TeamsterGrrrl

Why should only milk trucks enjoy regulatory exemptions? Road wear is determined by weight. It doesn't matter what freight the truck is hauling.

No wonder the railroads are more profitable... The trucking "industry" can't even agree on what they want! To make matters worse, the railroads gave more in campaign donations than the trucking "industry" did in the last election cycle.

Sounds like a single drive with an unpowered tag or pusher axle. Good for places like Texas that seldom see snow, gets better fuel economy due to less friction from a 2nd differential. If the undriven axle can be lifted under light loads, that'll improve the fuel economy even more and reduce tire wear. On the other hand, with only one driven axle this truck may have problems if it has to go off road or on snowy/icy roads.

Several big fleets ran the 7 speed Eaton and Spicer transmissions at 80k pounds and more with no problems, and that was with a conventional torque rise diesel. With a Maxitorque who can have huge gear splits like the Mack 5, 6, 7, and 8 speeds have because the engines power band is so broad. Sure, you could use a 10, 13, or 18 speed behind a Maxidyne, but it won't deliver the freight any faster. The only major advantage to more gears with a maxitorque is actually fuel economy, as with tighter splits the engine can be kept in it's fuel economy "sweet spot" more of the time. But with the 300 series Maxitorque wide ration transmissions the split between top and the next gear down is only 40%, the same as on the conventional split 9 and 10 speed transmissions. For on highway use you spend most of your time in those top two gears anyway, so there's no advantage to putting a transmission with more gears behind a Maxidyne.

It's probably a Maxidyne engine then, and the transmission would be a 5 or 6 speed wide ratio Maxitorque with one or two low holes. Should work fine, the Maxidyne engine has a 1200-2100 RPM power band so it should work fine with the 7 speed Maxitorque. Might want to check the truck's history though, they switched over from Mack to Volvo engines late in 2006, but a Mack engine could have still found it's way into a 2007 built in late 2006.

Driving back to MN from FL did a bit of a survey to pass the miles... How many of the old Freightliner FLD conventionals are left? The FLD was obsoleted by the Century in the late 90s but remained in production through 2006. I saw few of these only 10+ year old Freighliners, apparently 10 years is still all you can expect to get out of a Freightliner cab. The Mack conventionals can be dated by the changes like the drop down windows and the CX's droop snout which became available and common in the 2000-2003 range, though a few CHs are still built. While 10+ year old Freightshakers are becoming rare, I saw too many 10+ year old CHs and even older R models than I could count... A tribute to the good folks at Mack who designed and built them!

Is this the Maxitorque 7 speed or an Eaton or Spicer 7 speed?

Luke, a conventional diesel engine produces peak power at 2100 rpm and maybe 90% of peak power at 1600 or so rpm, so a 9 or more speed transmission is needed. A maxitorque produces peak power at 1700, and at least 90% of peak power from 1200 to 2100, thus as little as 5 speeds are needed.

Luke, you ever seen the power curve for Maxidyne?

It'll work worse with a 13 speed, 'cause the Maxidyne engine was designed for wide ratio transmissions. Unless you have the rare low RPM Maxidyne, upshift at 2100 RPM, downshift at 1200, and you'll do fine.

Most truckers are getting a bargain with fuel tax- The real cost of providing and maintaining roads is around $.05 per ton mile, or $2 a mile for a loaded 80,000 pound combination.

I suspect sales of the top of the line FH16 in Europe are very profitable, and Volvo doesn't want to share those profits with Cummins. This shows the wisdom of the Mack/Scania V8, by using many of the modular basics of the inline 6 design the development and tooling costs for the V8 are much lower than Volvo's low volume 16 liter engine.

Run, don't walk, away from this truck! "686" means this is probably an E6 with an engine mounted aftercooler, last built in the 1980s. The seller is probably lying, barring old stock laying around there are no new engines available for these trucks, and at best it's a rebuilt. The frame is toast, and would need total replacement, which as you can see, easily gets into 5 figures for the frame rails alone, never mind a couple weeks labor. So even if this truck were a gift, I'd part it out!

Volvo has damn near succeeded in killing off Mack. Problem is, the former Mack customers didn't buy a Volvo.

Yup, the rumors have been going around that long... Story was that as soon as the non-compete agreement with Daimler expired around 2007 or so, Ford would be out with a tandem axle truck again. Reputedly the recession killed that plan, but prior to the move of the F550 through 750 to Ohio Assembly knowledgeable sources predicted, again, a tandem. Certainly wouldn't be hard to do, the Power Stroke is rated for 55k GCW so should handle at least that much in a straight truck. Nothing magic about buying in a tandem axle assembly, suspension, etc. from the usual vendors and beefing up the crossmembers and maybe frame too... But it still hasn't happened.

The return of the F850 has been rumored for a couple years now. Did it have tandem axles in back?

California had it's own emission regs before the Feds did, combine that with the written authority given California by the Clean Air Act and they have a solid case to set their own standards. Trump's EPA may claim they can preempt California fuel economy standards, but all California has to do is call them "Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards" to get around that Fed overreach. As it stands now, no one has successfully challenged California's imposition of their emissions standards on out of state trucks and trailers (gotta have an '07 or newer truck and aero kit on 53' trailers), so if any maker built a non-California compliant truck, it could never go to California or the 9 other states that follow their standards.

Sounds like you're back to being rebellious for the sake of being rebellious... And here you were almost starting to make sense.

I'm amazed that no manufacturer doesn't put their whole data book online for customers to browse through. Instead we get this vague "trust us" kind of BS... The more a manufacturer hides about their product, the less I trust them!

Good to see that you guys are figuring it out- TrumpCare just gives more of our $$$ to the insurance companies!

Yup, I know it's a mechanical Allison. On the ones I've driven, if you don't move the lever beyond the "2" position it won't upshift any higher. Thus if the shifter or cables travel was restricted by binding, out of adjustment, etc. it wouldn't shift beyond 2nd. Hopefully that's the problem, if you have to go into the transmission it gets expensive.

Probably didn't know he was sitting on a Volvo chassis powered by a Volvo engine... https://www.buzzfeed.com/davidmack/vroom-vroom?utm_term=.lj3j43DPx#.hrQ3keVYZ

Sounds like the problem is with the shifter, which is cheaper to fix than the transmission... Thus you want to rule out shifter problems before you go into the transmission!

The Volvo AMT costs $15k to rebuild, so once it's out of warranty it's a liability that kills resale value. For the fleet that's keeping a new truck less than 5 years it means they can put cheaply paid unqualified drivers behind the wheel faster, and more depreciation just means more tax writeoffs!

But no surprise... I worked for Sears back in the late 60s, and management was clueless at best and corrupt at worst. The regional HQ was at the store I worked at, and they were known for working 3 day weeks with a late start on Tuesday and knocking off early on Thursday. None the less, these senior idiots were treated like royalty, while the company slowly fell apart. Surprised it's taken them half a century to deteriorate to this point, but their downward trajectory was obvious even back then.