longer hoods) purchased newer panels which were made of stainless steel. The same general design but as I was told by some owners of early R's those newer panels were less in size and didn't fit early hood opening really good. But that's not the end of the list. Later panels were of two different styles too. If you look at pics of Eastern R's you can notice some trucks had framings over the headlight openings in the hood and some didn't. I can't state those parts were installed from/to a sertain production year, more seem to me as an alternative factory option. Nevermind. The panels were different. Those which were used with no framings had four screw holes in the corners. And those which were supposed to be combined with frames had a sticking end at one side (toward the grill) to be slicked in below the framing and two screws in the corners at the outer side. And that is the style (and probably the only one) which you can currently purchase new. They're made by PAI and could be found on ebay etc. Part ## are FPA-5774 for the LH (with a square hole for pre-heater socket) and FPA-5773 for the RH (looking from driving direction) with no hole and you can use on the both sides if no heater to be installed. There's an issue if you're going to use those panels on a hood with no framings (as I did). First you need to cut off that sticking area. Than you find the two holes in the corners at the outer side don't correspond with ones in the hood. Seems like new holes were designed the screws to get into the framing not straight to the hood. And if you try to just put screws they get into the headlight opening not the fiberglass. So some kind of offset plates are needed to be made. And you sure need two more holes to drill at the grill side too.

I always liked the look of your truck. One of my favorite RS. The headlights are fine on the pictures. Good luck on the upcoming show season!

Welcome to the site! As said above we like to see the pictures, that's true. Vlad

Larry, please explain me one thing. Do you have the Air o Matic in operation all the time when you drive or switch it on only when you need it such as parking lot maneuvering and so on?

I never put my hands on a truck power steering gear so far but I have a couple of points to put in. 1st. Once patiently stydieing description of design of Mercedes G-class steering gear which is too close to what was used on some Russian trucks of mid 60's I found interesting nuance about pressures. The matter was when you steered you activated some pressure in the box which was applied to a piston which moves Pitman arm shaft by some way to turn wheels. It's clear the harder the wheels to move at the time the more pressure you needed. Using that effect that pressure was also provided to some another part (piston or its area?) in the box so when you turn the steering wheel you have to put force against it. Telling different words the resistence of the steering wheel you felt as a "road feeling" was in fact not any force reacted from the road but a force simulated in the steering gearbox specially for the feeling. Sure there was a corellation but those forces were not the same thing. And taking that to account the matter of "blind" steering with some power setup could be in that very wrong design of the unit. 2nd. Once I looked over design of early KrAZ truck powersteering which was an air assist I noted it had a power cylinder at the right of the truck and a drag link with a valve assembly at the left attached to a mechanical gear. Pretty sure I saw something similar on Western RL-model Mack but with hydraulic cylinder not air. Nevermind. The function of the system is you turn the wheel in the cab you move the drag link and there are control valves which are spring loaded by some way. If you drive down a highway or steer on ice just a few resistance goes from front wheels so valve springs don't compress enough to open valves. This means the power cylinder doesn't get any pressure so doesn't effect wheels to steer at all. And you steer just like (and in fact by) mechanical gear. As greater resistace to steer the road gives you the more force you have to apply to the sterring wheel. At certain point the force gets to the level of the valve spring to compress so valve opens supplying oil to the power cylinder and it helps. As long as you continue steering or even doing it faster the greater pressure gets to the assistance. If you stop sterring the valve spring looses application, depresses and closes the valve. What's interesting to us in that is an integrated power steering gear also has valves iside. And also has springs in those valves. Othervise it just couldn't figure when to start to assist. Mercedes G-model gear has them I know. So way to correct a power steering feeling is to play with the valve spring hardness. And not with fluid pressure or volume. Worth to admitt a man should be careful tuning a power steering. Since if you put settings wrong your wheels could start turning themself at some time. And they wouldn't mind you're standing parked or doing 60MPH down a highway.

Don't want to be involved into political conversation much but that story is not an event that cheers me up.

Interesting story. What happened to the truck? Do you still own it? Seems much rarer than an avarage Superliner

In fact you can get them from Watts newly reproduced for $50 apiece any time which seems quite reasonable if you really need perfect ones for your truck. Watts made a really good job offering the most of the line of B-model emblems such as B-61, B-67, B-73 etc.

I sure do

Tom, thank you for posting the beauties! I saw that B-model parked outside at the back yard behind the main museum building when visited the place in 2018. But EHU is almost new to me and seems extremely rare being E-cabover and integral sleeper at the same time. Looks nicely done from what I can see on the picture. Happy New Year to you and Zina!

Would be (damn) interesting to learn what NZ Superliner II used of the chassis. The hood on your 2nd photo looks definitely of American style. And the battery box with air tank attached to also points to the US style RW chassis.

That's Australian version of RB set back axle model. Thank you for the picture. Never seen one of this good quality.

From the shape of the front bumper I would say that's RW2 with just early hood attached. Front bumper bolt holes mate to the chassis brackets. So a trouble to fit different bumper without sufficient modifications. RW1 and RW2 hoods insteed are smoothly interchangeable.

You should check your registration on Wattstruckcenter web-page. Watt's send X-mas Specials notifications, not BMT.

I got all the emails and the hub cap offer was on one of the days. Unfortunately the last of 12 days was yesterday. I remember a couple or even more years back Barry posted on here that he couldn't continue notifying of upcoming Specials on BMT by some reason.

Looks like still plenty of them in the right neighbourhood. Iranians post a lot of pics on Instagram and it seems they're doing well with old Macks. I have no idea on how they can supply themself with spares due to the sanctions. But trucks run so that means with a help of Allah they do I have a kind of idea roaming over my mind to go to Iran and check the things myself. From talks with people who lived there I learned it's possible. Just not sure their officials would have no questions due to US entering stamps in my passport. And what seems more important is a point of view of US consul in ambassady when I request US visa for the next time after such voyage

Necessities in the cab is an everyday reality when you travel up to 3000 km from home not always over developed areas and in many cases being having to live in a truck for a few days or even weeks waiting for a load or repair. Many (or the most) Russian truckers do that way of things either. Even with a cost of 3 dished meal of $4 on avarage in a road side cafe.

Welcome to the party!

Paul, It's a real pleasure to cheer your friends when you enjoy something. Just a part of our hobby you know. Right at the moment I'm looking at those photos and smiling from ear to ear and a little. And would very like you to participate. Worth waisting bugger all, isn't it?

Merry Christmas BMT! Hey, Eastcoasters - don't you also have any snow on the ground? Just like me, in Russia??

Heavy and probably Iranian-made 5th wheel.

Of what I learned the chassis, transmission and the diffs were imported from the States and the cab and the hood were produced locally. As i understood the engine was Iranian production copy of American E6 but I could be wrong on that. The cab is quite simple steel box with small integral sleeper and seemed having no American made parts. Of what I noted were R-model steering column, early steel rimed dash gauges and complete factory vent windows in the doors. The rest was Iranian but looked quite well done and also very solid after many thousand km the truck covered up since it was made in 1983 (the engne was swapped in 1997). Interesting feature I noted was a rear cab attachment. You can see a leaf spring seated on the frame rail brackets supporting the center of the rear cab wall. Looks simple and reliable at the same time. A pair of shocks could be seen at each side if you lean your head to look below the cab floor.

It was very interesting to me to explore the design Iranian Macks were made by since I only could see them on web pics and knew there was a factory producing them by some way. Being able to actually (and finally!) put my hands on and put my nose into I found quite interesting matters. In fact the truck I saw (and by the style of the front bumper attachment the most other Iranian R's) was built on a heavy double frame of a DM600 model which rails have different shape and size than American R-model does. The engine looked like a classy E6-350 4V but the driver told me it was tuned up (or made that way or anything else??) up to 420hp. The tranny was two stick 10-speed unit I couldn't recognize but it looked like a 3 countershaft housing so probably T100 series 10 speed (T1070 or so). The rears were really heavy setup with elephant ear trunnion brackets, Camelback spring packs and cast axle housngs. They looked at least as 44000 series or even (and probably) heavier. 6 spoke hubs with 8 bolt jack shaft cones were fitted with 12.00-24 tube type tyres. The driver told me the most he could do down a highway was 60km/h so with that tall wheels it's even difficult to imagine of how slow the diff ratio was. Possibly the tranny was direct in the top hole but I was out of my Iranian speaking capabilities to figure such a detail.

I had a lucky chance today to see a very rare beast. Sure it's rare in my neck of the woods but I expect it even much rarer in the US or Europe to show up. A friend of mine was told by someone that Iranian Mack truck was parked in Moscow industrial area. The truck was seen 3 weeks earlier running down a highway in the night but no extra facts. This time chances were much higher so we picked up our cameras and went exploring the faith. We found the truck with no efforts at the parking lot we were told it was seen at for the last time. The driver was there also so we could talk a little . In fact "talking" was a literally word since he knew just a few Russian words but it was great anyway. He was loaded with a piece of heavy drilling equipement for construction and waited for oversize permit to move it to Iran. It was taking a while so he had to hang up in Russia, probably longer then he would like to. Lucky him there's still no snow in the central area of the country so he would go home relatively easy. At least I hope and wish that to him.

Seems like someone just removed the missile at the last moment you provided the purchase. Hope you'll be able to manage all those gauges and other stuff sucessfully enough without that sure expensive option.