other dog

I'VE ALWAYS BEEN TOLD, IF YOU CAN'T SAY NOTHIN' GOOD! DON'T SAY NOTHIN' YOU GUYS HAVE GOT IT COVERED. ANYHOW I'M OFF TO SEE THE EAGLES IN SYDNEY AUSTRALIA THIS WEEK!

I saw 2 bald eagles in a tree near Toledo, Ohio a few weeks ago. First time I recall ever seeing one. Saw lots of these in sunny south Florida though-

I found one baby picture of myself,but I had to censor it and i'm not around a truck.I'll post it anyway-think I was about 4 months old when this was taken.

Check out this old Ford stub nose grain truck I am selling on ebay - I wish someone would buy it to restore, it is really a straight old truck.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330501168914&viewitem=&sspagename=STRK:MESELX:IT#ht_2119wt_1196

I always did like the looks of those cabs.

Guess i'll leave for Tampa this evening,get a start anyway so it won't be such a long drive tomorrow-gotta find that beach Hatcity posted a picture of.

I burned the turkey up and this morning the wind is putting most of the leaves I raked and blew with the "modified ENDT866 V8 Mack engine with adapted air to air charge air cooling" powered leaf blower back where they were to start with.

I did pick all the hot peppers that were left this morning, before frost finished them off. Got this many now-

Should be lots of hot sauce this year! That's 3 gallon bags stuffed full,plus the smaller bags. Don't know what to do with that much hot sauce,I still have a bottle of last years left.

When I bought the mixer I had no earthly need for it (I really wanted a single axle B-61), couldn't afford it, didn't need it, but I just always wanted an old truck so I bought it.Same price as the 2 MHs actually. I'd never spent that kind of money before for something I didn't need, but it's great-and paid for.

As some guy named Miller Highlife used to say "you only go 'round once in life so ya' oughta' git yerself an MH Mack, preferably powered by a modified ENDT866 V8 Mack engine with adapted air to air charge air cooling-but a 300 would be OK".

That's what he said.

Too bad it's not powered by a modified ENDT866 V8 Mack engine with adapted air to air charge air cooling. I might buy it if it was.

I think it's the 'Dangerous Drives' show on Speed channel. It's a pretty decent show and I've seen the one about the Aussie trucks, pretty neat stuff. They've got quite a few episodes about different variations of trucking...windmill haulers, gas tanker haulers thru the 'million dollar highway', the Aussie road trains, loggers...etc etc.

yeah, I saw the "million dollar highway" one before,that was pretty good.

truck drivers used to carry a 9/16 wrench and a hammer to set the brakes up with, if that was all the tools they did carry.

Whenever i'd go across rt. 60 from Charleston i'd always pull in the church parking lot at Boomer and set the brakes up before I went across Hawk's Nest, whether they needed it or not. This was before jake brakes were invented of course.

Agreed, a good indicator of lining and drum wear. The problem nowadays is that many automatic slack adjusters can be ruined by repeatedly backing them off. Auto slacks are "set them and forget them" and should only be manually adjusted when lining is replaced.

Gregg

A DOT man told us that if you adjust automatic slack adjustors manually they will lose the ability to adjust automatically.

Hello All!

Well, I'm making progress!

* The SM420 transmission will be back together next week, then we reassemble the engine, clutch, and transmission, then start installing it.

* I've finished rebuilding the Instrument Cluster for the dash. I'm converting to Gauges from idiot lights, and made some, well, Mackifications to it.

Below is a pic of the finished product, replete with NOS gauges.

Check out the rest of the pictures here:

http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/index.php?app=gallery&module=user&user=1766&do=view_album&album=412

Looks great Todd. That dash reminded me of my Dad's '66 Chevy pickup,first brand new vehicle he had I think. Had a 292 6 cyl. in it,3 speed on the column. I used to drive it to school.

Remember-don't use cinder blocks for jackstands!

There goes the neighborhood.

If you've got any property you're planning to sell, do it Monday! I'm sure property values will skyrocket during the brief period of time i'm in the area, then drop again by Tuesday.

This reminded me of a great idea I saw once. I bobtailed to Alta,Fl. years ago to pick up a stretch trailer. When I got to the trucking co.'s yard that sold the trailer they were showing me around and one of the things they did was drill a little hole with about a 1/8 bit into the side of all their new brake linings just above the head of the rivets.

When a truck or trailer came through the shop it was easy to tell if they needed replacing.If the linings were worn down to the edge of the hole they'd put new ones on,no looking and saying "well,they'll probably go another trip or two".

My turkey was a disaster.Cooked many in that smoker but never had it catch fire before,and when it did I was doing something else.Shoulda used a drip pan-but it never caught fire before.

I was running Jo's new leaf blower,since she's on the injured list. It's powered by a modified ENDT866 V8 Mack engine with adapted air to air charge air cooling and will blow leaves from here to Lynchburg, 24/7,unless it runs out of fuel in the driveway.

Worse part is,it was very salvagable,but I cut the leg quarters off and cooked the breast inside. I waited for the red button to pop out but the thighs take longest to cook so the breast was done long before the button popped out. It was very dry and overcooked. Next time i'll put a drip pan under it...it had never caught fire before.

a broker that throws me a bone once in a while, asked me if i would run a load of steel plate (no tarp) out to elko.nv last fri.

he has got me some $3 a mile stuff a few times, the wife is doing better. so i thought id grab some quick cash.

threw enough stuff in the truck to get by.

got to grand isle,nb. road shut down, ice storm.

sunday made it to cheyene road shut ice and accidents

monday made it to larame road closed for 6 hrs accidents but made it to little america.

tuesday they shut the gates behind me in evenston,wy. thought i was in the clear by half way around 84 the roads were getting dry, turned the wick up across the basin till i reached pechoe mt. nice white out and blizzard in the desert, road closed at wells,nv.

wensday finnaly made it to elko, forklift kept getting stuck got me unloaded by dark.

im in wendover till mon.

Elko Nevada? That was Speed on that forklift,that's why it took so long to get unloaded.

Just caught the last 3 minutes of a show about Australian road trains on the Speed channel,but one about log trucks in the Rocky Mountains is just coming on.

.

We are bucking tradition this year by eating out on Thanksgiving. My Mom is getting lazy in her old age and thinks her daughters-in-law should be responsible for the family feast, and my wife has done it the last 2 years, so we are all going to relax and enjoy dinner out today.

Fine idea!..and no cleanup!

The day before thanksgiving and normally sweet Polly Purebred flatly refused to let me use her kitchen oven. I told her this is the recommended method for changing bearing cups in an aluminum hub, to heat said hub in a suitable oven. While she was flattered to hear that I considered her oven to be a suitable device, Polly was concerned about the smell of gear oil throughout the house. To this I countered the point that I had taken great strides to assure the cleanliness of my hub, and no oil was present, the worst may be a faint odor of cleaning solvent. Polly again refused, fearing that the subsequent holiday pies would be tainted with noxious odors. Stymied with this latest argument, and the thought of a holiday pie sanction against me, I retreated to my shop with my thinking cap on my still intact skull. It was then I realized that I had my own oven in the shop! I put the hub on top of my pellet stove and covered it with an overturned metal drum to bake for about 8 hours. No set time, I just got busy with other things in the meantime. The bearings came out with ease, new bearings in, and I can't wait to taste those pies!

Gregg

sounds like sweet Polly Purebred is pretty smart!

That sounds like something I'd do....

Nothin' wrong with that Rowdy...well,except maybe that punkin pie-i'd trade it in on a sweet potater pie.

I should have taken a picture of that blackened turkey,but it's actually looking and smelling pretty good now. Maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought.

I probably already ruined the turkey. My oven caught fire while I was relocating leaves instead of keeping an eye on it. Grease from the turkey dripped down and caught fire inside the oven. Completely blackened the outside of it. I brought it in to see what I could salvage,peeled the skin off,dissected it, and put the breast in the oven in here and put the legs and wings back outside in the smoker,but in an aluminum pan this time.

Might not be fit to eat,but it'll probably still make good hash or sammiches,or something.

Just wanted to wish everyone a happy turkey day! i myself have spent more than a few on the road,so it is a real treat for me to be home and have off a few days to boot!.....lookin' forward to the cold turkey sammiches (rye bread & plenty of mayo) expect to load up pretty good before i go back out! wife has allready made some homemade pies,real hard for me to stay outta' them (she just left for work) anyway,hope everyone has a real good safe holiday!..........Mark

She knows how many pies were there when she left, and she said that's how many pies had better be there when she gets back-be careful!

I usually make some sweet potato pies myself-they're easy to make,and good too,but I haven't even been to the grocery store. Spent all yesterday evening at the ER at Lynchburg General Hospital. Jo's leg had been bothering her for a week,going numb and tingling,and yesterday she had numbness on up to her buttocks, then it went on up to her shoulder. She went to a chiropractor and he said it wasn't a pinched nerve or anything he could deal with,and to get to the emergency room right away to get it checked-he came out and told me her leg had turned white and he could barely find a pulse in it.Then he gave me my check back to pay for the visit,which I thought was real nice of him. We didn't know if she was having a heart attack or a stroke or just what was going on. Anyway,after 5 or 6 hours at the ER they said it was sciatica,gave her pain pill and muscle relaxer prescriptions and let her go.

Gonna put a turkey in the smoker oven here in a few minutes.We like to make "turkey hash" with leftovers, that's just turkey soup made out of the turkey stock with potatoes,onions,celery,and some thickening in it. Then you got the sliced turkey sammiches,and I usually make some turkey salad to take with me-I just chop it up some,add some sweet and some dill pickles,and lots of mayo.

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Don't know if you noticed but the shredder was powered by a modified Mack ENDT866 V8 engine with adapted air to air charge air cooling. They run that thing without problems 24/7 making small chunks out of Peterbilt mishaps.

Rob

I did not notice that,but thank you for that bit of information.

Wonder how many Peterb*lts are in that pile? randy

Hard to tell exactly since they've already been shredded, but it looked like there was 14 of them in there to me, along with 4 IH's,2 KWs,a White,and 27 Volvos.

I used to drive for UPS while I was going to school (there were still a couple of old Diamond T's as yard dogs)and we had a package car one time that was wrecked on the interstate. I had to go help move the packages to another truck and then I helped tow it back to the yard. A few months later after all the muckty-mucks came and looked it over, we robbed the engine, wheels & tires, and a bunch of misc parts from it. We ground off all the numbers on the body and frame, and we burned off all the decals with a torch. Then we hauled it to a local scrap yard and we had to stand there in the rain and take photos of it as it was sheared into pieces, smashed into a bale, and then loaded on a trailer to take to the smelter.

The funny thing was, for the next few weeks, anytime anyone in the whole midwest region had a customer call and complain about a missing package, they just told them it had been in the wreck and was lost/burned up/destroyed/stolen or whatever. One of the clerks added up later the number of packages that were supposed to have been on that load and that little package car was carrying the same load as a 53 foot trailer!

I remember when UPS was still running some Diamond-T cabovers over the road. They used to always take the nameplates and any identifying brand insignias off their trucks for some reason, you could still look at it and knew what it was. I don't know if they still do that or not, haven't noticed lately.