Wobblin-Goblin

Yeah, I never liked it either. I suppose it worked like it was supposed to, but doggonit it looked ugly. Hopefully I'll have the hood sanded, prepped, primed, and the underside painted by the end of the day tomorrow, among other things.

Love those R models. Iconic trucks.

Yesterday and today's progress: 1. Removed tail lights, license plate plywood bracket, and pintle hitch. Cleaned all the caked on asphalt, dirt, and grime off the rear end. Had to use a chisel to get rid of the asphalt. Directionals wouldn't come off with penetrating oil, so will have to resort to heat tomorrow. 2. Took the home-made snorkel (raised air intake) off. Folded close the parts of the canister they cut open under it. Will have to weld the seams and holes shut. Took out the flat stock steel plate they had covering the exterior air intake screen under the air cleaner canister. Dumped out the oil from the bottom of the air cleaner and rinsed it out. After having just cleaned it two months ago, I was surprised how much dirt and gunk was back in it. 3. Took the hood off and straightened it. Removed any hood lacing clips that were still on the radiator cover and firewall. 4. Temporarily installed the front directionals on the fenders. They look good. Can't wait to permanently install and wire them. 5. Tested the remaining lights. Headlights, tail lights (before I took them off) and all but the center roof light work. The high-beam switch and indicator work as well. Running lights (under headlights) and no directionals front or back work. 6. Sprayed down all the nuts associated with the side mirrors a few times in preparation for their removal tomorrow. 7. Re-tightened a hose clamp that loosened and came off the intake manifold. 8. Installed a bunch of new rubber bumpers and screws for the flat fender tops.

Today's progress: 1. We took the body off the truck. It took a little bit of effort, mostly because the pins connecting the link arms to the body were WELDED to the body. Talk about a head-scratcher. 2. We moved the truck to its new home on our farm. We've got a big enough garage for it, so now we'll be continuing our refurbishment here. Of course, some pics for your enjoyment:

Now that it's getting much colder, there is less (no) room inside to work on the truck, so we are readying it to move to our farm. Hopefully we will have the body off tomorrow and by the end of the day it will be in our garage. Next on the list: 1. Prep the hood. Paint under it, prime the top. 2. Prep and paint the firewall. 3. Prep and prime the doors. 4. Prep and prime the cab. 5. Install new lights on the back of the truck and re-wire from the cab back. 6. Install new directional lights on the fenders and re-wire as needed.

I don't own the plant where all of this is taking place. The people that own it are family friends and they are my concrete supplier (I own a concrete form/floor business). They've been very generous in their support on this project by allowing me to work on the truck in their garages and keep it there.

Thank you, Jeff M.

Umm....pics?

While I agree the R models were probably Mack's best trucks, it's still hard to say that because the B models were so good, too.

Didn't get anything done on the Mack today, but it did haul its first load of material: 26,000lbs of processed gravel. Also, its cousin (my uncle's '58 B65) showed up at the site today and we were able to snap a pic of the two together and take a couple videos of them running around the plant. The pic is below and stay tuned for vids. Since I cannot post videos, could someone do it for me? Simply go to youtube, search for "Mack B61 and B65 Playing Tag." It's a cool video of my dad hauling a load of gravel in my B61 followed right behind by my uncle in his rare B65.

The 237 is a fine engine for a classic or antique Mack, but my dad and uncle say it'll destroy a Quadbox pretty easily.

Is this the B81 that was for sale (in NJ I think) a few months back?

B81s are my favorite. Good luck!

BTW, I have a bulldog for the radiator cover but I'm mystified as to how to attach it. Can someone fill me in? Thanks.

Heheheh. Being self-employed in the construction industry, work is slow for me in the winter, so this project is my full-time job now.

Today's progress: 1. Finished prepping the radiator cover. Primed it. Painted it silver. 2. Made two little mud flaps (fender extenders) for the front and mounted them. 3. Permanently attached the bumper and push plate. 4. Put temporary felt down on the radiator cover to keep the hood from scratching the new paint. Well, the entire front is done. The fenders look pretty good. They're not perfect, but I'm not looking for perfection, because this isn't a "restoration," it's a "thorough refurbishment," as though someone might have done in 1975 when the truck was 11 years old and they wanted it to freshen it up a bit. The radiator cover, however, looks amazing. I made the small mud flaps for the front fenders out of scrap conveyor belt material. The old ones that were on the truck when I bought it extended down something like 17 inches below the bottom of the fender. I made these to add 10 inches and am quite happy with the way they look. Again, I'm approaching this job as though I'm refurbishing it to put it to work and look nice, not to make it 100% original Mack. With that in mind, these mud flaps fit well and look just right. Next thing on the list is to take the hood off, straighten it out, prep it, paint underneath it, and prime the top.

It's "Professional Commercial Coatings" paint from NAPA. Not sure off the top of my head the actual part number.

Here you go, folks. Pics of the painted fenders. They look absolutely gorgeous. The radiator cover is also primed and ready for metallic silver paint on Friday. After that, the bumper gets put on permanently along with the push plate.

Today's progress: 1. Pulled a couple dents out of the headlight panel that wasn't prepped yesterday. 2. Prepped and primed that panel. 3. Finished prepping and priming the rest of the fenders and their removal top pieces. 4. Cleaned and painted the frame/bumper mounts. 5. Started sanding/prepping the radiator cover. It's a shame that it is rusted so badly on top (next to where the Mack Bulldog goes), because most of the rest of the cover is nice, shiny steel that could be clear coated and otherwise left as-is. It's a beautiful sheen. The plan is to paint the fenders tomorrow and if time allows, the radiator cover as well. If it doesn't work out, the cover should be painted on Friday. Sorry, no pics today, but I'll certainly have a few tomorrow after we paint! Thanks for following my project, everybody.

I'm happy to have had the opportunity to buy 'Mater from DBLEW. As I said in my first post, this isn't a restoration, more like a thorough refurb job. I simply don't have the money or time for a restoration. Besides, we're planning on using this truck on our farm.

Been a long day. Today we: 1. Made new foot step stirrups for the bumper and welded them on. 2. Primed and painted the bumper. 3. Did body work on the fenders, then primed most of them. Had to do some welding, but overall not too much. At the end of the day, we put the painted bumper on the truck just to take another picture. BTW, the plan is to put Maxis on the truck in the next two or three weeks and then register it.

Superdog, I called about that green B61 few months ago, left a message, and nobody ever got back to me.

We went to the DMV today with registration form filled out, bill of sale, DOT exemption letter, and insurance card...and walked out with plates, just like you said! Now there's one more Mack B65LT on the road again!

The shop that I've been doing all the work to my Mack has been closed since Wednesday, so when I left for the day, I brought the bumper with me. Today I stripped it down to metal and tomorrow plan on painting it. This should allow us to start right on the fenders Monday morning.

So you are saying these trucks need to be inspected before they can be issued antique plates? And they have to be inspected annually? Are you also saying the "inspector" can be him, me, or almost anyone off the street? I'm not trying to play dumb, I just want to be crystal clear about this because we keep getting different answers from different sources.