Air start ?

[mrsmackpaul]

I was recently informed by someone over in the states that air start was a cold start feature of a Mack and only used in colder parts of the US ???

I was surprised at this as almost all Macks in Australia say from the mid 50's till the lat 90's had air start and I was always under the impression we had air start out here for all the heat and vibration as batteries never lasted long out here and fail at the drop of a hat even today

Is there a feature for shutting down the air start tank??? I had never heard of this are the air start trucks in the US plumbed different than out here ????

The Mack motor must be a good starter in the cold climate as you only 10 seconds at the most I was surprised to hear that they start that well in bellow freezing

Just wondering if anyone knows about what air start really was for ??? interested in any thoughts on this

Paul

[Superdog]

I was always under the impression that air starters were spec'd here ,especially by big fleets,for easier maintenance and weight saving. Only 1 battery needed instead of 3 or 4,no series parallel switches,etc.

[Timmyb]

I haven't noticed many on the U.S. Trucks I've seen on here. I've seen a few cold starts on YouTube, and they crank them suckers for a fair bit till they get going.

I'm putting air start on mine soon, so I'll most probably be asking for some advice soon Paul.

[Bigdogtrucker]

They sucked here in the winter, froze up all the time. I talked to guys who worked at places with fleets of them,they'd have to put buckets of fire under them in the winter! Mine would always freeze in the cold...Battery savings was the reason most went with them.

[mrsmackpaul]

thanks for the replies fellas the reasons you all give make sense to me I just couldnt understand how they would be any good for cold start but then again I have never lived anywhere real cold so I really couldnt say

Paul

[biggav69]

From what I have read about the early years of Mack in Australia, Cyril Anderson who ran a transport company and was part of importing and selling Mack Trucks in Australia in the early years, decided that batteries and electric starter motors were to unreliable to be used on trucks Australias conditions due to there not being many other vehicles around in you needed a jumpstart. He reasoning was that if it didnt start the first time that there were plenty of tyres that could be let down and transfered to the start tank.

All this information is in a book about Leader trucks written by Rob Laurent who details Cyril Anderson and his moves from running a transport company to being the Australian Importer of Mack Trucks and finally developing his own brand of truck when he felt Mack werent supplying Australia with the truck configerations they needed. Its a pretty good read detailing the things that need to be down to convert from LH drive to RH drive from the A and B models to the mid 70's I think when he split with Mack to develop Leader Trucks.

[mrsmackpaul]

interesting enough Swishy I seem to recall reading somewhere bought a new KW with air start and was a Mack system I seem recall reading that on a post somewhere no doubt Swishy will be along fairly soon to put me right

As far as batteries go they were fairly crappy up until the 70's or early 80's then they went real good and in the last 10 years they have gone crappy again I feel

Paul

[1965]

I always thought they were amazing; was back in late 80's when I worked on tug boats; have changed bunch of connecting rods on 16Vs that would have engine problems & have water on top of piston; that air starter would crank it anyway; it would bend the rod or sling it out

Also remember firist time I saw one plumbed up on fuel barge engine; was a blessing; replaced them hydro starters "fluid drive", remember one winter had ice on barge & pumped on that hydro starter forever; finally brought another tug up that had a rigged up air line & starter, swaped starter & got it going