TeamsterGrrrl

Some white guys are so fragile... Almost like snowflakes!

41 Chevy, it's simple: You sign a contract, you have to abide by it.

The 4500 Allison should have enough capacity for the 375 HP rating.

Well said, Mack Technician- Murder is pretty low on the list of causes of death, suicide is more common, and most of us die of heart and lung ailments or cancer. I got no problem with sane citizens lawfully exercising their 2nd amendment rights, or their 1st amendment rights for that matter. Same with freedom of religion, political association, and who folks choose to love.

Not exactly, but ownership of absurdly large amounts of firearms and ammo does tend to correlate with "clinging to the past" philosophy. It's pretty much a proven fact that unionized workers are better paid, as evidenced by some of the jealousy towards union members on this forum. Higher pay attracts the best workers, no surprise. And your poor grammar is rather telling...

David, are you even capable of treating people as individuals?

You just stereotyped all black people with that blanket statement... And you're not racist?

Having lived in Minneapolis for three decades, I've met several of the characters involved and had several interactions with the city's police, so this is no surprise. The historians generally agree that Minneapolis' police were thoroughly corrupt until mayor Hubert Humphrey cleaned house in the 1940s. But Humphrey was only mayor for a few years before moving on to the senate, so I suspect the corrupt cops just went back to business as usual after he left. Former police chief Boza, a retired cop who wrote a book on the department, and a number of other authorities agree that the department is dysfunctional. Throw in the drug fueled crime wave of the 80s and 90s and we've got a department whose SOP is to operate "locked and loaded" with the safety off... No surprise that mere fireworks in the area may have caused a cop to panic and shoot an unarmed civilian. This paranoid approach to law enforcement is common in Minnesota, note the similarity to the panicked police shooting that occurred in a suburb of Minneapolis last year. Police are taught to fear everyone- When I applied for a DOT truck inspector job back in the 90s, I probably didn't make the final cutoff because I gave the wrong answer to the question "You are inspecting a truck and the driver is becoming angry". The correct answer is "Retreat and call for backup". That's increasingly the mentality of cops in Minnesota and much of America. Combine that paranoid police behavior with a segment of the population that's amassing arsenals and runs around "locked and loaded" too, and you've got a recipe for disaster...

Your trying to race bait this tragedy, it ain't about race- Minneapolis has a dysfunctional police force. Used to listen to the scanner when I lived there, heard one officer shoot another officer who was working plainclothes. Heard another officer shot in the station, not sure if he shot himself or another officer shot him. They also had a crash with an officer behind the wheel plowing into a crowd that was watching a parade and killing two, later found that the officer hadn't driven the vehicle before and mistook the gas for the brake.

'Cept Volvo would rather let Mack die than see Mack live on as a competitor.

Nice to see the V8 Mack sharing company with a locomotive, being that it's the locomotive of trucks...

For a truck that runs in the city a lot 30 MPH or less average is par for the course. At the Postal Service it's even worse- I've seen Macks there with only 400,000 miles but 20,000 hours, even slower average speeds in some of the more congested cities.

There was usually a huge price gap between the top capacity Allison like the 4000 series and the next model down like the 3000 series, so the engine makers would often offer a low torque engine to match the lower priced Allison's capacity.

Will the Allison handle the extra torque of a power upgrade? Generally the lowest rating of a Mack 6 cylinder engine was a derated version to stay within the torque limits of an Allison transmission.

That 2008 with an AI427 may have been for export. Or they could have legally used a left over E7 by balancing it's emissions with credits from cleaner engines. Using old engines for export to markets with weak emissions is common- Had an ex-International and current Cummins engineer help me install a new exhaust system on my old TDI a couple weeks back, they both had stories of new old stock engines that didn't meet current emissions requirements here being put in trucks exported to countries with weak standards or installed in military trucks which are exempt.

Nice truck, but the price is way high. And a "pre-emissions" 2007 E7? I've been hearing that claim a lot lately, They actually switched over to the MP engines late in 2006 so I doubt many if any pre-2007 emissions E7s were built.

Looks great, hope it works well for you!

He ran 427 Fairlanes in the stock and super stock classes back in the late 60s. Started with a 425 HP with dual 4 barrels in a 2 door hardtop '67 IIRC, then found that it ran just as fast with a single carb in the 1/4 mile so he made it a 410 HP and that dropped him a class. The car was downright scary, lifting front wheels on the 3rd-4th shift at 100 MPH, so he through convention out the window and set up the suspension so it would droop in the rear under acceleration rather than lift the front, which greatly improved control and let him use more of the engine's power. Now that he could keep the car on the track, he needed more weight in the rear for better traction and to drop him a class or three. The official version (told to the NHRA) was that the 427 was an option in Fairlane Wagons, doubt Ford ever built any though reputedly the MN State Patrol bought some wagons with 390s. Richard told me that he bought a used Post Office Fairlane wagon with a wheezer 6 and swapped in the whole powertrain from the hardtop. He dominated doorslammer drag racing in the midwest for the rest of the 60s with that car, but reportedly the NHRA finally threw the car out of the stock classes because the VIN indicated a 6 rather than the mighty 427. Another legend I've seen on the internet is that the car was delivered new in primer to his sponsor, the now defunct Brookdale Ford with a 427 as the VIN has no code for paint. The Post Office specced a custom paint, which may explain the missing paint code in the VIN. There's another legend that Richard bought the wagon used from the mayor of a town, perhaps the title passed through said mayor to hide the wagon's Post Office fleet origins? I met Richard when he raced a '70 Cyclone for the Mercury dealer I was working for, he really knew his engineering and was responsible for much of the 427 Fairlane's drag racing success. Unfortunately the NHRA didn't classify the 429 Cyclone favorably and the car was a looser. I think he ran the Fairlane wagon a few more years, and from what I've seen on the internet it's been sold and still makes occasional race appearances.

Any sightings of Richard Charbeneau or his 427 Fairlane wagon?

Labor should be the largest expense- Work should provide a good living for the worker, whether company driver or owner-operator. Get better MPG, and the oil companies will get by just fine. $$$ Saved on fuel can improve the driver's standard of living...

Agreed- Other than when it relates to old Macks like zoning laws, state regulation of historic vehicles, etc. politics don't belong here. Everyone has complaints about their health care, etc., not just old Mack lovers, so those discussions belong in other forums. We need to discuss relevant topics here, like how do we preserve more historic Mack trucks?

That said, there's a huge untapped market out there of owner-operators and small fleets that could make the payments on a new truck if they could get financing. But to reduce the risk of financing these small operators to levels lenders will accept would require said small operators surrendering a lot more control of their operations to the lender and manufacturer- For example, mandatory fuel efficient specs, long term haulage contracts backed up by a manufacturer sponsored "spot market", prepaid PM and extended warranty packaged with the financing, etc.. This would rankle some "independents", but would cut down on the repo rate and failure proof the loan. There are bits of this in place already- Volvo trucks management services, the Korean carmaker's 10 year warranties, etc.... But nobody has put the whole package together. Yet.

Actually, the incentives are there to make new trucks even more "blobby" to improve fuel economy. I suspect we're not seeing many truly new trucks because the couple hundred thousand conventional cab trucks demanded by our oddball North American isn't worth the billion dollar investment in a new cab.

Seems of late we've had a lot of "new" trucks introduced that are just rehashes of old designs...

Australia also has overall length limits, which rules out long tapered body shapes for most rigs.