jdstl

Truck is Sold,

Thanks everyone for your interest.

Jason

Damn I don't know how it could get much tighter... The steering wheel is pretty damn close!

Jason - Thanks for letting me look at it and I enjoyed meeting you - your B model sure sounded good going through the gears when you left up that hill - it was cold, but I had to leave the winders down to enjoy!

No problem... Sorry you had to make the trip down here just to find out it was too small for your needs. I have a guy coming from KC tomorrow for it, I made sure he knew its the small cab lol.

Jason

Ya I'm pretty thin myself and the steering wheel is almost in my stomach. If your carrying a bit of a beer belly its not gonna be a comfortable driver! There aren't really any storage places close by that I would consider convienient. If it was a few minutes away like my friends house where I'm storing it that would be different. ITs just not worth it to me to have to make a 30+ minute round trip just to go get it and bring it back home to work on it. I have a 1 year old and my free time for the garage is limited as it is.

Jason

Sorry seems like every time i go to take a pic its cloudy, but here's some of the truck:

Rear of truck/frame after paint

Dash panel/wiring

Rear light panel with LEDs:

Thats all I have at the moment...

If your interested in seeing something specific message me with an email and I can take a pic and send it.

Jason

I already have historic plates on it, but the size of it in my two car driveway is kinda in the way, and an eye sore for my nieghbors (for long term parking that is). I'll have one again some day when I have the land/huge garage to store big toys like this! Thanks for the offers on storage though.

Jason

After only having my B61 for a couple months I have lost my storage/parking spot at my friends house. Sadly I have no place to park it, as my subdivision isn't too hot on a semi tractor in my driveway. Its a single axle tractor with concave cab, and optional aluminum fuel tanks. 673 Diesel with Duplex trans.

I have done a decent amount of work to it since I bought it, here is a quick run down.

It starts up easily, runs/drives/stops pretty well and I have been driving it around town.

New wiring from front to back, 12 negative ground system now. Two new commercial batteries, new batt cables, and a new starter. In my resto thread you can see pictures of the dash panel and guages I restored. It has a new ATO type fuse panel. Head lights, high beams, low beams, tail lights, brake lights, and turn signals all work. Wiring has been run for the cab clearence lights and front running lights below the headlights but I didn't get a chance to wire them up yet. Tail lights are all new LEDs, front turn signals are new assemblies as well

Front tires are newer 22.5's, rears are still 20" tube type and are old and crappy, but hold air.

Frame from the cab back has been painted black, otherwise the truck is still the crappy paint in the pics.

Truck builds good air pressure after I serviced the compressor air cleaner and adjusted the regulator, no big air leaks, no oil or fuel leaks either.

Cab floor needs rust repair, but no rust through anywhere else other than a couple spots on the fenders and door corners (pretty minor).

I also just rebuild the door latches and made new drivers side door hinge pins so both doors shut and latch nicely.

Obviously its a project, but alot has been done so far and its to the point where you can drive it around on a limited basis and enjoy it as you work on it.

Price is $3000, I have all the info on the truck from the Mack museum, as well as a clear MO title.

Any questions give me a call, 314-775-6000. There are some pictures of it in the antique trucks section under "Jason's 1959 B61 resto" thread.

If you are local you can easily drive the truck home, however if your far away I would recomend trailering it as the rear tires are pretty old.

Thanks,

Jason

It pushes 120psi no problem now... Sweet! At least it was a simple fix. Just need to get my lights wired up and I'm ready to cruise around in it a little!

Jason

Well good thing I checked the most obvious thing first... I took the air filter off and it was packed solid with hardened grease and dirt. I'm surprised it made any pressure at all. Going to throw that back on and see what we get.

Jason

Thanks for the info, I may try calling watts and see if they have any info on it, I don't know what brand it is I cant see any tag on it as it covered in grease. I wouldn't mind rebuilding it myself, I run an automotive machine shop and build engines for a living.. I think the rebuilding the compressor is within my capabilities if I had the specs on it.

Jason

Hey Guys,

I got my manual from the mack museum, but there really ins't any great pictures of the compressor or instructions on how to take it apart to rebuild or service it, other than a table that lists symptoms and causes, and a cross sectional view that is pretty hard to make out (dark copy). One of the things it lists is improper clearence on the valves but it doesn't give you any clearences that are correct. I would like to find an exploded view or detailed service instructions if possible with tear down and assembly steps.

Thanks for any help.

Jason

I have a C-609 the was originally a Dohrn tractor.

Ha too cool.

Waiting to hear back from them to see if they have any info on their past fleet of trucks. Pretty doubtful but worth a try.

Jason

Sounds like its going to be a alternator. I talked to the Generator shop that built me the starter, they recomended a 22SI as its a truck alternator and puts out 100+ amps. I think I'm gonna go that way, its only $125 anyways.

Thanks for the imput guys.

Jason

Hello Guys,

did a search and found that to change over to the negative ground setup and have the original generator work I need to polarize it. What terminal do I need to hook the + side to? Also do I need to change how the wires are hooked up between the gen and regulator, or does that stay the same?

Thanks,

Jason

Got my packet from the museum last night.. Lots of great info and the manual will be a huge help.

The truck was built in Dec of '58 as one of five trucks ordered by Dohrn Transfer Co of Rockford Illinios. There wasn't any more info past that on other owners. I called Dohrn which is still in business and got an email address of the fleet manager. Hoping to find out how long they had it, if there's any record of miles, an engine or trans rebuild, or anything else interesting they can tell me.

From what I can tell from the line sheet, it was a fairly basic "contour cab" model, but has a dual reduction rear end with 4.66 gears, larger alum step fuel tanks (55 and 70 gallon) and was ordered without the pass side seat. Also the yellow thats coming through the crappy red paint was the original color as ordered, so its only been painted once.

Jason

Well so far no info from the museum yet, but I expect it any day... I'll post up a run down of the trucks history for anyone insterested.

Monday it was a crazy warm 67 degrees here in STL, so I got some stuff done. I installed the gauge panel, ran the looms comming off it, got the starter hooked up so I can start it with the key/button now (previously two wires hanging from the steering coloum..) Also cut out all the old petrified wiring.

I also scored a set of nice 22.5" dayton wheels with nice steer tires that came off a school bus through craigslist, for only $100 for the pair, I mounted them up as well.

I'm debating just throwing away the original front 20" tube type wheels/tires. I know I'll never put them back on, is there any demand for them or should i just pitch them?

Jason

Thanks for all the positive feedback guys..

Got the rear light panel done today, I'm happy with how it came out. Weather is supposed to be pretty nice here tomorrow before it turns cold again, so I'm going to try and get the gauge panel installed and the looms partially run through the cab, along with cutting out the rest of the old wiring.

Jason

Thanks for the info and part numbers... I'll look into getting the stuff together. I'm going to pull that drum and have a look at the pads, If thats all it needs I might as well get it working since all the linkage is present and working. Cant hurt to have the original park brake functional too.

Jason

Is there a spring brake retro fit kit available, or is it just off the shelf stuff I can get anywhere? I'm new to air brake setups sorry for my ignorence.

Jason

Didn't have any 6 guage stuff available, but I think the 8 gauge should do the job, my truck doesn't have any electrical accesories and none are planned. Nothing says I can't add in a smaller sub panel down the road if I want to hook something up that higher draw. Really just trying to keep the wiring simple, the stock diagram I found seemed so overcomplicated for what it was running, especially considering there are no wires running to the engine for senders, ignition, etc...

A shrink wrap printer does sound pretty sweet, where did it come from?

Jason

Ya I'm hoping for some good info from the museum... Sounds like I wont be disapointed!

Granted I'm tring to do it right and make it nice, but soldering all the terminals and connections??? Haha not quite that nice!

I can't wait to get it road worthy and take it around town a little. Just the reaction I got from my neighbors was suprising.... Everyone loves this truck (other than my wife, but all the more reason to keep it!!)

Jason

We sell a few different ATO fuse panels at the shop so thats why I was going to use one rather than reuse the original one in the truck. I figured the wiring is going to be new front to back why not go all the way. I agree, overkill is consistantly more fun! I ran all 8 gauge wire for the starter, charge wiring, and supply to the fuse panel. The highest draw on the system other than the starter solenoid will be the headlights... I think I'll be covered. The wiring was so dry rotted and patched repairing it wasn't an option... First thing I did was diconnect everything and run two new wires down to the starter just so I could start it and be able to move it around. I was afraid there would be a fire the wiring was that bad! I had an assortment of colors so I used them, just to make it easier to trace the wires out as I hook them up.

Jason

Ha I just looked up the "sta-kon" crimpers on google.. Thats what I'm using, never knew that type of crimp had a special name!

Jason

The crimping pliers I'm using are professional ones, I don't know what the term is but they don't just smush the connector, it has the little point that protrudes into the terminal and it grabs well. I've been using them for wiring work on all my restorations and never had one come off so far. I'm building my own harness, everything in the picture I did from scratch. You can sort of see the diagram I drew next to the panel in the first pic..

Jason

As the title says, my parking brake on my B61 is totally useless. I don't get it, I lubed the handle and all the linkage and it moves smooth and free, and the end of the handle adjusts nicely so you can set it to where you really have to strong arm it to get it locked on. The pads inside the drum on the driveshaft look like they are making contact fully against the drum. I power washed the drum out and cleaned a bunch of crud out, and also tried applying it lightly and driving around the block to see if that would clean the pads off and get it to grip. No dice. I can adjust it to where I can barely get it to pull up and lock, and it barely slows the truck as it rolls down my driveway which is only a slight incline. What am I missing here? Is there some secret to getting it to work correctly? I cant see any reason why it shouldn't be working.

Thanks,

Jason

Thanks for all the support!

Over the past couple nights I finnished wiring the dash panel, I think the end result is much cleaner than the original birds nest of wiring!

Here is the gauge panel before:

Here it is after:

Also one last pic of the front with all the switches and temp guage installed:

I should have pictures of my finnished rear light plate with the LEDs installed tomorrow. The new fender mounted turn signals for up front also came in, If the good weather happens on Monday they are predicting, I'm thinking I'll be able to get the gauge panel installed. I still have all the old wiring to cut out of the truck before it goes in though.

Jason