other dog

Got mine yesterday-haven't had time to read it,but I did look at the pictures!

Went down to Webb,AL. Sunday.Pretty good ways,over 600 miles,but at least it's cooled off a little around here. Got unloaded Monday morning and went over to Tifton,Ga. to get another load of steel going to Knoxville. Unloaded there yesterday morning then went to Roanoke to pick up some truck ( or in this case school bus ) frame rails at the place I usually deliver coils to,and delivered them in Rustburg,Va. yesterday evening. Left the truck at Glenn Trent's truck stop-the old south Lynchburg truckstop-and went home for the night.All quiet around here so far.

I might as well put my 2 cents worth in-I'm not a mechanic,or rebuilder,but I've been driving for almost 29 years,and i've scraped as many gears as anyone ( still do sometimes,and that's just laziness ). I'd go with the old 5 speed maxitorque with that 237. In 1980 I got out of a '74 IH with a 903 Cummins and 13 speed into an F-model with a "300" (actually 285 hp) and a five speed. The 903 was a 2600 rpm engine,you downshifted at about 1900 or 2000 rpms,and the Mack you just let pull down to about 11-1200 rpms before you had to downshift. You never got in a hurry shifting it.You could downshift easily without the clutch after you got used to it,but that's about the only truck i've ever driven that I double-clutched up shifting,but like I say you couldn't really shift them very fast anyway. It took way more skill to shift that 5 speed Mack than the Eaton-Fuller 18 spd. I drive now. Oh,I bought an m22 Muncie once and put it in my '72 Nova.It came with a 3 spd. in the floor. Put a competition plus shifter on it,then bought a vertigate because it looked "tuff".I liked the look of all them levers in the floor even then.The vertigate was an in-line shifter,and did look tuff,but I found it really wasn't as quick as the hurst. Sometimes simplest is the best. Like a 5 speed Mack.

Yeah thanks,that's a good looking B-model you got there! And thanks for letting your students take part in a real truck project.

I've always had trouble-with my old pc,my new pc,going from dial-up to broadband,it's always very,very slow on their site for some reason.

Oh

I think maybe I talk too much,so i'll shut up for a while.

Hi Doug,this just reminded me, I was on Youtube this morning (always good for entertainment when you're bored) looking at big muskie. I travel I-77 a lot from W.V. to Oh. and at exit 25 ...( I think-it's somewhere around there ) there's A sign that says "Big Muskie Bucket". I guess that's all that's left of "Big Muskie".The video was pretty good,and pretty sad-it showed the construction of it,when it was working,and it's end.It looked like they used explosives to dismantle it,that was the sad part-what an awesome machine it was!

It's raining,it's raining! You might not be as excited as I am,but it's the first rain we've had around here in months! I haven't cut the grass since June,and none of the turnips I sowed came up because it's been so dry.It's just a light rain,but it has been coming down over an hour now. Every little bit helps I guess!

Yeah,don't worry Mackonfire-you've come to the right place! I could almost guarantee somebody here can help you-you've come across some of the finest people i've ever known.

Hi Bobby,i'm glad to meet you.That's a sad story,i'm very sorry about your Dad,but if I run across any B-models i'll remember that 18131. I also have many photos i've taken on the road,and about any antique truck books I could find. Good luck in your search....Tom

Finally! Got a load going to Webb,Al,near Dothan. Somebody brought the load to the shop,and it's already loaded on my trailer.All i've got to do is chain it down and go. Maybe i'll be able to afford gas to get to Winchester next weekend after all,but it's too early to tell.

...and waiting...

I don't know what's going on-usually we're so busy it's hard to get a day off,but it's been slow for 2 weeks now. I blamed it on the holiday last week,haven't decided what to blame this week on yet. Yes,I must agree they're some nice looking shirts!

...still home,smoking cigarettes,couldn't find Captain Kangaroo on the TV. No load yet,just waiting...

not much freight to be moved this week either.Unloaded in Emporia Monday,went to Petersburg and loaded A load of beams for Chattanooga,Tn. and had to deadhead to Birmingham to reload.Got a load of 55' beams going to South Plainfield,N.J. but we unloaded them at the shop today because they didn't want them in N.J. yet.That's OK with me,I don't like going to New Jersey anyway.

The year before last I went to the ATHS show in Winchester for the first time. I saw A book there on Saturday called " 100 Years of Semi Trucks",but I didn't buy it.I kept thinking about it and decided I was going to buy it the next day,but ended up going on A side trip to Altoona,Pa. and never got back to the truck show. I ended up ordering the same book from Amazon.com,and I don't remember the price but it was money well spent.I had it out today looking through it,and this one paragraph on page 21,chapter 3,says so much about how trucking has changed from the 30's to today-" Driving trucks back in the 1930's was not easy. Although the highways were improving,riding comfort was not what it is today.Most of the roads were two-lane highways and in the mountainous regions,a driver could wear himself out by all the frequent shifting. 'The First 50 Years',a history of Consolidated Freightways,recounts a run by a C.F. driver in 1937 from San Francisco to Reno on old Route 40. From Roseville,California,to Reno,a distance of 125 miles,the driver shifted gears 844 times. On a 36-mile stretch from Roseville to Colfax , he shifted 318 times in 1 hour and 58 minutes. And on another stretch from Fox Farm to Donner Summit, a distance of 3.2 miles,the driver shifted 59 times in 18 minutes. A lot of trucks at this time had two sticks to shift,compared to one stick or an automatic today." ...WOW!

Not many good places like that to stop at anymore,at least not where I travel.All the big truckstops are the same and I try to stay away from them,except when I have to get fuel. The TA right up here at Troutville,Va. is one of the worst.It's too close to home for me to stop there anyway,but I go by it several times A week usually because I run rt. 220 a lot.It seems like everytime you go by there there's an argument about SOMETHING going on,usually about A parking space or somebody's got the parking lot blocked because there's no parking spaces. I just don't like to have to deal with all that everytime you want to stop somewhere,and look for the smaller places.

I take A lot of truck pictures on the road,and truck show pictures when I can get to A show.For years I used an old Kodak 35mm,and it took good pictures.Then I bought A Nikon 35mm from A guy near Monroeville,Oh. for $40 and it took good pictures too,but everybody said "you need to go digital,you're way behind the times". So I did,and I'm glad because it's so easy to put the pictures right on the computer,crop them,e-mail them,or whatever you want to do. I bought A Kodak digital camera from Wal-Mart for $199.99,the best I could afford.Then the price went down to $179,then $159,and the last time I was in Wal-Mart it was $149. When I had to replace my old PC I bought one for $698,the best I could afford because I figured it would be the last one I'll get.Today I saw the same PC on sale at Staples for $349.

That's great Bollweevil,there's some nice people in W.V. Many years ago I was coming south on I-79,somewhere north of Flatwoods,trying to get home,when A tire blew on the trailer.When I pulled over another truck pulled in behind me.He was A local hauler,I don't remember if he was A log hauler or pulled A coal bucket,but he had A spare tire,and I didn't.He said he would sell me his spare for $50,so I bought it,just traded wheels,and he helped me change it.I carried A jack and lug wrench but didn't have enough blocks to put under the jack to get it high enough so we "borrowed" one of the wooden blocks that go between the guard rail and post to jack it up. His spare got me back to the shop...nowadays if you're on the shoulder,it's rare for trucks going by to even move to the left lane,and they certainly don't have time to stop.

I spoke with Shirley Sponholtz on the phone recently,and she is A very nice person.You might be thinking,"so...who the heck is Shirley Sponholtz?" Well,she's the editor of "Old Time Trucks" magazine. I called to order some back issues my mixer was in,and she answered the phone! And she talked to me like A regular person,so I guess she's A regular person. When the back issues came,they were the wrong issue,but I just kept them and re-ordered the issues I wanted by mail.Yes,I paid for them!.They sent the wrong issue again,so I sent an E-mail telling them it was wrong,and she called me,but I wasn't home,so they called me today to get everything straightened out,and we did. Most people wouldn't bother to call twice if you had A problem,or once for that matter,but it really impresses me that people like Shirley,Barry,William Weatherstone-all trucking people-will go out of their way to help you with A problem,and treat you like an equal ...well,I'm just happy to know people like that. I've never met Paul VanScott,Bulldog Man,or Freighttrain,or anybody else but I like them all,and kind've feel like I know them...know what I mean? All good truckin' people. I'm just A Mr. Nobody,but A great antique truck magazine is called "Old Time Trucks"-give Shirley A call @513-573-3513,maybe she'll answer the phone.

Buster Brown stopped by here this week,and left A package with all this stuff in it...