mrsmackpaul

for what they were at the time the only trucks to out do them would have been the IH ACCO tilt cabs I feel By the time the Jap trucks had a good foot hold the D series was just about done and dusted and got replaced with Cargo which I didnt think was abad truck either even though lots hate them Paul

I received a Australian vintage truck magazine yesterday and in one of the stories it had this photo Thought of KS straight away A bloke who seems pretty fond of both makes and might end up torn between the two LOL Back in the day Scania ran a whole series of adds about the benefits of their trucks as they were trying pretty hard to get a good size bite of the Australian market And in their adds they featured trucks with teeth painted on them as you can see in the lower half of the photo Mack was really well known for first it's Thermodyne and of course then the Maxidyne but when the coolpower was released onto the Australian market it was a game changer for Mack I feel the Mack Coolpowers were really what you felt like a Mack should be, they had balls and could out pull a 400 bigcam Crummins and do it for less fuel and also for millions of km This photo is all about the Econodyne which marked the end of the Coolpowered Macks out here Then again on this site Im no doubt preaching to the converted as we say out Anyway have laugh I know I did Seeya Paul

The little D series was a good little unit for its time and sold fairly well out here for a long time People liked them a lot and some liked them so much even as they started to loose ground in the power race Ford Australia Im pretty sure had a option were they could be repowered by the 3208 Cat motor as a dealer done upgrade When this was done they competed with everything around at the time Paul

you could buy the V8 Maxidyne 325 hp with a 5 speed and a lot of those had 4 speed spicer box behind those for heavy haulage and road train work I guess some Aussies had a chub a thon with quad box and this was similar I have been told and have seen 375 V8's with a quad box on road train work and seem to hold up ok not that has anything to do with the question As another side note I dont think there was any stock standard run of the mill Macks KW Peterbilt Autocar or whites ever sold out here as they were all and still are pretty much custom made for customer Paul

Some more R 800 stuff these first two I believe are the same truck I was told before in its working days and after restored in more recent times This truck and Im pretty sure the photo and the blurb that are attached were in a Australian Bulldog Bulliten These last two are Elliot Bros of Tasmania and sorry I dont know whos photos they or the rest of them either but full credit to who ever the y came from Paul

Seed didnt expect to see you here And I think this song is about me and Mrs Mack Sssshhhhh dont tell the Princess LOL Paul

they have those types of tyres for driving in sand I reckon as they dont bury them selves as easily Looks like you would need a footy oval to turn it around with the long wheel base Paul

I did some reading last night The last 4 B models built in Australia were in February 1967 Paul

The reason I ask is in Australia back in that time we would get a lot of left overs from around the world and what was a new model in Australia with cars etc was already out of date in the US I reckon they were still selling B models in 67 in Australia A lot of US companies would offer good deals to clear stock of out dated stuff and there Australian counter parts would happily buy it for the Australian market Paul

I know some LHD drive trucks were imported to Western Australia for mine use I doubt any were built here, the R models that were built here used a LHD cab and a template was put on the fire wall to drill all the right holes in all the right spots And almost every hole in the fire wall from a LHD was covered over with component either in the cab or in the fire so when they are it looks like they are factory RHD, which I guess they are but the conversion is really neat and its not until you strip the cab right down you can see any difference And I have never watched the "Walk about" movie that I know of so most check it out one day Paul

start pulling things apart and checking by eye and manually with air Most things can be checked a fair way with out spending bugger all What type of motor is in the truck ? Paul

Are you sure you dont have a blockage and the oil cant get pumped around and cooled ??? Paul

Is this the last B model off the line in the US or the world all over ?? Paul

The bloke at the chassis shop did suggest this as well and it has only started since then I reckon there has gotta be some clues here for sure Even just parked bobtail in the drive after I turned into the house I reckon my drive is a 1 inch or more out of align but drive 20 yards don the road in a straight line you couldnt line them up better with string line They obviously have to be able to move a fare way on there own Paul

It has a lot less weight on the tyres when empty so they are a lot more likely to skip side ways and not track When it has a load on the tyres would be more likely to track with all that extra weight on If this has only started since you put the poly ones in, or has only become more apparent since you put the poly ones in it may be worth looking into trying the rubber ones again Paul

With out knowing your wheel base I would think the tracking should still be fairly easy to notice even if the wheel base was quite long Maybe just find a quiet car park and do some figure 8's and circle work At a guess my old Mack would track more than a inch when on full lock The fact that it doesnt hop when loaded I think would maybe hint that extra weight might help the to force the wheels to scrub or maybe even track better Paul

As a off topic un related but sort of related thing Siddons of Sidchrome spanner fame, (I suspect only Australians will know what Im talking about here) anyway they made all sorts of things including spanners and sockets and they had a life time unconditional guarantee You broke one with 10 feet of pipe and 25 stone gorilla hanging off the end they just gave you a fresh one Anyway in the 80's they sold out to Stanley the yanky company and they said the reason they sold out was they couldnt compete because the cost of energy in Australia not the common myth that is always put forward that the wages are to costly With the way power prices have jumped in Australia in recent years I would think this would been a even greater influence than before Funny thing is we dig our coal up and export it China and around the world We also dig up our iron ore and send it around the world And our bauxite our oil and gas And then we buy back the finished product Now either I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed because either these over seas companies are making the products for less than cost or maybe just maybe Australia is selling the raw products for less to the overseas countries than they do to Australian companies I know we almost give our iron or coal and gas away for a lot less than it is sold for in Australia Dunno the whole shows on the nose I reckon Paul

Yeah thats what Im talking about They have to flex a fair way so the axles track on tight turns KS I think put up a broucher some years ago of how the Macks work, if he reads this it would be good if he could share it again Anyway the Mack rear end is designed to steer and follow the front with a reduced tyre scrubbing Paul

I dont think this will help as it will just try and drive thru the power divider which isnt really a power divider If it was a diff it would happen just driving down a road with just a gentle turn If it was a power divider it would happen driving down a straight road as even the smallest of tyre changes or the like would cause any wind up to happen in a very short distance I guess you could easily prove if the power divider is working by just jacking up one wheel and rolling the one wheel with the truck in neutral When you are turning sharp do the axles track, as in do the axles step out and follow out of align like they are meant to ?? has some one changed the rubbers in the spring carriers on the axles ( we all have different names for these) and maybe these have been changed and dont allow the axles to track on a sharp turn Paul

Couldnt agree more You are so right, we can blame all of us as we didnt support them but then again they didnt try to do the right thing and move with the times We can also blame the governments that took all the import duties away But it gets a bit more complicated than that Why did the import duties vanish ?? This lies squarely with the UK's insistence with joining the EEC (Eastern European Community) or the EU as we know it today For this to happen they (the UK) had to stop having protected markets in the Commonwealth, for people that havent grown up in the Commonwealth this wont meant much The Commonwealth was the British Empire and all exports thru out the Commonwealth were export duty free and the Commonwealth dealt largely in its self, the UK bought almost of the exports from around the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth bought almost all of the UK's exports This is why we had crappy pommy trucks and cars for so long Anyway when the the UK joined the EU the Commonwealth countries lost the export markets over night and this caused a huge amount of financial trouble around the Commonwealth The only way that other countries around the world would allow countries like Australia to start exporting to them was for Australia to drop our tariffs that protected ours and the UK's industries The unknown down side to all this was all the cheap imports from Asia as Asia was mainly a nothing on the world stage back But once the flood gates were opened there was no turning back The irony is that the UK and the big business in the UK that forced the UK government to join the EU as they (the big businesses) thought they could compete in Europe found they never could and as a result almost of the UK's manufacturing has gone And now the UK is doing it's best to leave the EU This I am afraid is to little to late Yes we all have a hand in what has happened here As another side note, I find it interesting how that Mack and Kenworth still make trucks here and there is a waiting list and I think it is 12 months for Kenworth and and 9 months for Mack It does show if you make what people want you still can compete Paul Oh yeah I still drive a Holden dunny door X six 1 tonner and the Princess has her Dunny door Adventurer wagon and no I wouldnt buy another Holden even if they still were making them, the build quality is crap I would by the dirty old XF Falcon

Have you changed the tyres on the rear at all ? Are they all still the same size ? If the tyres arent matched you need to group them into the nearest size pairs and run them diagonally opposite Paul

air intake hose collapsing in under vacuum down the big hill causing it to scavenge air from everywhere else and drawing in some oil with it Maybe pull the air intake hose of at the turbo and take it for a run down a big hill and see if its any better, sort of eliminates a whole heap of things Paul