Rob

By the rules most anything over 10,001 pounds is consider commercial. What I am wanting to do is private carrier rated as it supports another business that is not transportation for hire. J.J. Keller has quite the website and is helpful. I've emailed some questions and my stated purposes so should get a response shortly. Rob

Kind of a sensitive type a guy eh?Rob

That's also why I've been so successful in my radar career. I can spell it forwards, and backwards.Rob

Is that like "Transceiver" used to be?Rob

Currently all my trucks are tagged with antique plates as they are cheap and let me run around Illinois without limitations for my purpose. I'm thinking of licensing my 80 R model with regular plates to 45,000lb rating so I can use the truck. If I baseplate in Illinois, and stay in Illinois, no problem and won't even need a log book. Let's for sake of conversation say I want to go to New Mexico from Illinois to pick up a restoration candidate that is owned by me. On this retrieval mission, what do I need to do to be legal, and who do you get trip permits from? In my car hauling days I baseplated in Illinois, and purchased apportionments for Indiana, and Missouri but never ran out of those three states. This was contract hauling from point "A" to point "B" dedicated and nothing else. I no longer have dot numbers so I'm starting from scratch. Thanks, Rob

Don't forget yakking on the cell phone too.Rob

We best be careful or we'll send him into "pout" mode again.Rob

How about the 1978 steel dash cab, and old style front spokes? I like the 38,000lb single rear myself.Rob

I had a 76 R685, and a 77 R686. The 76 had the dogs, the 77 did not and neither truck had been painted on at the time, and both were known original. Rob

Kinda like that at my shop. Although it is on a state hiway you can go onto the back porch and shoot, piss, yell, or whatever you'd like to do and nobody is gonna bother, or say anything. The neighbor likes to shoot his muzzle loader quite a bit as an example. Rob

I'll be about 130 miles south of Morton. My uncle and I are going to attempt to get his old lowboy 4200 IH going so I can get it home to the shop. Wanting to take "Yella Dog", (truck you drove) apart to install engine/trans into the white B61 in the shop. The IH will be my new yard jockey.Rob

I don't need no more rollover prone trucks on the property. Once his pecker starts stiffening up, the bulldog will take a back seat to other interests. Rob

Hi Randy, I am doing the family thing this long weekend so won't really be around after Thursday night. We are leaving early Friday morning and won't be back unti Monday evening.Sorry to miss you. Rob

Good looking outfit. Bet you miss that one. The rivets on this one held a rectangular part for certain. There are four rivets about three inches apart on the top and bottom. The top to bottom spacing is about three inches also. Rob

Got to looking at the races and bearings last night and a couple on one wheel were questionable. Keeping with Rob tradition, I picked up all new bearings, and races as I figger they all must wear evenly. Also picked up new "Stemco" hubcaps, curved arm slack adjusters, clevises, pins, and 15 of the needed wedge retainer studs and 20 nuts. The other nine studs, and four nuts will be in tomorrow. The wedges looked good and do not require replacement. The "S" cams barely show any wear at all so they will also be reused with new hardware, and bushings. After staring down the neck of this thing tonight, I have decided to not cut it off and completely rebuild. I'm going to take the center web sections out of the "I" beam structure of the neck that is weak, have 1/4" plate sheared to the correct size, then will weld these plates into the beams. I shouldn't need to do any alignment this way as the neck will still retain enough support it shouldn't sag. I did find on each side of the neck where a plate was riveted years ago. Maybe "Boone" trailers used an aluminum plate that was retained by rivets? The pattern looks to be about the same size as some Fontaine trailers I've seen in the past. Rob

The line check in your transfer pump is not working. Rob

And this is cause for concern to your ole Uncle Rob.

Yeah, but with old age comes wisdom, (as they say). I have dollies and jacks to do the lifting which was money well spent......Thanks, Rob

Yup, once he gets that "chick magnet" to rolling, there will be no looking back. (Note to Vinny; get a large "one").Rob

I make so much I give some away!!Rob

Very possibly a ground issue at the root. Rob

Typically in starter motor that is caused by lack of current flow to the field windings of the starter. I don't know if your engine uses a permanent magnet type gear reduction starter, or conventional. Check your electrical connections first as they are most likely suspect, then evaluate the magnetic contactor, (solenoid switch). You can do this by removing the cable that powers the starter motor and with a multimeter across the terminals, (input, and output) turn the ignition switch and there should be very close to nothing as far as voltage reading. Given that you stated the starter motor was physically smoking is almost a dead giveaway this is probably not any good but bad grounding can cause this to burn up. Rob

I have a set of core shoes I can send you, just send yours back if you like. Rob

After gettting to the shop tonight I decided I really wanted to see what is causing the serious vibration, or bouce in the R612 truck/tractor. First I equalized all ten tires at 100psi and went for a short drive. Same thing, bounced like hell at 42-43mph indicated, and ceased at 48-48mph indicated. This is not a minor bounce but rather the type that will move you in the seat. I got the greaser out and greased everything that moves under that truck which changed nothing. I then jacked the front end up with the tires clearing the floor, grabbed a board standing it up next to the tire tread and spun the tires by hand. The steer tires were very close to perfectly round. This is where it gets interesting: I moved to the rear of the truck; with both drive axles supported on jack stands and the brakes released, using the same analogy with the board, I find the inner tire on the rt. front drive axle has an enormous flat spot about 3/8ths inch depressed. The lt. rear has the same inner tire flat spotted just about the same amount. With my board just off the tread and spinning the tires by hand, this really jumps out at you. To prove what I expected I removed the four outer tires from the drive axles, and installed four rims, (Dayton) and went for a ride. This was like driving on footballs! I went back to the shop, removed the four inner tires, installed the original four outer tires on the inner, then spacer, then blank rims, and again went for a drive. The bounce was gone completely. The truck did ride like unladen camelback suspension does normally which is anything but smooth. This truck sat for quite a spell before I got it home from the Texas heat. The tires are Kumho and in decent shape but the tires that are flat spotted are due to the outer tires next to them being flat, hence the flat spotted tires carried the truck weight for an unknown period of time. I don't know if running them at hiway speed with a load on them would round them out or not. I did reinstall all the tires as they originally were and will get a few more miles on them. Rob

Dropped all the stuff off this morning and picked the drums, and seals up after work. The drums cleaned up with .040 cut out. Still plenty of meat left. The shoes are sent off to Bridgeview, (near Chicago) for relining and I should have them back on Thursday. The new hardware and cam bushing kits will be here on Thursday also. Should be able to have it back together mid first week of June as we will be gone for the holiday. They turned the drums for free. Rob