Wobblin-Goblin

Me, my dad, and my uncle went up to Chesterfield, MA to look at 'Mater, a 1964 B61SX. We got there about an hour before dark to check the truck out. It was quite cold. The dump body was up a little bit, sitting on 6x6" blocks and it was full of frozen mud and scrap metal. The tailgate was down and chained about level with the bed and it too had mud frozen on it. The ears on the driver's side of the body were bent, not allowing the tailgate to be brought up and pinned in place. The owners had it plugged in (block heater) so it would start, and once we had it going, we were impressed with the sound of the engine. It ran cleanly with no hesitation. The body work (fenders, hood, cab) all appeared to be in decent shape, although the paint was not. The interior of the cab looked to be quite salvageable, too. The tach and speedo worked, not sure about any other gauges. The driver's seat bottom was bad, but all other cushions were fine. My dad drove it in the yard, but it didn't like being shifted (the owners apparently hadn't done much shifting in the years they had the truck, and like I said, it was pretty cold out and who knows how old the trans oil was) and it wasn't building any air, so there were no brakes. We put the truck back and while my dad and uncle continued pouring over the truck, I offered the owner (Barb) $2,500 for it (she was asking $3k). She accepted the offer and I thanked her and told her I'd try to get back that week to pay for it and pick it up. Both my dad and uncle were surprised and impressed with the condition of the Mack, given that so many times stuff like this turns out to be junk. This truck clearly isn't in that category. Having said that, there is no question that it will need a significant amount of fixing and tinkering just to get it to the point where everything operates and does what it's supposed to do. It doesn't appear that regular maintenance was a part of this truck's life for quite a while, so we'll have to remedy that as well. One humorous part of the visit happened almost as soon as we got there. One of us asked about the steering, and Barb's husband said, "Oh no, it doesn't have power steering. In fact, it kind of steers hard." Well, my dad climbed up on the fender, opened the hood, looked down, and saw a power steering pump and cylinder. Of course, the reservoir was empty. Pics will follow.

I sent the guy an email asking for specific information about the DM and never heard back.

672? Do you mean a 673?

Yes, mechanically, that set up was pretty close to being bulletproof.

The Usurper-in-Chief.

Yes, we will be using this truck on our farm and eventually I'd like to put antique plates on it and drive it on the road. ETA: yes, this is "'Mater," which was in the "for sale" section of the site. I bought him and transported the truck yesterday. Many thanks to DBLEW for selling the truck to me and my family.

First pic is of the truck being driven into the garage for day 1.5 (we spent a half day on it yesterday) of the refurbishing. At this point, all we are doing is giving the truck a full service (checking and/or changing all fluids, filters, belts, hoses, lines), cleaning it inside and out, and making sure everything works the way it's supposed to. It's not in terrible shape, but it appears that it's been a while since it was serviced and greased. I spent the day finding and cleaning the grease fittings and hope to have them all greased on Monday. As you can see, we tackled the interior, pulling out everything that was easy and pulled up the mat and the pad that was under it. The floor is rusty, but the steel still has integrity. More to come soon.

1964 B61 SX tandem dump truck with a 711. Sorry, no pics yet, but they'll be coming soon. It's in a little rough shape, but not bad. We are going to go through the truck and service it first, doing whatever needs to be done to make it completely operable (right now it starts, drives, stops, and dumps), including replacing any belts, hoses, etc. that need it. Overall, I'm excited about it. This is a dream come true, to actually own one of these pieces of an America that used to exist in years gone by. You might remember my Introduction thread a few months ago about the B65 my dad used to own 30 years ago that was found by my uncle and we've been refurbishing it all year. Now it's my turn, and at 45, I'm 17 years older than my dad when he bought his first Mack. Anyway, stay tuned for pics. This will be a long project, and while it won't be a "restoration" per se, we will be freshening the truck up considerably.

Yes, more pics the better.

I'd like to see more pics of the B model, please.

Nice find, good save. Love B, DM, and R models.

Update: engine is now running. Truck will be road-worthy again soon.

Nice pics. Totally enjoyed this thread. I'll be contributing some pics of some old Macks soon.

We're having a delay in putting the engine back together. While we were in there, we noticed a couple injector lines were in bad shape. Now we're looking for sources of those lines.

Please let me know if any of the lines are good. I am interested.

My family is refurbishing a B-65 and while we were doing head gaskets, we noticed about half of the injector lines are in sick shape and need to be replaced. Our local truck parts source apparently can't help us, anybody know where we can pick these up? Thanks in advance.

I'd like to hear the story, too. Please share it with us. BTW, how much did it cost?

BTW, I would love to own a Mack of my own (doesn't really matter the model, although the Bs, Rs, and DMs are my favorite) someday. Also, my uncle made his own B model pickup from a B40 cab and an '84 GMC 6.2L diesel 3/4 ton pickup. I'll about getting a pic of it.

Thanks, fellas. That's it. That's the B65. Can't be very many left of them. ETA: This isn't a "restoration," we are simply bringing the truck back to complete working order, as if it were 5-10 years old. Of course, we did a bunch of touch-up work like body work and paint, too, to make it look nice. It had a head gasket leak, so we decided to replace them, and while we are in there, we cleaned, painted, and polished the heads, valve covers, and manifolds, too. We're hoping it runs like a top when we're done.

Hi all. Brand-new member here from New England. Been a fan of Mack trucks since I was born. My father bought a B65LT in '74 and leased it out to trucking companies. He sold it in '84, and my uncle found it last year and bought it to get it back in the family. Don't know how to post pictures, so here's a link to a thread on another site about the project. OK, so I can't post a link either. Anyway, if you are interested, simply Google search Mack B65 and the thread should show up over on AR15.com. There are also three videos I took of us and the truck on youtube. Again, just do a search for Mack B65. I love the air starter video. Thanks.