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B81SX is now in its new home


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you going to paint it and the B42 to match your B61?

The B42 is my uncle's truck. He will be painting it to look like his B65.

At this time, I believe the B81 will be B model green with perhaps black fenders, bumper, and radiator. The Dump body will either be B model green or the same gray as the B61's body. I won't be painting it for a while, however.

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Well that is good news considering what it did in its former life.

So does everything work the way it should? It was priced right on CL but I think a lot of folks like myself figured it had a lot of corrosion issues, knowing it had a plow hooked on her.

Like I said earlier, I was concerned with the plowing (and the bell housing/clutch issue) and actually went to look at it prepared to walk away. The way the truck looks, you could convince me it never plowed at all. That's how solid it appears to be. Other than where some dirt/sand/salt sat in the bed, there is no obvious visible evidence of any salt damage at all. It is remarkable. If I were to steam clean the chassis and paint it, I think it would look brand new. The underside of the dump body looks really good, too.

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As an aside, with the purchase of this truck, I am now completely satisfied with my Mack holdings. I've got a really nice final product in the '64 B61SX ('Mater), and now I have the truck I've wanted for a while: a late model B81SX dump truck.

The only other Mack I could foresee me buying would be a steel-nosed DM800 dump truck (with a 13' or 14' body), but it would have to be a perfect match for my tastes to get me to open my wallet again.

I'm plenty happy with the two I've got now.

This will change. One last year. One this year. We will see what next year brings. Nice purchase. Have fun with it(and the next one).

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Been working on the radiator shutters. At some point in the truck's past, something hit a couple of the shutters and bound all of them up so they wouldn't operate. Over time, this caused everything to freeze up. We had to take the frame off the shutter assembly and then apply heat to every actuating arm on the shutters. After multiple days of getting nowhere with penetrating oil and tapping everything with a hammer, the heat did the job in a matter of minutes.

I will get paint on the frame and shutters before they go back together. Pics soon.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Shutters are all back together. As I said earlier, everything is free now and lubed. I changed my mind on the painting part, as I've got some cutting and grinding to do in the vicinity of the push plate and radiator, so rather than risk damaging the new paint, the shutters will go on as-is for now. Hopefully they'll work as intended when I hook air up to them.

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Today I made replacement rubber seals for the floorboard (to go around the e-brake, shifters, and dump/pto levers). I also removed the dump/pto levers, cut them, drilled, painted, and re-installed them. I did this because the way they were, it was a loooong reach from the driver's seat to use them, so I'll be reconfiguring them to be closer to the driver and easier to use.

Before I paint the floorboards, we're going to have to replace the (non-existent) right transmission mounts. It's an easier job with the floorboard out.

Included is a pic of the radiator shutters, which have been freed up and mounted back into their frame.

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Looks like the floor been replaced or am I imagining it? Sure is in better shape than I would have thought plowing snow all thoses years.

I'm pretty sure the floor is original. The center floorboard has/had some holes in it where it moisture collected, but I welded new steel in today and painted the entire piece with black Rustoleum. No pics yet (lost power while working on the truck). The entire front part of the cab floor (where your feet go) is fairly rusty, but from the seats back the floor is in really, really good shape.

Also, I made new PTO/dump levers today. They're painted and ready to be installed. I could install everything (levers, floorboard, rubber seals for the penetrations through the floorboard), but I want to get the transmission mounts replaced first.

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