usmcjimbo

What an excellent letter. Obama is the Great Deceiver on our time - it scares me to think of all the moochers and deadbeats who will vote for this guy again in November God Save This Country

No U-Models - steel nose DM's and RD's dumps off road in the quarry, Mixture of late model Mack dumps for delivery.

Nice B61 truck in Eastern TN. Owner has a bunch of Mack DM & RD dumps and a collection of B61's - going to show me all of them next time I go to see him

What is keeping this company in business?. They have sold everything and every piece of property that they owned, their equipment is all junk and they have been bleeding red ink in large quantities for at least 5 years. I can't believe that any financial institution would give them any money to operate.

You see less and less Mack Trucks in the municipal markets because low bid not best value is the rule.

It is going to happen - 97,000 on 6 axles - Panama Canal s being widened and deepend, ports are being dredged to deepen harbors for bigger ships - bigger ships, heavier containers, heavier trucks. Good for the shippers, bad for truckers - ton mile rates will continue to go in the wrong direction.

I sold 5 new CXU613 70 inch double bunk sleepers with the 455E/16210C and 3.36 ratio out of our stock trucks last month to a guy that a year ago would not even consider Mack - His drivers LOVE them - looking at 5 more this summer.

When I was running a fleet of 500+ over the road I ran totally synthetic grease and lubricants, the best quality I could buy. I figured we got one chance every 25,000 miles - might as well use the best stuff you could get. Labor is labor - takes just as long to grease a truck with junk as it does with a top notch product. Top quality grease is always cheaper than replacing u=joints, spring shackles, steering parts etc. Goal - keep them on the road and out of the shop. Same goes for trailers.

I would bet the mortgage this truck at Arrow came out of Comcar Industries in Auburndale, FL and most likely hauled a tanker or flatbed. Truck looks to be typical fleet spec - all they buy is autoshifts. Keep in mind the transmission on this truck is an "autoshift" not an ultrashift meaning you have a clutch and clutch pedal and still need to operate the clutch to stop and start the clutch. Can your wife drive an stick? If so a regular straight 10 speed is about as easy as it gets. My advice is look for something pre 2002 with the specifications YOU want and don't worry about who can drive it besides you. At the end of the day you are probably going to drive it the most anyway.

Looks like the rates are a lot better down there - always nice to have some money to actually take care and maintain a truck properly - pretty hard to do at current rates for dump trucks

I would recommend you get a three axle alignment and have everything set to 0 with the toe in set at no more than 1/16 and the back axles set perfectly straight per TMC (Truck Maintenance Council) specifications. Don't set the drive axles to account for road crown - that is an old truckers tale that does not bear out - nothing is straighter than straight! I personally never liked Michelins - thought they were too expensive per 32nd of wear. Ran a fleet of 500 tractors and 1200 trailers and kept tire cost at under 0.0155 per mile for the fleet including run flats and sidewall damage. I ran Bridgestone 287 on the fronts and 726 on the drives - we were averaging 300-325 on the drives and 125-150 on the steers for our OTR trucks. On the regional fleet I ran Bridgestone 260 and either Bridgestone 726 or Bandag Megatrek virgin caps on the drives. Bought new trailers with Bridgestone steers and then replaced them when they got to 5/32nds with Bandag recaps Proper inflation hides a lot of tire sins - keep them all at 100psi and you will get good tire life and a quality casing for recap or sale. It is a good idea to at least inspect if not replace the valve stems each time you mount new tires. TMC has a complete Recommended Practice for tires.

ABSOLUTELY!!! THE ONLY THING THAT WILL GENERATE HIGHER HORSEPOWER AND OR HIGHER SPEED IS MORE ENERGY AND THAT MEANS MORE FUEL!

I don't know - the plate inside the left door was missing and I really did not have the time to poke around on the truck.

Crane and Rigging Company has this truck in Tampa. Super heavy duty - 8 spoke wheels, 14x24 rubber, walking beam suspensions. truck is in nice shape. Dispatcher says they do not use it much, but it has never failed to pull whatever they have hooked to it. 2 stick transmission

Ideally no matter what your engine/transmission/rear end is, on an over the road truck you want to be running at between 1400 and 1500 rpms at your desired cruise speed, which for nearly all large fleets is 65-70mph Personally I was always a fan of direct drive set ups in high gear, but everyone has their own ideas Performance and hill climbing ability will always be a function of increased fuel consumption

Nice looking old truck - looks pretty heavy duty. Kind of half looking for a DM800 dump truck myself

1977-1981 - mostly drove M123 lowboy rigs and wreckers - did 3 years at Lejeune, 1 in Okinawa.

Assuming the spindle is in good condition I would suggest using replacing all of your fastening hardware with a Stemco Pro-Torq nut. They are nearly idiot proof and will get your bearing endplay to .001. I took over a large fleet maintenance program years ago and we were having bearing problems on our trailers. All of the guys were doing the TMC bearing adjustment guidelines, but were not getting the proper bearing endplay. We went to the Pro-Torq nut on all future teardowns, packed the bearings with synthetic grease and the problem was gone.

Worked for Rollins Truck Leasing and then Penske Truck Leasing for about 6 years. Normally full service truck leasing is done by companies who need trucks, but don't want to be in the truck ownership and maintenance business. It can be expensive with both a monthly fixed charge plus a mileage charge. Your rate will be based upon how many miles you run per year and the length of the term and they will adjust both of those yearly based upon how many miles you actually run. If you run irregular routes and pick up a loaner it is up to you to get back to pick up your lease vehicle. Once your lease vehicle is repaired you must pick it up or they will start billing you for both the loaner and the lease truck. The biggest fishhook in the bucket is the schedule A value. If you terminate the lease then you must buy the truck at the schedule A value which can be very expensive. Also you will need excellent credit - they generally will not rent or lease to owner operators. An alternative is to go with a contract maintenance package. You can either select a 0 peg contract where you pay a monthly fee plus an hourly charge for repairs and about a 30% markup on parts and supplies or a guarenteed program where you again pay a fixed and mileage charge every month. I would caution you to be very careful. These deals have major penalties if you try to get out of these contracts and they are not by any means the cheapest way to own or operate trucks. They do remove all of the uncertainty and much of the headaches, but at a very hefty price. I would suggest using a quality national breakdown service - many have loaner truck programs through national rental companies at better rates then what you can get by yourself. I beleive OOIDA also has many programs like this for owner operators as well. Review and research all options available. Good Luck

Hauled quite a few tanks like that back in my USMC days with the M123 tractor.

I ran a fleet of 400+ Macks a few years back. Everything that everyone is telling you about the 2004"s is correct. I would steer clear if I was you.

This country will continue to struggle until we have strict term limits of a maximum of 2 terms. Our government was not designed by the founding fathers to be an occupation or a career for self righteous members of the so called elite who never pay the taxes, never bear the burdens and never have to bury their children killed in wars started for someone's bullsh*t political aggendas. Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Barack Obama are committing treason with the way they are trying to govern this nation! They should be hanged together a sunrise like common criminals.

There were 405 trucking failures in the third quarter of 2009 that took 14,000 plus trucks off the road. The shippers and brokers are killing this industry. In Tampa where I live you can get a triaxle dump truck for $45 per hour all day long. We were getting that for a triaxle in central NY in 1981, except trucks were 75k new and fuel was not $3.00 per gallon. The problem is there is always some guy with his truck (and probably house too!) mortgaged to the sky who will take a poor paying load just for the case flow and the brokers know it. And with the current state of affairs even the big companies will take a bad load just to move a truck. I hope when this does turn around the trucking industry at all levels jams it right up the shippers and brokers ass. You will hear all types of crying and whining from them about unfair prices and being taken advantage by the truckers. The trucking industry has to share some of the blame. It has allowed the brokers and shippers to dictate pricing, terms and conditions and payment schedules, all in the name of attempting to build greater market share and business levels. Bottom Line: You have to get paid a fair price for what you do and you have to get paid on time.

American Loggers Pelletier Logging has purchased two Mack Titan Tractors for their operations Link is http://www.macktrucks.com/default.aspx?pageid=4312 You can also find it in the mack trucks website under 2009 news releases