TeamsterGrrrl

You guys spend so much time living in the past, you'd think you'd at least get studied up on your history. Marx promoted an economic theory, and what Lenin and Stalin created was a bastardization of Marx's theory at best. Communism was every bit as much a failure as fascism, and is almost as extinct, living on in paranoid remote places like North Korea. So find something useful to get all paranoid about.

Detroit Diesel competed with Cummins for the biggest class 8 market share during the 60s and 70s, and probably shipped over a million 2 stroke truck engines total. How many collectors are in the market for a 2 stroke Detroit? Maybe a thousand. Given how slowly old trucks seem to move from the groves and back lots to the recyclers, there are more than enough 2 stroke Detroits around to overflow the shops and yards of every collector. And if I wanted a 2 stroke Detroit, I'd prefer it in a matching GM product like an Astro or General!

Good men do not fight for bad causes.

You're free to practice your choice of religion, but America has no state religion.

Scrap prices are pretty much the same everywhere...

Not much demand for 2 stroke Detroits, especially 71 series without a turbo.

This is beyond ignorance... It is about creating a false narrative about whole groups of people (minorities, women, gays, etc.) complete with a faked "history", then encouraging the believers to take violent action against those groups. That's how a young man from Ohio ends up thinking it's OK to ram his car into counter protesters.

It was a white supremacist Trump supporter who participated in the rally and fatally attacked the counter protesters with a 4000 pound lethal weapon.

Even though this is a 17 year old truck, Mack supplied repair parts that failed and should take some responsibility. The dealer is responsible for the swarf left in the engine and anything else they screwed up.

Amazing that America persists with obsolete AM CBs on the HF bands- Most of the world has switched to VHF and UHF FM. Is you must have one, buy the cheapest and don't worry about the antenna much- the ground plane is more important.

Or if we have to take this down to the "lowest common denominator", get a GMRS system.

Not worth the bother, get a ham license.

That's true of the current Volvo engines rebranded as Mack. However, the genuine Mack engines were often underated- for example, the top rating for a 2001-2006 Maxidyne was 370 HP, but that was at 2100 RPM. At 1700 RPM that engine actually put out 405 HP! There were also cases where Mack "hopped up" the engines, but never increased the advertised rating- The "300 Maxidyne" was given 4 valves per cyclinder and a displacement bump from 11 to 12 liters, but it's advertised rating was never changed from 300 HP. I drove a number of both the Maxidyne and Econodyne "300" 12 liter engines, and they felt like at least 350 HP if not more.

Article I wrote a couple days ago, note the emphasis on recycling vehicles, buildings, etc. rather than replacement: "Rural Solutions to Global Warming First, lose the ‘lectrik cars and solar panel status symbols… Why? Urban solutions are often inappropriate for rural environments, just like a 600 horsepower tractor is overkill for mowing a small city lot… Heck, will a 600 horsepower tractor even fit in a small city lot? Electric cars make sense for short urban trips, but when you need to haul a literal ton of feed, seed, or tractor parts a hundred miles you need more kilowatt hours than even the biggest Tesla battery can supply. As for solar, we got more and cheaper renewable energy from wind- rooftop home solar costs around $3/watt and produces around 20% of the time, megawatt class wind turbines cost $1.50 to $2/watt and produce power around 40% of the time. Nothin’ wrong with solar and over hundred meter tall wind turbines are kinda impossible to site in the city, but out here we got the space for wind, giving twice the renewable energy for half the price of solar. Ok, so we got wind that kicks solar’s butt and kicks coal right outa the market, but how do we cut greenhouse gasses without electric cars? Unless we’re able to recharge an electric car entirely with renewable energy, in reality we’re reducing carbon use and greenhouse gas production rather than eliminating such pollution entirely. So how do we do that in a rural environment? For a start we don’t buy new electric cars, maybe not even hybrids, ’cause massive amounts of greenhouse gasses are produced just to make a new car or whatever. Rural folks are resourceful, given how unprofitable farming has been we’ve had to be- So fixing stuff forever is a big part of our skill set, Thus instead of tearing down an old house to build a new totally passive energy powered new home, we’ll rehab the old home with recycled materials, lotsa insulation, and heat it with a stove that burns renewable biomass fuels. In the same manner, we can rebuild an old truck to run on renewable fuels and reduce greenhouse gases more than a dozen hybrids. We can reduce farming energy inputs and greenhouse gas outputs by reduced and even no tillage and use waste energy from one process to power another like my dairy farmer friend does. Still want ‘lectricks? We got railroads, they already emit only a fourth of the greenhouse gases trucks do, and using fixed tracks, they’re easily electrified! Not only can rural folks reduce greenhouse gases, but our rural environment can suck ’em up to- It’s called sequestration, and while it doesn’t seem to work for coal plants, it works on our farms and forests. We are just beginning to research the potential of bio sequestration, but we know that healthy soil, grasses, and even corn headed to the ethanol plant suck up greenhouse gasses. That’s why the National Farmer’s Union and even Congressman Colin Peterson are promoting cover crops to keep rural America green year round and protect the soil while sequestering greenhouse gasses and reducing fertilizer use. In conclusion, pushing solar status symbols that cost more than we make in a year and electric cars that cost more than our house fail at best and provoke backlash at worst in rural America. Taking advantage of rural assets like our conservation ethic, rebuilding skills, vast spaces, and biomass assets will motivate rural folks to do their part and then some to stop global warming." I'm pushing to get some of these ideas into the democratic party platform- For example, eliminate the sales tax on used vehicles so the vehicle is taxed just once instead of every time it's sold. Also eliminating the sales tax on used parts and repairs to encourage recycling instead of scrapping. Watcha think?

Perhaps a backlash to the proprietary engine's monopoly boosted parts prices and limited availability?

Good points- I don't think the electric car proponents have worked through the consequences of mass scale adoption of electric cars. For most electric car homes the car would become the single biggest electricity user, requiring more energy than the water heater or air conditioning. Given that most of these electric cars would be charged at night when there's no solar production and wind turbine output drops, the electric cars could actually see cause an increase in pollution and greenhouse gasses as coal and gas fired plants are brought back online.

After a decades of subsidies and promotion electric cars haven't even managed a one percent market share... The only reason every manufacturer has fielded an electric is to goad the tech millionaires into buying their stock.

The USPS F series Volvos had Cat 3116 engines and Allison automatics. We only had a couple at the Minneapolis Main Post Office and over a dozen Cargos, IMHO the Volvo was the better truck.

Had a broken engine mount stud on a Harley Sportster engine in a Buell, a frequent failure as the hole was never designed to hold the engine in place. New complete head assemblies were around $250 retail back then, but Harley insisted on paying a couple hours labor to extract the stud instead!

The problem is that Volvo management in smug Sweden thinks they should be able to tell a farmer in South Dakota that they don't need off road capability and a sleeper cab in a tractor that makes round trips of hundreds of miles from farm fields to urban grain elevators. Paccar understands that and is happy to provide whatever the customer wants, be it a DAF cabover of a W900 conventional.

Won't fit!

Does it have a 3 point hitch?

A 2006 truck has usually been semi-retired to low mileage work, and will be scrapped in a decade or so anyways- No point in spending taxpayer dollars to scrap it prematurely!

Had a minute to talk with Tim Walz (D-MN) and shared the trucker's opposition to the ELD mandate. He seemed sympathetic and will hopefully vote for a delay. Was trying to catch up with Colin Peterson (D-MN) when I saw the trucker again, so I pointed him in the direction of Congressman Peterson and let him deliver the message himself. Suffice to say, if democrats are willing to support a delay in ELD implementation, I suspect it will pass if it reaches the floor.

I agree- look at the recent drop in car sales in the U.S. and an analysis's opinion that the market has flattened and won't see an upsurge until 2025 or so. Or consider Ford's new Cargo, built in Turkey and Brazil, both turbulent countries, especially Turkey.