mrsmackpaul

We called these "Island Cabs" in Australia Paul

Or maybe a wee drop from New Zealand is more your flavor of beer Clearly living in the land of "The Long White Cloud" is thirsty work Paul

345 and 392 are really low compression Have a huge crank shaft As a result they just tick over and last a long time They are no power house, but they are good motors for what they are Hard to believe we had line haul International semis with a 345 and later the 392 Never had any bigger petrol V8 inters in Australia than the 392 Paul

People in Australia were very serious drinkers when I was a young fella doing my apprentice ship One electrician struggled to get a screwdriver in a terminal in the morning and was no drama once the pubs openned It left a lasting impression me, I don't ever want end up like that He was bright red in the face and his skin was all puffy, lighting a smoke was a struggle It was pretty normal to drink during work hours Tuesday was free beer night from the bosses back at the office Drink driving rules became very in forced and blokes started loosing their lincences, I wasn't old enough to have a license then and they were trying to give me a work vehicle as the tradesman had done their ticket One bloke in William street Melbourne was feeling a little ill and wound the window down for a yawn, poor bloke threw up on the cop car beside him I doubt many of those blokes made it to old age Another bloke was in the Airforce reserves and was rotten as chop tearing up the Hume Hwy between Melbourne and Sydney, heading Meln way Coppers could catch him in his GT Falcon, the parked semi's across the hwy to stop him He finally stopped and apparently when the copper walked up to him he wound the window down and dropped the copper and took off again ha ha Serious drinking was very common in Australia once Or the Darwin Stubbie, what we call a small bottle of beer, like a Coke cam sized beer The Darwin stubby is huge,2 1/4 liters Over half a gallon Darwin Stubby wake held in Alice Springs as Carlton United Breweries pulls pin on production - ABC News https://share.google/Miou2Mp7XRsvZXZ99 Paul

The three leaf spring packs like that were a phase most manufacturers (including Mack) went through in the 80's, apparently gave a better ride than a whole lot of thin leaves Those spacer blocks are common on all Macks in Australia from this era Most trucks have maybe 3 inches of spacers, gives a much tougher look and is very different to the American look of very low slung trucks and sitting on the floor Paul

I dunno about you blokes Meat isn't cooked anywhere near enough for me Don't like blood on the plate, like mine cooked all the way through, well done Seasoning of meat is only a relatively new thing in Australia, maybe 10 years at best Still like mine cooked just in it's own juices The Princess in recent times tried this half cook meat stuff, I tolerated it for a bit then just started putting mine back in the pan the cremate it fully Well that's when the fight really started Anyway, it's only a few more minutes getting cooked so it isn't a big drama as it turns out No whip marks or claret on my meat Paul

Good call, will get pretty frustrating pretty quickly if this contiues Im sure it will all ger sorted soon enough Paul

Have a great day D Day Paul

Maybe, will have to do some reel sweet talking to the Princess to allow something like that, yah never know though Paul

Wow, sorry for your loss But a cool looking truck Paul

I dunno During the millennial drought that sort of sorted out large area's of this wide brown land called Australia I was dairy farming back then and watching the Princess and mine dreams blow away in the dust storms These are my photos Not my photo, but dust storms would roll on through like this every week These came all to often, I discovered a kinda famous celebrity type of fella from the US of A called Dr Phil and he has lots of wise words and some of these are mentioned bellow "Do you wanna be right or do you wanna be happy" So bearing this in mind ever since, I make it a concious choice to try and be happy During that 10 year drought on average we had 1 Australian farmer comit suicide every 14 days Kinda puts things into perspective for dumb asses like me And no matter what I think at the moment, I always choose the "I wanna be happy" Life is so incredibly temporary and is gone in less than a heart beat, this isn't no made up bull shit I guess I understand fully how you feel and who you maybe talking about But I challenge you to be the bigger man Anyway, if I'm in doubt I kinda reflect on another fella from the good old US of A, Paul Harvey, "I Believe in my god, I believe in my country and I believe in myself, and in that order" I can't believe I'm quoting Yanks, but they do make some sense some times I guess in a long winded way, some times it pays to let shit go and move on Also to quote another Yank, I can't believe I'm quoting Seppo's Morgan Wallen And if there's a dirty spot on your windscreen I have a answer for that as well ha ha Smile and learn to let stuff go Paul

Brocky the return to NewZealand leg is set in stone, but thats okay, next year Paul

I think I'm becoming obsolete pretty quickly these days myself Don't really have heavy clothes to bring but it's only a week so it can't be to bad ??? LOL I feel it's gunna be a hell of a ahock going from a 100 im the shade to what ever snow covered temperature it will be ha ha, character building Paul

The Pissan Nissan work ute is bloody hopeless trying to get it of 4WD Last time I had to crawl underneath and remove the electric drive motor and it's little gear box and use a shifter (adjustable wrench) and manually take it out Then pull the electric motor apart to wind it enough so it's little drive gear box was in the right spot to go back on What a complicated stuff up, a lever and linkage was so simple, I guess todays snow flakes have enough drama turning a dial on the dash Will update on the weather in Yanky land I'm flying in NY to help a fellow forum member Tim Maikshilo and shift him and his family back to NewZealand next month In on the saturday the 10th Jan, out on the 19th I expect my summer clothes wont be much chop in a north American winter Paul