Geoff Weeks

How do you know you have 3 lbs in there, did you put it in by weight? how doyou know it STILL has 3 lbs in there when itwill not hold a vacuum?

IF the compressor is running and you suspect a refrigerant side of the system to be at fault, you MUST provide pressures and temperature reading for anyone to do more than guess. Also how sure are you of the amount of refrigerant is correct in the system?

I don't know about Mack's gearing on the two in question. Rockwell went from 3.70 (37-10 tooth) to 3.73 (41-11 tooth) to have greater tooth contact, back in the early 80's when power started increasing. I lost a 3.70 set not from anything with the ring & pinion but because a thrust washer came apart and past through the pinion, knocking off part of the tooth, drove it home. "weak" is a subjective and retaliative term. I have no idea how many miles were on my set, but could have been over a few mil. Still had the riveted on ring gear, so wasn't re geared in the field. I found another 3.70 set with a blown powerdivider and swapped the R&P and carried on. If it was made, and lasted until now, how "weak" could it be? Anything will break from abuse, and if operated by a careful operator, can take a huge "overload" without any damage, I put little stock in what someone calls "weak", unless there is a real obvious defect that shows up on just about every unit. Finer gearing with more teeth are going have more tooth contact then course gearing with fewer teeth, by this definition, slow gearing is weaker than fast, but "sees" lower sustained torque loads. It is the old trade off, and why multiple O/D gears were used of old. Spin fast and gear down at the back.

They are hard to turn but limited to13k per axle, so not as bad as it might be.

I've always gone with either SAE40 or 50 engine oil, It is better with the heat than GL-1

2" or 3 1/2" pin? Are you exceeding its rating a 200Klbs?

Ok, two different transmissions, early 60's would be a single countershaft, likely married unit, much different than what Mowerman is talking about and different than the twin countershaft units I know. I do remember Glenn talking about some trans with an air shift cyl external and IIRC required a pass through neutral. Before my time/experience.

From you 1995 reference, it would be much newer than the Spicer's I'm thinking of. In fact I think by the late 90's Spicer's heavy transmission were sold of to TTC? That was around the timeframe of "semi-autos" and auto shift manuals. I thought you two were talking about much older transmission, like late 60's. One place I worked did maintenance on a mixer fleet that had 6-71 and the Spicers in a Ford chassie. I never owned a Spicer equipped truck, but would have liked the late model 16 and 18's, nice even spacing between gears, and few stick movements.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/132095491612 only 12 speed Spicer I can find, anywhere. No info.

There is an SST-2 12 speed, I haven't found any lit on it however. Still one of Spicer's selling points was fewer movements of the stick. This was on all their transmissions. I wonder what one you guys are thinking of?

Here is an old Spicer book in pdf form, page 8 and 9, and it says you don't move the stick through neutral when making "splitter shifts". which just the way I remember it, so not sure what transmission you are talking about? There was a single countershaft "married box with an external shift cyl, Before my time, but I think it might have been a Fuller, and may have required moving the stick. One of Spicer's selling points was "from standstill to top speed with only 5 moves of the stick". https://tremec.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2374_21.pdf

The Gardner powered buses were a treat to drive, most were transverse VRT's with semi-auto's but we had a few Lodekka's with 5 spds. There weren't a lot of drivers that could manage the 5 spd well. The bus I drove from Columbus, Oh to Chicago was a Lodekka with a 5 spd.

IDK, I do know the "nine-o- nothing" had a good rep down under, much better rep than it had here. Mack's V-8 might also have done that kind of miles IDK, Detroit's were in their own class and I don't think the 2 strokes ever made 1 mil regardless of inline or V And no one person could ever afford to run a 3408 for 1 million !

No problem, Paul, I am likely the least qualified person to point out misspellings of other, but having been around them so much, I remember how to spell their name.

Nope, I will not say that, but I will say I don't like V engines. Mack had good luck with theirs, and Detroit produced many, all in variable speed applications.

I have been inside and all over the LXB, great engines and fuel usage that no other could match until electronics came out and may be not then. I still have a LXB piston and a head side cover with the Gardner script on it, I was always planning on making a belt buckle out of it. In the dead of Chicago winters we would take the intake hose off and start a little fire in the intake with lacquer thinner to heat the air, then hit the start button, rush of air would snuff out the flame and draw the fumes in, started real smooth, until the -20F air hit then it ran a bit rough for a few seconds.

I was comparing similar displacement and style (diesel). No they aren't in the same "league", but that was the point. Medium diesels, until recently, have under preformed, be it the 3208, 8.2, IHC's 550, or Cummins triple nickle. (The Cummins was the best of them) and lets not leave out the toilet bowl, ah I mean toro flow. Notice something? they' re all V engines, most V8's. The 3208 has the largest displacement of the ones mentioned, and still was mediocre at best.

Not saying it wasn't cheap, in fact I said it in my 1st post, "Ford wanted a cheap diesel". But comparing engines, displacement and output are the normal things compared, and the 3208 was anemic at best. The 8.2 is a closer match and was a smaller displacement but gave better fuel consumption.

Sorry if this seam "nit-picky" but it is Gardner, not Gardener, And yes, the mains are bolted up from the bottom and then a stud is run all the way across the block through the main cap, to hold the bottom end tight. No internal oil passages with the exception of of the drillings between the main and rod journals in the crank. The crank is lubed with an oil pipe running down the center of the crankcase. The engine can be broken into three sections: Crankcase, block and head, you can pull it apart with the block and head as a unit, or with the block and crankcase as a unit. The injection pump was special to Gardner, the pumping elements were made either by Simms, or CAV, and you could lock off individual cyl while it was running, or "pop"test the injector without doing anything but pulling the manual handle on the pump. When idling in the cold of a Chicago winter, we would lock off 3 cyl and idle on the other three.

For the same (aprox) displacement you could have a Cummins L-10 or a Cat 3306 and have a far better engine. Both of those would pull a loaded semi at 80K. Longer and taller but better suited. If you look at comparing to a 5.9 or 6.7, you are comparing to a much smaller engine, in the case of the 5.9 almost 1/2 the displacement. The 3208 was 10.4L

I worked on a fleet of 6LXB's. I drove a bus from Columbus, OH to Chicago with one. They are a work of art. Their main drawback is they are large for low power output. Low rev'ing but sips fuel. Great engines in the correct application.

I checked my supply of SKF, didn't have one that Stemco crossed to, otherwise it would have been yours for the shipping. I doubt I'll be doing many wheel seals anymore. I had some stock of the ones I used on my equipment.

Some of these installs have to have access holes/plugs in the cab to get headbolt out, That would preclude any in chassie boring. Portable boring is nice when there is room to work, and be sure it is set-up accurately, unfortunately, that is a rarity

To a point, they also suffered from being put where they were asked to do more then they should. I built a few, and while I wouldn't say they were great engines, by any stretch, At least in NA form, moving a load that was suited to that HP, nothing else came close to the fuel economy. They were an awkward engine to set up, requiring a lot of special tools. They were a favorite in Ford F700's for some reason.

3208 isn't a"throw a way' engine, it isn't lined, which means an overhaul is out of chassie. Pistons ride directly in the block, like a car engine. You can over-bore them. The D950 Kubota, I'm working on still has dry liners. Cat made that engine as cheap as possible for Ford, IIRC, and it was.