The Nitro

Should i put axle back in?

Oh damn, so what damage have I done by taking axle out??

Yes its got 2 different locker buttons in the cab. theres a bolt in here that looks like its doing nothing?? So your saying I take my air fitting off that Ive taped up and maybe this bolt goes back inside where air fitting is?? how tight do i do it and am i supposed to put lock on or off in cab first? thanks

Just got axles out. Was I supposed to do the cage thing before taking axles out?

Tailshaft out, going good so far. Will use a new uni.

Cross brace out

I can get in far enough i think

Yep this will work, i can attach to rear center on the overhang part of blue bar and slide it forward along bar with a ratchet etc. alright, Plans sorted, I’m going for it

Now we are talking

Now that I’m looking at it, I might take the yellow fork lift head board off which would let me clear the tipper body. And chain that heavy wall RHS to the forks and use that as my winch block. I can get door open if its up that high. Ohh yes this might work

I use the truck once a month or so and hook the 9 tonne plant trailer up behind it with skid steer on trailer, drive 250km and load myself up with cow manure then haul it back to my house. I’ve got about 4 weeks till I need to use it again. I run a worm farm and its the poo getter. I removed and done bearings, new crown wheel and pinion etc and set the mesh with dial guage and paint in my toyota ute (flat bed 4x4 ) myself about 11 years ago so kinda figured I can try fix this one in the truck myself too. I’m now kind of getting the idea to dig in a post in ground beside truck and attach a wall mount 180 degree jib type tool to that post. theres a chassis cross member in front of the diff center so it may need to be moved but not sure. If I can get it lowered onto a pallet I could drag that out or it might even come out over top and I could swing it around onto back if my ute tray and look at it there. I appreciate the tips guys. I like to try get my plan sorted before starting the job. I did manage to get the tipper ram out and do the seals in that a while back by myself by putting pole in ground to hold tipper up while I done that job. I’ve been a cattle station/ grain growing labourer all my life and we try do most stuff ourself if we can. Ive got big floor jack too and 3/4 rattle gun and crowbars etc. I’ve got to sell alot of worms to cover the $2,000 labour the shop wants and they said If they done it it would almost certainly get a reco center and I’d be looking anywhere up to $8k I’m going to have to attack this myself

I called a truck repair shop in town, they are talking $2,000 labour and up to $6,000 for a reco center. I’m pretty keen to try get it out myself and at least look at it and try see whats happened. theres no where on the aluminium tipper to tie off to without drilling holes in maybe the rails. I’ve got a skid steer with forks but cant open the door to get out if the buckets up otherwise I could probably dig some holes beside truck with the post hole digger and build a log gantry type setup and hook a winch on maybe that could work.

Hi, Changing diff oils for first time on this old 2004 mack vision tipper I got a couple years ago and the front diff oil change went ok and oil looked good. Old owner has had work done on this diff but the rear diff oil didnt want to come out. removed filler bung and stuck finger in there and could just feel oil on end of finger. Black, sludgy, and smelly… stuck finger up in drain bung hole and pushed some crap out of the way that was blocking hole and got the oil out. Finger goes back up in drain hole and theres a magnet, a nut and a washer. None of which i can fish out through the bung hole. I want to pull rear diff center out and see where nut and washer has come from. Suspecting crown wheel. theres 2 studs top and bottom of diff center so the plan was to pull one set of rear wheels off and jack that side up to get access over diff with a car engine crane and remove axles and tailshaft somehow, then slide diff center forward and hook a couple d shackles to center bolt flange holes and lift it out a bit to look in there. never done this job before. trying to put my plan together before i start trying to get it out. Im not sure how to go about cracking the sealant thats on flange? On a car diff, i have put a jack under pinion to crack the seal but with these big studs top and bottom im not even sure how to crack that seal to get the center out. i understand the center may be fairly heavy so If i can get it balancing well from my chain would be good. would it balance ok hooking d shackles through flange bolt holes, i will be doing this job on my own and out on the dirt. So hoping a crow bar to help manouver the engine crane to get the center forwards and out. any tips or advice before I start undoing anything? thanks

I had no luck with the rattle gun on the yolk nut. Ended up using dremel and whittling away at nut and the flange of nut as well since it was glued at thread and back of nut flange.

Damn, I’ve got one of those tools in the truck…. Didnt think of it for the yolk nut.

I found a 40v makita 3/4 impact a few towns away and got it sent over. Walked around all the tool shops in our town wirh the new nut in my hand and no one had a 56mm socket to fit the nut lol. thought I was in luck in one shop when I saw a shelf with the big sockets on the wall. Walks over and they had a 55 and a 57. 56 was gone haha. Will have to order one. Trucks grounded anyway as I wait patiently for new electric tarp cover to be made by local upholsterer. Been waiting 3 weeks for the actual material to turn up. Starting to thing theres a shortage maybe.

I have a yearly inspection coming up so just bought the parts already. Was deciding wether to get the 40v makita 3/4 or a bigger 1 inch air gun. The cordless would be preffered as i could use it for other stuff out in the field if its up to the task. I thought about the soda can trick but my luck if would half fall out on the way in fir inspection and they would see it and kick my ass lol

I have bought a new yolk, nut, seal, and uni joint for front diff input as the uni caps are spinning inside the straps and want to fix it if i can. what kind of impact wrench would i need to undo this nut? I dont have any impact gun or pullers yet but dont want to buy say a makita 40v 3/4 impact wrench for $1000 here in Au if it wont undo that big nut. any help appreciated thanks. Its a meritor 160 series diff

The airbags up and down button are handy when I back up to the plant trailer with the new pintle hook setup I put on it. I can only have a 9 tonne trailer on my license so took the old ringfeder off with a gas axe as the loader couldnt even pull the shaft out with a chain and 20 runups lol.

The Air leak is fixed. Just put the 2 new valves in, kidney one and the one that feeds the spring brake ports of brake cans and now there is no air trumpeting out the flap on bottom of valve that feeds the service brake ports of cans. Thanks for all the help guys. I knew we would get there in the end. I can’t see any obvious signs of being chopped joey its got a single spring on each side of rear axles in a big z shape with an airbag on each. 4 z’ds and 4 air bags.

According to numbers on truck the mack dealers say its got spring suspension and drum brakes on their records. But the truck runs airbags and discs so maybe someones changed everything over and who knows if that was all done right or not?? I will do a thread on it when I get time with lots of pictures etc so we can figure it out. Steer axle leaf springs are sagged as the hangers are leaning back a lot unloaded so I was thinking to sort that out then setup the rear properly at same time.

You might be onto it joey, thats why I mentioned the geometry/airbag height and the spinning cap. I can feel somethings not right back there through the seat under certain load conditions. Caps spinning but I think theres more to it than just a worn yolk. That one might get a new thread when I get onto that fix. Phasing is all alligned and square but I’ve read some setups on spicer website deliberately have things unphased a certain amount. I havnt looked right into it yet but will definitely need help checking it all when I get to that. for now, the air leak, muffler, and jacking up wheels to check for a bulge will get the cows fed.

There was half a dozen brand new saddles in the truck toolbox of truck so I put a new saddle on and painted the cap and went for a drive and it almost done a full rotation in a 300km trip. I was about to try running a new saddle on belt sander to make it clamp harder but this air leak popped up before I could try it. I like the shim idea. Suspecting the yolk is wearing but not sure if thats a diff center out job with crush tubes for pinion preload setting type job like on my car or if its just as simple as undoing the nut and replacing yolk then rattle gun nut up.

There has been lots of things to learn about on this truck since i bought it. the guy i bought it off knew it needed a lot of repairs and he couldnt fix anything himself and always took it in to the shop. After This air leak is sorted out I might need to help to learn about a few other things that I think need fixing on it. like the shiny universal end cap thats spinning in the front drive diff yolk and maybe the bouncing up and down front end like its got a square wheel and maybe the leaking muffler and the rear airbag/geometry height if you guys can tolerate my ramblings as work through those hahaha thanks guys