Ezrider

good article. iv seen a lot of people come and go over the years. part of me wants to get out as well. just burnt out, but i do pretty well at it most of the time and would hate to cut my yearly earnings by 75% to get a 9-5 home every night job.

a lot of my routes may seem a little illogical at first glance but it will be shortest miles while avoiding certain stretches or load restricted roads or other things like that. trying to get the gps to route you properly can be near impossible. esp in the spring time with frost law restrictions all over the place. i do like the google maps/google earth app on the phone for getting into my final destination if its somewhere iv never been. you can punch in the address then go to earth view and 1 make sure the address on the bol matches on the map to where your be unloading sometimes google will think a address is 4-5 miles away in the middle of a corn field also give you a bit more visual reference of how your going to get in and out if the entrance is actually off the next street over ect. or sometimes they will put there address for there little dinky office in the middle of the town on the bol rather than where its actually delivering to. pretty sure they don't want 64,000 lbs of ammonium sulfate unloaded at there 800sq foot office in the middle of town. or like one time i had a 64,000 lbs load of road salt on and the address on the bol was a p.o box. pretty sure that load isn't going to fit there....lol after iv done all that i call them and verify how to get in and out. i like to scope it out for myself on google earth before hand though because there directions can make a lot more sense when you have already kinda looked over the area.

i use my gps to read road names before i can read the signs i plan my routes off a paper map then just have my gps turned on but not in navigation mode. that way you can see what streets/highways are coming up from 2 miles away.

i had a simular thing happen on a e-bay purchase recently. purchased a msd streetfire ignition system. after a few weeks still no tracking number sent. then i get a call saying it was back ordered from the manufacture and they would send me a tracking number as soon as it ships. ok whatever not in a big hurry i was super busy by that time anyway. a couple weeks later i finally see a tracking number for it pop up in my e-mail great. never actually looked at it but just saw they had sent it. Then a couple weeks later i asked the other half if a box had shown up for me yet, she said no, so i check the tracking number apparently they sent it adult signature required. attempted to deliver 3 times without leaving a notice and then was holding the package at the hub with 2 days left before they returned to sender. had to send her over to ups on her lunch break to go pick it up. i was very tempted to just let them send it back at that point and then try to get my money back.

well iv got work for a second truck if i decide to go that way and iv got someone that wants to drive it. im going to be starting on a 2 year project i could add another truck on next week. hopefully going to find time to go drag the other Mack home here in the next couple weeks and see what iv even got. would be a good job to do it on if im going to do it very short hauls hourly rates should be pretty decent margins. its all going to depend on what kind of work this other truck is going to need to get it road ready. i have not committed to anything yet. i guess im kinda looking at it as if i don't have much money in the truck i don't have much to loose by not trying it. if they blow up the truck or destroy it in one way or another it becomes a parts truck witch is kinda what i bought it as in the first place. having some good work for it where i can put my truck side by side with the other should eliminate a lot of potential headaches and if we have some minor issues with the truck i can have my service pickup parked within a few miles of anywhere the truck will be. so i guess im thinking i might try it out and see how it goes. i told the contractor as well as the potential driver that even if we do this its going to be at least a month out before i am ready and im not going to say that we will or won't do it until i get a chance to drag the truck home and look it over.

i don't really run side by side with many guys running new trucks, most the guys i run with are running big kitty cats, acerts,6nz's 550+ hp i beat those guys by a good 1mpg in fuel economy when you compare ifta's not what the drivers claim they get. or you fuel at the same spot run the same load and fuel at the same place and time the next day i almost always use 20-30 gallons less fuel. a lot of variables in the stuff i do as well. one day i might run 750 highway miles the next day may be back and forth across the same 5 mile stretch of road all day long. always heavy 90k-100k lbs idle time the winds we get in this part of the country can kill 1mpg pretty quick on a windy day as well. my 1/4's normally range from about 4.8-5.2mpg

i think by the time these trucks are old enough to not be feasible to keep them on the road anymore. it will probably be time to buy a new truck off the lot. assuming i am even still trucking at that point. with all the problems the dpf scr def trucks have new id hate to even think what it would be like owning one at 18-20 years old.

im very sorry to hear this. my condolences to you and your family. the loss of people that close to you is always rough hang in there.

i do like the idea of having a spare truck. when something breaks and i cant get parts for a few days rather than frantically trying to find someone that has the parts i need and ordering them next day air or driving 200 miles in the pickup to another dealership to get them. you just hop in the other truck order the parts and fix it next week. im not big on having a hired driver there are times it would certainly be worthwhile would be nice to find a older semi retired driver that just wanted to work a month or two here and there when the good jobs come up that it would really be worthwhile but that is probably a pipe dream...lol i really like the idea of not having to shut down to re-paint my truck. paint has been progressively getting worse every year and its starting to get to the point that it looks bad. i know i could easily end up putting 60-70 hours into a paint job on it pretty easily to do a decent job and do it right. generally about the time i think nothing good is going to come up for a week or two and i might start on it something good comes up. or when i do get a week i think something is going to come up that i want to be available for so i don't want to start it. so i am thinking i will probably do that first get the truck picked up gone over and road ready then run it for a little bit while i re-paint my current truck that will give me a good chance to shake the new one down too. if nothing else it could be a good flip. surely a usable truck is worth more than scrap...lol when i bought my mack i kept my old fld around for a little while as a spare truck, but i really had no desire to ever drive that fld again after i bought my mack so i rarly ever used it. it was a fair bit of money every year to keep plates and insurance on two trucks rather than just one so i eventually sold it. this one being virtually the same truck other than being a 427 rather than a 460 i think i would probably be more willing to hop in it and use it than i was with the fld. when the choice was wait a day or two for parts or drive the fld i would wait for parts. i shouldn't mind jumping in this other one. last year i had over a month of downtime on repairs that would have certainly been worth while to have another truck last year.

well i guess i have not picked it up yet as i have been swamped lately (why i have not been posting much) i saw a old friend of mine out on the road i have not seen or talked to in a while he is more or less retired now, had 5-6 trucks running at one point. he has a mack that is almost a twin to mine, almost the exact same setup, its a couple years newer (not elog exempt like mine) it has a mack 427 rather than the 460 like mine but those are about the only differences same transmission rear ends ect. when i saw him out on the road i gave him a call and we were talking for a bit and he asked if i would be interested in his old mack, that he hit a deer with it an put a repairable crack in the hood and he parked it about 3 years ago and it has not moved sense, but it was in good shape other than the crack in the hood when he parked it. high miles on the engine without a in frame said it burned about a gallon of oil every 5k miles. he then stated that he was not going to have a use for it anymore as he isn't planning on putting it back on the road so if i wanted it i could have it for free just come pick it up. i told him i didn't want to take it for free so he said pay me scrap price for it then and its yours. so i agreed to that. he was thinking i would use it as a parts truck but i know the guy is extremely good about maintenance so even though its probably going to need a few things from being parked for a few years its probably still a very serviceable truck but will probably be needing a in frame at some point. so the question is what will i actually use it for. i was thinking maybe putting it on the road as a spare truck for a while and let me take mine down for a while to actually do a paint job on it. (clear coat is failing) witch is something iv been wanting to do for a few years but the truck would be out of service for a while once i start it witch has been the main reason i have not done it yet. im also thinking maybe i could put a seasonal driver in it for my summer time gravel and road work stuff i do i have a couple different gravel trailers already i could put one pulling the belly dump and the other pulling the side dump. e logs would not be a issue as its mostly air mile work. i probably would not be able to put a driver in it year round as i only have 1 hopper trailer, i don't think the margins are good enough to pay a good wage and lease another trailer and still leave enough meat on the bones for me, plus id need to find someone that could run cross border loads from Canada. the other thought is i could just rotate the trucks myself use the one for gravel work and not beat up on my e-log exempt truck for my highway work and keep a few more miles off that truck.

carb tuning went well. going to a power valve that opens sooner cured my part throttle lean spot now driving never drops leaner than about 14.7:1 at part throttle. wide open pulls low 12:1's will hit about 11.9:1 right threw the very top end. i may still go one size larger jet in the primary's to bump a little more safety margin in. and maybe 1-2 jet sizes smaller in the secondary's. try to keep the in the mid 12:1's threw the top end the holly quick change secondary kit fit the summit carb perfectly was able to go all the way to the lightest "white" secondary spring with no bog or hesitation at all. i stuck a camera on the speedometer and did a 0-60 test laid that video over a old one i recorded a while back and its almost a full second faster than the old test now. 5.15 seconds 0-60 on asphalt with regular street tires. not sure exactly when ill be able to Finnish putting the video together. fertilizer season went from 0-60 lol this last week here so iv been beating loads off with a stick trying to keep up.

that is pretty baddass. although i must say it doesn't look like there is any actual ford pinto left on that except for maybe the fender emblems....lol i hope you post some more picture on this as you make some progress on it though.

dang sorry to hear this, get well soon mike!!

i couldn't remember what the % was so i guessed higher than i thought it was...lol i would never intentionally run with a low tire. tires are too expensive for that. i carry a glad hand air hose and a tire chuck if i have a low tire i air it up/ and or put in a temporary plug to get to wherever to fix it.

i don't think there is anything that says that dual tires need to be within so many psi of each other, obviously you would want them to be pretty close but as far as being illegal to my knowledge it would not be until one tire is low enough to be considered low/flat. witch is a certain % of the rated max psi i think somewhere around 65-70 psi on your normal truck tire.

thanks for posting, i wish i had time to watch the whole thing at the moment. ill have to come back to it later.

that is disturbing....lol although iv seen worse looking bellied up to the bar.

im not sure where they figure the 3% gain a car designed to run on 86 octane will not gain %3 fuel economy by running 95 octane. unless they are talking about just new cars and being able to design them around 95 octane rather than the consumer not wanting a car that they to buy higher than regular octane fuel for.

we have not had a lot of big single snow falls this year just lots of 1-4 inch storms lots of cold. first snowfall in october most recent last week has made it a long winter. we have even been sub 0 within the last couple weeks. so 40's and 98% of all the snow being gone is such a welcome change. i think we got a lot more snow last year than you guys did though. esp around Christmas time. we got hammered 3 times back to back less than a week apart with each one dropping more than a foot of snow over 2 feet on Christmas day we had waste deep snow everywhere and were running out of places to stack it.

haha, yeah we got a little snow i think it was Thursday they were calling for quite a bit but i think more of it came down as rain than they expected might have not traveled exactly as they expected either. it melted the next day its been well above freezing every day sense. i think were supposed to break into the 60's this weekend. almost all our snow is gone now a tiny bit left in some shady grassy area's and the piles from plowing this winter are not gone yet. but its been a long winter this year. so glad for it to finally start feeling like spring.

here ya go rob. we didn't get too crazy right at school some of the teachers were real joy kills but we certainly had our places we went to act a fool. including one stretch of road that had so much rubber left on the asphalt it could pass for a legitimate drag strip...lol

you could probably control the rate of decent by reducing down the exhaust port. use reducer fittings till you get down to a small enough size that they come down nice and easy.

i ended up making a jag video sooner than i planned. i had planned to save that footage for a carb tuning video im planning on doing but i got a little excited and made a early video....lol i ordered some different stuff online for that so i have to wait till that shows up its got a really bad lean spot at steady state throttle just slightly accelerating so i ordered some different power valves also ordered a holly vacuum secondary spring quick change kit (hoping it will work on the summit racing house carb (motorcraft shoebox knock off)

only time i have ever ended up completely spun around unintentionally as in not screwing around in a semi-safe place. was probably 8-9 years ago something like that was December i remember i was driving a pickup out to Oregon from nd to visit my dad for Christmas. really early morning hours. i think i was around miles city mt if memory serves. im driving along cruse control set on 75-80 mph. had not seen a single rain drop or snow flake in the headlight but remember thinking oh looks like they just re-paved this road. (first clue right they don't repave roads in late December...lol) went under a over when i came out the other side i felt a little bit of a wiggle. first thought was must be getting windy out. then it dawns on me hey maybe the road is icy i should probably slow down a little bit. so i tap the break pedal to kick the cruse control out and it starts fish tailing i lost it did a couple 360's down the middle of the interstate ended up facing the right direction looked down and i was still at 65. eased off onto the shoulder of the road to clean my pants and move some things that had gotten thrown around in the truck and you couldn't even walk on the road without holding onto the side of the pickup. eased up the shoulder of the road till i could get off the highway and waited for the salt shakers to go by a few times. apparently some freezing rain had just moved threw the area just ahead of me.

my brother had a xj6 for a while it was a very nice car. i have not drove a xj8 though. i saw a supercharged xj8 for sale a while back i bet that would be a pretty fun car. both my xjs and my brothers xj6 were both downright scary to drive in the snow so there kinda summer only cars to me. i picked up my xjs witch was a 4.0L inline 6 car pretty cheap a number of years ago now, it had a really bad amateur paint job on it but was otherwise pretty sound. no rust ran good. drove it for a year or two then blew the car apart and put a decent paint job on it and rebuilt the suspension. then the ecm died on it. even with the stock engine it was a fun car to drive. of course all its power was on the top end and the factory transmission had a really high 1st gear so it was kinda doggy around town. didn't really wake up till you were exceeding most speed limits by a lot. i think stock horsepower on my xjs was around 230hp peppy but not fast. now how it preforms is how i feel that car should have preformed from the factory. its still not super fast but its got good get up and go it hooks hard still corners and holds the road good, the suspension works really good. its a little soft for a handling car but it tracks corners exceptionally well but its got a nice ride and it weight transfers on launch exceptionally well. the biggest down fall of jags is the electrical systems don't age well. and some things are over complicated/engineered without serviceability in mind. i believe newer years they made some pretty good improvements in both those area's. started using weather pack connectors in the harnesses and re designed some things for easier serviceability. like on my jag the rear break rotors are mounted inboard on the rear diff center section rather than behind the wheel, they did this to reduce un-sprung weight but if you need to change the rear rotors you have to drop the entire rear end/sub frame structure out of the car.