glitchwrks

Good thing I've got my money tied up in a big project right now!

Pretty cool! Some time last year I think I saw a video of their testbed F-150. Sounded a lot more like a wound up Detroit than the old Fairbanks-Morse powered tugs that we used to hear chugging up and down the Hudson (which were opposed piston two cycle).

Wow, yeah, good thing he lost that mudflap! I worry about every little thing on a heavy vehicle, I don't understand the mindset that results in dangerous operating conditions like this. In April, we were traveling north on I-81 and passed a beat up looking truck and trailer with a blowout on one of the trailer axles. Made haste passing him, look in the rear view mirror, and see the INNER from that side come off, cross traffic, bounce across the median, and cause an accident on the southbound side! Guy never slowed down, called 911 just south of the WV border, he made it all the way to the MD border before they got him pulled over. Stopped at a rest stop so an officer could take a statement, by the time we passed the truck, it was being taken off the road on the big hook.

Yeah sticking it to the town would hurt a lot of regular folks, at least when I was there the majority of the town was just middle to low income rural Virginia people living the usual small town life. I think your offer is super generous, hopefully they'll see the light on that and work with you, and like you said they end up looking good for it anyway! Not surprised to hear folks from Richmond and Charlottesville are moving out there. We noticed a number of McMansion looking places last time we headed up US-15 to look at a truck.

I'd say that's surprising what with the military school there and all the veterans they employ...but I don't remember any of the professors being much involved in town politics. It's a small enough place, you'd think maybe they couldn't afford to judge working folks on how they dress, being as that's who lives there...or has enough of Charlottesville sprawled in that direction now? Same here w.r.t. not judging people by how they look. Often the most successful trucking and timber operations back home were those where the boss also drove a truck or helped at the mill, and got just as dirty as everyone else. I've found it to be the same in industry up north, too -- the companies that survive economic downturns are those with presidents/CEOs/whatever who are out on the line tinkering on machines, seeing how things are running, etc., not the ones who collect a salary and bail as soon as there's trouble.

This is happening over in Fork Union?!

"I want what's best for everyone!" "Then why do you drive in the wedge of division?"

Yeah, I'd love to turbo a 6.9 or find a 1994.5 with factory turbo, though I hear the factory option doesn't do much for the engine. A friend of mine in upstate NY had turbo'ed his 6.9, in addition to swapping 7.3 heads for better flow. I think he ended up cutting a relief in the pistons to drop compression a little, too. He was a welder and ran his F-250 as his main service truck, with a Lincoln SA200 on the back.

SCA is something added to coolant/antifreeze for diesel engines, it helps cut down on cavitation (formation of bubble-like voids in the coolant around the cylinder walls). Engines with thinner cylinder walls, like the 7.3 IDI, are more susceptible to cavitation to start with. If you do nothing about it and run coolant with no SCA eventually you end up with holes worn through the cylinder walls, which of course ruins the engine. You can get test strips at most parts counters that carry truck stuff, I think my current bottle of them came from NAPA. I test every time I change the oil. You can get SCA to add to regular antifreeze, or to "top off" existing antifreeze once it gets low, but I typically just drain, flush, and refill with antifreeze that already contains the right SCA levels, like Fleetguard.

Hah, no, 360K is the capacity of the floppy disks loaded on there The truck is barely broken in, driveline wise: I believe it's got around 150K on it from the maintenance logs it came with -- 5-digit odometer that's definitely been rolled over, but it was owned by a tree cutting company, then by a construction company, and both kept maintenance logs. The cab on the '85 is a little beat, but it's not quite falling off yet. I haven't decided if I should just let them run it until it does start to come off, and swap a cab on, or fix up the current one. Those old IDIs are tough little engines though, especially since the 6.9 doesn't have as big of cavitation issues as the 7.3, so it matters less if the previous owner(s) weren't good on SCA maintenance. I know they don't have modern 3/4 ton truck power, but I've always felt like it was totally adequate for the job. I've thought about adding a Brownie aux transmission behind the T19 in the F-350 for overdrive, or better yet, double overdrive.

Yep, 360K! Folks actually still use these, I work on industrial control equipment for my day-job (factory line control systems, etc.) and still support a bunch of machines that use 5.25" disks -- even some that use 8" disks! There are floppy emulators that replace a floppy drive with a USB flash drive, but they don't work in all systems, and in some cases switching to them would require recertification of the equipment, so it's less hassle to just keep them running. A portion of these disks are going off to a small game company that just made a new game for the Apple II (yes, the one from the late 70s!). They're doing a boxed release (remember when software came in boxes?!) and needed disks for it. But, the majority will be sold off to folks that need 5.25" disks.

Yeah, it's like folks shoehorning a Cummins 4BT into a Jeep. It's nice to see an unusual swap now and then. The Pacer in the video looks like it's really well done!

5.25" DSDD

Yeah, I thought I'd grabbed a picture of the orange tank truck but apparently not.

I've still got that old typesetting stuff in the back of the Midliner, and it's all loose since I've been going through it in there instead of rolling it into the shop. I had to pick up a small load near Harrisburg, PA, so I "borrowed" the old farm truck. "Borrowed" since it's mine anyway 😛 It's a 1985 F-350, 6.9L International motor, 4-speed T19 transmission. Got it home from the farm and realized my parents hadn't put tires on it since I brought it to the farm. None of the marker lights were working either (dash switch issue). Anyway, here it is loaded up with about 28,000 floppy disks: The government surplus place I was at had a really nice military forklift they use to load stuff, including my two pallets of disks: They loaded me up and then took off for Labor Day weekend, so I didn't get to ask about it. It's probably a Pettibone 6K or 10K rough terrain unit. Detroit diesel powered, sounded like a 4-cylinder so probably a 4-53. I'd love to find one of those for the farm! They also had an old International cabover they use as a yard dog: Nice little trip, stopped at Walnut Bottom Diner for lunch. The old F-350 is still a reliable little truck, the trip was around 750 miles. No overdrive though

Usually too much tongue weight 😛

I keep eyeballing that K100 on CraigsList in Hudson Falls...good looking trucks! I feel like I've been seeing more really cleaned up cabovers pulling real loads on the interstate lately.

Check CraigsList for Albany, there's a cheap 673 sitting in Troy at the moment. Don't remember if it's turbo or NA but I want to say the price was like $150.

Coming right along!

I see a few MB cabs sitting in there!

With that dash it should be 1970s. The exterior changed very little from late 60s.

I'm looking for a spin-on fuel filter bracket with a WIF (Water In Fuel) sensor in the bracket itself, instead of the bottom of the filter. Apparently this one exists and is marketed to the RV crowd: https://www.entratech.com/store.html?produrl=collections/products/autosig But, what a price! Luberfiner has severe duty filters with the WIF in the usual place, on the bottom of the filter, but I'd really like one in the bracket. What I'm trying to do is add an auxiliary water separator on the tractor on the farm. My parents can't seem to get it through their heads that they're ruining the entire fuel system -- they let it fill up until the engine starts to sputter and won't hot-start, and the fuel looks about like strawberry milk. So, I'm going to add a separator with WIF sensor, that not only turns on a dash light, but cuts power to the fuel solenoid and locks out the starter. I figure that will FORCE them to drain the separator! But, I also think if the sensor hangs off the bottom, as is the usual location, it'll probably get ripped off just like the 4WD indicator switch has (numerous times). Anyone have a cheaper alternative than the Auto-Sig $230 option?

Man, too bad it's on the wrong side of the continent for me! What a neat little setup!

I've found the nylon strap style wrenches work really well for low clearance areas. I bought one because they didn't have the chain type I was used to but I needed to get filters changes right then. Haven't bought anything other than the nylon type since.

Trolling Google images and trying to get copyright holders whipped up about someone else using their pictures is apparently a business strategy for some legal firms. I'm personally aware of this case from a few years ago: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2982914/hacker-magazine-2600-extorted-for-714-over-ink-spot-pic-copyright-troll-doesnt-own.html There exist automated services for doing this, apparently, and some "enterprising" legal group decided to start offering the "service" as something that one can pay for.