mattb73lt

I have a friend that has an early production B42 that is very original and is 6V Pos ground. It is possible the early gas powered trucks with small displacement gas engines were that way, too. But my ‘63 B42 was 12V Pos ground when I got it. Most big manufacturers switched to 12 volts around the mid-50’s.

This story is far from over and it's been a wild transformation. Now to finish it up and start enjoying the fruits of all my labors!!

And same to you. Welcome Home!!

No, I don't plan on letting that happen. Still some stuff to finish, but the future goal is to get out there with it and drive it. Plus, using it to haul my cars to antique car tours for which the other truck was built and this was to be it's follow on.

It is a shame. But these trucks had a hard life and most were used up and discarded when they could no longer be economically repaired. It would be nice if some of the more “exotic” factory builds had survived. Looking at that list, there’s a lot of low volume numbers showing specific builds for a customer.

Great comeback. That truck has had quite the life! Awesome to see it back at work, again. Good job!!

I sourced mine from a local hydraulic shop. I like to use the take-apart Aeroquip style fittings, because I can make my own lines. The crimped ones are fine, but you can’t reuse the fittings. I would find a shop and once you determine the size hose you have, order it and have them ship it to you. I’ve had to do that when I was constrained for time. I built all my oil lines for the NH220 when I converted it to spin-on filters.

Mechohaulic, here’s the axle set upon that Granite Tri-axle. It’s set up to carry some serious weight because it was spec’d out by a rigging company. For some reason they declined delivery so my friend grabbed it. Way too heavy for my needs, too many tires, too(ie; $$$$!)

Mehohaulic, the balance of the truck is pretty good. The deck has 13' forward and 11' aft. If you look at the landing gear, there's not much room to move the axle back maybe another foot. But that's about it.

I was over at my friend's yard today, the one that very graciously sent me several lifts to assembly my truck. He just took delivery of a 2024 Mack Granite Tri-axle Roll Back with a Century body. I couldn't help but park mine next to it to compare. Not even registered yet, with all the stickers still on it!. I almost passed out when he said it was over $300,000, DAMN!!!!! 64 years between the two.

I don't know him, but I'll ask. If he's there I'll pass that along.

Yup that works!! I wonder what's going on with me posting pictures and videos. Pics won't post when i submit my post, but if I go back in and post them after they go in. It has been since I got a newer phone, though.

Quite the load. Looks like a home made trailer with military surplus tires on it under that locomotive.

The one with the wipers did. The driving one from yesterday wouldn’t.

Let’s see if this’ll load up. IMG_0664.mov

It's definitely a different generation of public out there. I certainly get some thumbs up and waves when I'm out and about, even people snapping pictures. But most people/drivers are oblivious to what's around them. I did have the truck out today in the rain. I almost didn't take it, but at the last second did. We had a ATCA Chapter luncheon today up at Matt Pfahl's place. I decided to take it for three reasons. One was that a bunch of people wanted to see it and for me, I wanted to see if the windshields leaked and to test out my home built wiper system. Both sides proved to be dry in pretty heavy rain and the wipers worked as expected. I used every speed but high. The intermittent modes are great and really do a good job in drizzle to light rain. The truck needed a good cleaning after all the deck work and dust from the last week efforts. I'm also glad I pushed to get that done as it seems were losing the weather to colder temps, now.

Told the wife I needed to help “air dry” the deck to help it out. The truck runs out so nicely and is so smooth. Took it down I-91 a ways and back to the house. 1700 RPM gets me an easy 72 MPH. Made a few second video clips of it. I need to get a GoPro camera to do it safely. She caught me backing up the driveway on my return, it sounds so good. I’ll see if the videos will post. Crap they’re too big.

Third and final coat this morning and it looks amazing!

That would be cool to have the Mack oval and Bulldog branded in, in the style they used for the 100th anniversary.

Called upon my Army floor buffer skills today. I have a modified floor buffer I use for sanding the floors in the house. It sands in a 17" swath so it made quick work of the deck, after I cut the edges in with a belt sander. Gave it a good cleaning and applied the first coat of oil to it. I used a clear type because I knew it would darken the wood some. I'll put a couple more coats on before I'm done. I wish it would stay in it's raw state, but it'll stain and fade if not treated. Not bad for a hack carpenter!

I-95 Exit 17 In Westport, CT over Route 33. The spans were constructed on site, then slid into place one side at a time as each old span was demolished. They did it over last weekend.

Just about finished. Three full, long days followed by long hot showers and a fistful of Advil PM each night. Just set the filler pieces as I lost day light today. A few hours tomorrow should have the deck down and I should have a few screws leftover. This was definitely one of the more tedious tasks to complete on this project. With it mostly screwed down the deck is amazingly stout and several hundred pounds heavier. My screw count was way off. It took 851 screws to anchor it down.

You guys are over engineering this thing!! The hardware is 2 1/2” Torx drive self tapping countersunk screws, same as what the factory did to secure the wood. Elevator bolt and carriage bolt heads are too big and would protrude too much. I started fastening it together late morning today. I started countersinking the first few holes, but found driving the screws directly and getting the heads below the surface was a better method. Each run takes 207 screws to do. There’s 12 runs and a filler I’ll cut on the driver’s side. But, that’s 2500 screws to set the deck. It’s going to take a bunch of time to get the deck on. At least another full day and maybe a little bit more. I found that setting several boards and closing all the gaps with several ratchet straps allowed me to set two boards at a time. Each run goes a little faster as I get my practice down. As for elevator bolts, I did use them when I re-secured the cowl to the cab, back when I was doing that part. It’s interesting what Mack did during assembly of these cabs. On the L cab they run down the forward door jamb and pass through the cowl side.

It's ship lap cuts, one over laps the other. A lot of screws, but the original deck lasted 40 years so this should be fine.