daveigou

Works good

Did the electronic malfuntion light come on at all?

In this economy about the last thing I would invest in is a new truck. The cost to replace your CX with a new comparable would be about 110 - $120k depending on equipment, plus the cost per mile to maintain goes up about 300%.

You pay a lot of money for two thing you don't want, Federal Excise tax, and all the emissions add-ons. Right now the first years depreciation on a new sleeper truck in some cases is probably getting up to 25-30%.

We're seeing a lot of owner-operators & small fleets buying used pre EPA 2007 equipment, even pre EPA 2004.

Dave

Re-sale is probably a wash here. From a dealer standpoint, even though your CX looks to be in outstanding condition, the fact is the mileage and the configuration hurts the value. If the RW and the CX were sitting side by side, I'd rather have the RW on my used lot. I also think whatever you may lose in fuel economy, and some creature comfort, will be off-set because the RW is so relatively easy to maintain yourself verses going back to the dealer every time the dreaded "lightning volt" appears on the dash. The RW has no lightning volt!!

And after that all said, you can have a really good day looking out over hood of an RW. I agree with the rest here that an RW is about as good as it gets.

Dave

#48 Only two more to go.

OK #50 it is!

thanks Barry

OK, since it is Christmas time, I'm feeling generous!

I increased global upload sizes as follows:

Puppy Poster - 10mb

Porch Pup - 50mb

Big Dog - 100mb

Bulldog - 200mb

Pedigreed Bulldog - 350mb

All levels have a 5mb single post limit...

If you need any more room than that, then you need an online storage solution! LOL

BTW Dave, you will be a Porch Pup after you reach 50 posts!

Barry,

It looks to me like you cannot post PDF files on the forums. Am I just not doing something right or is that by design? I think it would be very beneficial if members were able to share sales literature and bulletins and what not. I would also like to see the size limits on pictures that can be posted in the forums increased.

Dave

Another thing you can do is put a 6" slope on the tailgate. It makes the loader operators keep the center of the load front more, and the gate stays a little higher off the ground when you dump, and closes a little easier when the body comes down.

A 16' body on a tri axle is just too short, no wonder the truck handles poorly. Probably a proper weight distribution with the pusher axle down would show the end of the body should be about the center of the rearmost axle, or even farther front than that, and of course you can't do that.

As far as moving the axles back, with a Mack camelback you can probably move the axles back about 20-30" and still be in the original frame rails, but then you also need to move the pusher back, and add to the frame rails for the body hinge, and I have mixed feelings about that.

Nothing takes the place of gettin it right the first time!

I don't know the reason for the 16" gap. Sounds like a screw up to me. We like to set dump bodies with about a 10 -11" gap,and a 22 to 24" max overhang at the back for dumping into a paver, less if you can get away with it.

In our region, operators prefer a 17'6" body. I think they should think about going to an 18 or 18 1/2' body in the future.

Don't give up on the Mack. Every brand is going to have their challenges. I've heard Kenworth & Peterbilt are sitting on a pile of Cat engines, and are pretty aggressive on pricing, but the GU Mack's with MP power are fine products.

Specing a new truck is more difficult than ever, do your homework.

I have a Mack 10 speed transmission. The gears are 4.33 and the tires are 11/22.5. My fatherin law has a vision with a 427 and says it really pulls and its also a 2006. With just a 118K miles on mine I cant imagine it has anything seriously wrong with it.

The vision has the "AC" engine verses the "AI" in the Granite. Two drastically different engines. There is no comparison. The "AC" is a much better performer.

Published BOC (back of cab) interference for GU's is 9" for trucks equipped with Mackcap DPF (under RH cab door) & single exhaust, and 11" with dual exhaust. Add 2 more inches for body clearence. Penn DOT trucks use a vertcal back of cab DPF so they can mount wing plows, and that leaves about a 2-3 foot space between body and cab , which looks pretty dumb.

A 10" or 11" space between cab and body is the best you can do. Watch your weight distribution on a straight truck!

Starting in 2011 model year (EPA 2010), the big problem will be frame space for fuel tanks, hyd tank and so on. I hope your salesman knows what he's doing.

Mack is building some EPA 2010 (model year 2011)(SCR) trucks now, and I believe all the EPA 2007 (model year 2010) line slots are sold out, and full EPA 2010 priduction will start in April 2010.

Dave

An RW6 has 1/4" X 9" frame rails, an RW7 has 3/8" X 11" rails. Both frames were available with an optional 1/4" inner liner. An RW 653 has the small frame & and should have had a yellow motor.

Dave

is there some advantage to doing this? please explain the logic or need for a conversion like this.

A fleet owner could convert his "obsolete" B models to state-of-the-art current looking R models for a fraction of the cost of a new R model!!!

Dave

No orders were accepted after March 31st 2006 for production before the end of 2006. Trucks built during calender year 2006 were model year 2007.

Dave

To expand a little bit on what Trent said, the Thermodyne designation came about around 1953, with the introduction of the "B" series, and when Mack re-designed the END 672 "Lanova" pre-combustion style engine to open chamber direct injection. The engine came to be called the Thermodyne END 673, and variations followed.

The Thermodyne name also followed the gas engines in the same period, going from "Magnadyne" to "Thermodyne"

I'm not sure, but I think the Thermodyne designation probably ended with the introduction of the "Maxidyne" engines, and the change over to chassis mounted charge air coolers and the "Econodyne" designation.

Trent is also correct in the original Maxidyne engine came to market in late 1966, with it's relatively constant horsepower over a much broader operating range.

The "Maxidyne" designation continues to this day. The three configurations of the MP engine family are "E" Econodyne, "C" for Maxi-Cruise and "M" Maxidyne.

Dave

Dave,

I have 1200 x24's on my new ride. The car belongs to this guy.....

Looks like a Wall Street banker to me!!!

Somehow I just can't visualize you in that thing. I always had you pegged as a Ford pick up guy. That's too bad, I was just startin to like you!!

PS: I personally would pefer 14:00 X 24's on a unit like that.

Dave

Doug,

Mack is in a transistion now from Allentown to Greensboro NC. Some of the information we used to be able to get off of "Macknet" is no longer available, and the format the parts department has access to isn't really customer freindly. You could try Mack Customer service and ask for a copy of the "head" / build sheet. The 800 number is probably on the wing window of your truck. I guess it still works.

Generally speaking, if your engine horsepower was up-graded, Mack usually supplied a new data plate for the engine.

Also Rockwell and Meritor are the same, Meritor being the new name for what used to be called Rockwell.

Dave

The first 1000 CXU / CHU's built in Macungie.

Dave

Looking from the back of the truck, look at the rear rear, just to the right of the check plug, you should find numbers like "SS38C", the "38" would be 38,000# cap.

Dave

I posted some pictures of the Gerhart show in Gallery section. Please check them out.

Dave

The 285 & 300 hp Maxidyne engine with 6 speed transmission is probably one of the most sucessful power combinations for any truck manufacturer ever. If used as intended, there are no duplicated ratios, in that low range on the compound section is intended to use only with first gear on the main. It was never intended to be driven as a splitter type transmission. The other big advantage is to have multiple progressively shiftable reverse ratios.

I believe there may have been other rare variations, maybe someboidy else can jump in here, I think there was a very rare overdrive 2 stick six speed with direct and overdrive only (no reverse) on the compound section. But I think those were only built for a short time, probably mid 60's to mid 70's, and were no longer available long before your truck was built.

Dave

That seemed like a good idea, and I would like to meet you, until you mentioned you'll be wearing your yellow leotard, but now I need to think about it.

Dave

Anyone want to do a get-together at Watts at high noon Saturday? I see many of you are making plans, I missed the meeting at Mudcungie, maybe we'll get a little better day at Lititz!!

Dave