Maxidyne

Take four truck making corporations whose operations have pretty much only legally been merged or affiliated, then threaten to spin them off just to raise more capital VW Group doesn't need... And they'll wonder why employees aren't loyal anymore while executives and long time customers are fleeing.

Seen similar snowmass in western MN and the Dakotas. Back in the 90s the national media featured a picture of a drift as high as a one story house out by Willmar, MN. If they would have driven a few more miles west they would have found a drift as high as a two story house!

I'm neither a mechanic or engineer, but I remember a BMW flat twin motorcycle (basically half an air cooled VW engine) that kept eating transmission input shafts way prematurely. After a bunch of expensive repairs someone finally checked to see if the rear flange of the engine that the transmission and clutch mated up to was square with the crankshaft... It wasn't. BMW had mismachined the crankcase halves and a complete replacement was required!

Saw some pix on a Facebook page that follows the Amtrak Empire Builder train, BNSF is hiring construction companies with big equipment to keep the railroad open. They had one picture of a big excavator working from on top of a drift- Think that's what they call "snowcrete"!

I got a press pass for the Work Truck Show a few years back, got snowed in so couldn't make it but they still send me all their PRs and such. Ford always seems to have the biggest exhibit and spends a ton of money there, even provide free lunch for the ink (and byte) stained amateur wenches like me. So no surprise that even with nothing major to announce they'd still have the biggest presence. Then again, the announcement of the diesel Transit Connect at the Chicago auto show was completely unexpected, so maybe Ford will pleasantly surprise us with Tandems, a class 5-7 cabover, and maybe even a sneak peak at the coming HN world class cabover...

The amazing thing is that they've had 8 years to adapt to the 2010 emmission regs and they're still having problems...

4-71 is way too heavy for a sub 4000 pound car. Ford put the 3-53 and 4-53 in a one ton chassis for Continental Baking, was about all that chassis could handle weight wise and even with big injectors the 4-53 had only 130 horsepower.

It'd help the rates if Florida got some of those cobbled together dump trucks off the road... There's an outfit around Naples that take old KW anteaters, puts on super singles on the front and a pusher axle so they look like a dump truck, then loads them to at least the legal limit of 73,280 on a chassis only designed for 46,000 pounds!

That was probably POR15, I've had good luck with it on motorcycle tanks, but keep in mind that you'll need a lot more for a big truck fuel tank than a 5 gallon or so motorcycle tank needs. There's also economics to consider- We spend big $$$ restoring motorcycle tanks because even if we can buy new or good used tanks, the prices are often over $1000. But many truck tanks are pretty much generic, so better to replace with new or good used than get into expensive repairs and unsafe welding on fuel tanks.

Cummins ad featuring the Turecamo trucks in the 1930s: https://books.google.com/books?id=uucRAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA6-PA71&lpg=RA6-PA71&dq=Turecamo+trucks&source=bl&ots=wkhwD0mqk1&sig=jCX4iX1OsaI9en_V5Inp8nZoL40&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiHyuv3pbzZAhVK6YMKHaWOCCYQ6AEISjAJ#v=onepage&q=Turecamo trucks&f=false

Musical chairs at the "glass house"...

I shopped around for a used diesel tractor on Craigslist and at the auctions, but prices were insane- Like $2000 for a 25 year old Kubota that wouldn't even start. Went to an IH collectors moving auction and he had a couple decent 782 Cub Cadet diesels that went for $3000 to $4000. I like the little Ford 1100 and 1200 diesels, but again, crazy prices- $4900 for a 30+ year old one with a loader and $2000 for a beat to hell one that barely ran. Way too much money for tractors that need repairs, had only 10-15 horsepower to begin with, and didn't have necessities like front wheel assist and ROPS, etc.. So I bit the bullet, bargained the price down from $20k to $15k, and I can probably sell it for that but I doubt I'll ever give it up!

My Deere 1 series and tow vehicle, of course both are diesel powered! After wearing out a Honda walk behind mower, a snow blower, and myself mowing nearly an acre and clearing out a hundred foot long driveway prone to drifting, I went big and bought the tractor, loader, and mower last year. It's a little big for mowing and only clears a 4 foot swath of snow at a time, but anything bigger would require a gas hog to haul and then I'd have to buy a second tractor to do the mowing. Works great, I've even plowed our side streets a couple times with it and mowed the neighbor's yards!

Those aren't the ones I've heard of. I've heard of made in China Deere lawn tractors sold in big box stores, the dealers can't even get parts for them and want nothing to do with them.

$60 MSRP, and changes only half the oil= Not worth it for a throwaway Chinese made "lawn tractor" that the Deere dealers have disowned.

Volvo is just screwing themselves with this policy... Here they are with less than 20% of the market, and they expect customers to take the risk of having no support for their product other than the dealers? Nearest Volvo and Mack dealers are 60 miles away, International and Daimler are only 20 miles away and they both work on Cummins... That's a lot more non revenue miles to run or worse yet have towed a truck!

First noticed that back in the late 60s in Minnesota, contractor working on an Interstate had a long wheelbase Ford F series tandem with a long low sided body like that and disc wheels, unusual for Minnesota back then. Then I heard about bridge formula...

They don't even know what a choke knob is for. A BMW Motorcycle dealer shop manager recommended replacing the battery and entire charging system on a 1980s vintage BMW bike because he killed the battery trying to start it... He didn't know what a choke was!

Might explain why Ford and FCA are showing little or no interest in classes 6-8... Why tool up a low volume product to compete with Daimler that will tie up an assembly line that could build more profitable pickups and SUVs?

think it's a 4 banger, at least there's 4 sets of bumps on the cams...

No surprise, the new Expedition/Navigator totally blow GM's ancient stretched pickups (Tahoe, Suburban, etc.) out of the water. Not all good corporate news at Ford today though, they fell off Ethisphere's most ethical companies list https://www.worldsmostethicalcompanies.com/honorees/ for the first time in years. Perhaps a reflection of the changing faces and general confusion at the top of the "glass house" Ford HQ?

I've had 5 diesel VW Golfs from 1979 to 2015, and the heater controls have been those same 3 knobs. However, the radio controls have gotten more over complicated with touchscreens and the cruise control started with just a couple switches and now it's a dozen or so switches that take your eyes off the road too long. The gplf's original mandate was to be a simple mass produced "peoples car" to replace the Beetle... VW has forgotten that commitment, for example the rear lights have gone from a pair of simple clusters to three separate light clusters on each side plus the mandated high center brake light.

Tier 4 Final took effect in 2014, IIRC. The low HP engines pretty much waltzed right through with little mods, nothing like the extensive mods needed for the car and truck diesels to pass. I've got a Tier 4 compliant 2017 Deere 1023 tractor and the engine looks like something out of the 70s- no turbo, mechanical injection, etc..

Still very impressive ton/MPG numbers, given that you're hauling darn near twice as much as our 80,000 pound rigs in most of the U.S..

Thanks for providing a vast addition to our knowledge base on this topic! The MPG you're getting is impressive, are those U.S. or Imperial gallons?