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Old Mack longevity?


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I've read a few post by some guy's saying the 237's and other old Mack diesel's didn't go far between rebuilds.I've always heard the opposite,and have owned some trucks with serious use and they have still ran very well.Just curious how long you guy's have seen these engines last while being maintained and cared for???

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There was a fellow in the Williamsport,PA area that got 1 million miles out of a 237 in an R model. It was featured in the Bulldog magazine about 20 years ago.it was sold and serviced by Susquehanna Motors from West Milton.The service manager at the time was Dennis(can't remember his last name) told me it was absolutely true.So there are some exceptions from the norm.

Steve

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There was a fellow in the Williamsport,PA area that got 1 million miles out of a 237 in an R model. It was featured in the Bulldog magazine about 20 years ago.it was sold and serviced by Susquehanna Motors from West Milton.The service manager at the time was Dennis(can't remember his last name) told me it was absolutely true.So there are some exceptions from the norm.

Steve

no doubt,I'm pretty sure the UPS F model in the museum is the same one that did a million miles without an overhaul.

My buddy that hauled my Oklahoma Superliner home just parked his '97 CH the first of the year,he bought it new,1.7 million miles,heads or pan never removed,original clutch,trans never touched,just recently had the power divider rebuilt,only work ever on the rear ends.E7-427,T2130B,3:86 Mack rears.He pulled a dropdeck and RGN,mostly oversize stuff,48 states. He got a new Rawhide now.

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back in the day,it was pretty common practice to inframe a 237 or 300 at 400 to 500k,but you gotta remember these engines were turning 2000 to 2100 most of the time,the way they were geared

I've owned a lot of 237's.... we always started getting ready to do an in- frame or at least rods and mains at about 300K that is unless one went down on the road (which happened very rarely)

I've always done 10K oil changes, even with ESI and then we let the oil analysis and oil consumption be the deciding factor....

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no doubt,I'm pretty sure the UPS F model in the museum is the same one that did a million miles without an overhaul.

My buddy that hauled my Oklahoma Superliner home just parked his '97 CH the first of the year,he bought it new,1.7 million miles,heads or pan never removed,original clutch,trans never touched,just recently had the power divider rebuilt,only work ever on the rear ends.E7-427,T2130B,3:86 Mack rears.He pulled a dropdeck and RGN,mostly oversize stuff,48 states. He got a new Rawhide now.

Mike, that is a great story. He must have been a great owner and gives the 427 a good record. Hope he get's that out of his Rawhide.

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There was a fellow in the Williamsport,PA area that got 1 million miles out of a 237 in an R model. It was featured in the Bulldog magazine about 20 years ago.it was sold and serviced by Susquehanna Motors from West Milton.The service manager at the time was Dennis(can't remember his last name) told me it was absolutely true.So there are some exceptions from the norm.

Steve

I had a 711 that went 700K....... (one driver put every one of them on it) then all I did was a valve job, rings and bearings, it ran several years after that with the original pistons and liners

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i know Dellwood Foods that ran out of Herkimer Ny had some R models back in the day with over a million miles on an original 237 and 711. then they were usually gone thru and the trucks bondoed up and ran again. some of their trucks has 2 and 3 million miles on them haulin double milk trailers up and down the NYs Thruway to New York City. the R models only had 5 speeds behind the 237's and a few of the drivers said they would only downshift it twice, once out of Herkimer pullin the 'Summit' out of Little Falls and again pullin the hill outside of Amsterdam Ny, then it was straight to 5th gear to NYC.

post-6-0-64947600-1408238925_thumb.jpg

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Back when the 237s came out in the 60s all the big diesels routinely got inframed around 500k miles. Heck, at Continental Baking it was SOP to inframe a Detroit at only 400k miles. Thanks to longer gearing and other improvements, the later E6s and E7s often did a million miles before the heads even came off.

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This is somthing the fire service don't understand, our MB has a 237 and a 5 speed it has 41,xxxx miles on it and everyone that's not a Mack fan thinks the truck is shot because of the mileage. At 41 thousand its still a baby.

Rudy

APA had MB's with 6-800,000 miles (all city) that had never been apart,different drivers,bad roads,heavy freight,etc. still ran great! at 41 thousand miles the piston rings are'nt even seated good yet!...................................................Mark

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Mack Truck literate. Computer illiterate.

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The Postal Service facility I used to work at used to run their Macks with E7s to around 600k miles, and those were city miles, so typical hours were around 20k or more. Very seldom did those E7s ever need engine work, and I don't remember as much as an inframe. A few Postal Service facilities hung on to there's even longer, I saw '91 E7s with 800k to 900k that still hadn't been even inframed. At UPS any tractor getting up around a million miles would probably be scrapped if the engine needed a rebuild, but I saw plenty of E7s with up to 1,400,000 miles still running. Often they were scrapped with their engines still running fine, simply because they'd been replaced with a new tractor.

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This is somthing the fire service don't understand, our MB has a 237 and a 5 speed it has 41,xxxx miles on it and everyone that's not a Mack fan thinks the truck is shot because of the mileage. At 41 thousand its still a baby.

Rudy

The difference is how the fire apparatus are driven, drivers get in and hammer the peddle to the floor also you have to look at engine hours.Yes 41000 is still low miles

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The difference is how the fire apparatus are driven, drivers get in and hammer the peddle to the floor also you have to look at engine hours.Yes 41000 is still low miles

There is 2802.2 in hours on the gauge now and I was told that's the second hour meter in that truck so its kind unknown. The truck did see a lot of fire in its day not so much anymore.

Rudy

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APA had MB's with 6-800,000 miles (all city) that had never been apart,different drivers,bad roads,heavy freight,etc. still ran great! at 41 thousand miles the piston rings are'nt even seated good yet!...................................................Mark

wow 800,000 that's a lot of driving , they must have really put those trucks together well. I mean body and chassis wise too for all that bouncing in those mb's lol

Rudy

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no doubt,I'm pretty sure the UPS F model in the museum is the same one that did a million miles without an overhaul.

My buddy that hauled my Oklahoma Superliner home just parked his '97 CH the first of the year,he bought it new,1.7 million miles,heads or pan never removed,original clutch,trans never touched,just recently had the power divider rebuilt,only work ever on the rear ends.E7-427,T2130B,3:86 Mack rears.He pulled a dropdeck and RGN,mostly oversize stuff,48 states. He got a new Rawhide now.

Mike,

If the truck is simply being "parked", He should contact Mack and see if there is a place for it at the museum. He could loan it to them and that would be a win/win. He has it stored in doors and Mack has a tribute to how well they built (built) trucks. Obviously this would be best if he has some type of documentation although it is difficult to document a lack of needed service.

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