Geoff Weeks

Fact is, Mack missed out on the Big Power market when they didn't move forward on their "Big Six" prototype sitting at the museum. Their E9 V8 is the only real Big Power option, but all I've heard is parts are hard to get and they suffer in the longevity department. Whether that's just scarcity and age or design flaws, I couldn't say. I have heard that V engines' main flaw is that they have to run 2 connecting rods on each crankshaft offset. Big power and the costs: Mack V-8's aren't as common because they cost a premium, same as the K-19 and the 3408. Parts are harder to come by because fewer were made to begin with. The K-19 is still made or was recently (Q19) but not used in road trucks, the 3408, V8 Cummins and the like were dropped as they didn't have large sales to continue there development. The V Detroit 2 strokes were around until the end of the 2 stroke. The Mack V8 was well respected, but its higher costs didn't make sense in the days of 55 MPH, but the time that went away we were on the cusp of the electronics and the same power from smaller displacement 6's. When the Big V's ruled the high hp truck market, the other driveline components weren't generally as strong as what came later, that left broken trans and rears if pushed too hard. It wasn't until the 80's that those components were beefy enough to take the higher output. Yes, Mack had their big rears, as did other mfg, but they weren't highway geared, for high speed and high torque. Remember the SQHD (sure quitter's) ?

I remember when we were told that we'd all be driving small displacement engines with lots of gears, Cat pushed the 3306 and Cummins the L-10, but they were coupled to 9 or 10 spds and were slow. Top power was around 300 for either, or about what the E-6 was at that time. Don't get me wrong, these smaller displacement engine today have impressive power for their size, but at the time they came out it was poor. Turning up one of these old small displacement mechanical engine is a courting disaster. Once the electronic's and stronger pistons and rods come in, they did produce a lot of power. Big power has always been available to those willing to pay. 12V-71, K-19 and the Mack V-8, but there was a huge price to pay for the privilege of being the big engine on the road. It came up front in purchase price and continually in fuel and maintenance. I have never been a fan of V engines, and have never owned one in a truck. Most engines will take 10% over what the factory rated them for without too much trouble, once you start trying to push over that, it can really take its toll. Some look at today's electronic engines of about the same displacement and say 'if they can get that out of the same displacement, why can't I with my older engine of the same size?". But that fails to understand HOW mfg got to where they are and the changes needed to get there. Not only are the mechanical pieces stronger, seal better and take heat better, the electronics which allow injection timing to be idealized for the condition also allow it to not over-stress at low speed but still take more when it can. Mechanical, you don't get that ability. you have to make compromises. The Detroit 60 series was the 1st to show what electronics and smaller displacement could do, in terms of hp. just as the Maxidyne showed what a broad torque curve could do decades earlier.

Wind resistance and wind direction can have more effect than weight. When I pulled 48K+ re-bar loads, my mileage was closed to what I would get with an empty trailer. Sure it pulled the grades slower but it also rolled along on the down hill side much further without needing throttle, was less effected by wind gusts etc. Because wind resistance goes to the square of speed, a little increase in speed makes a big difference in power required to move at that speed, and of course fuel to to get that power.

Power is something that will never be satisfied. I'm old enough to remember trucks pulling Snowshoe or other eastern hills at 25 mph, That was the norm, and "O/O hot dogs" may blow by you at 30-35 mph. Today you'll be a hazard pulling the same weight at the same speed. The 670 +/- CID of the Mack was quite impressive for what it was, and put up against Cummins and Cat's of larger displacement. I was called on to work a train de-rail by a company I used to work for. (I was my own carrier at the time) and when I found out where and where we were to move the damaged cars, I got my Fleetstar with a 6-71 and left my 9670 at home. The other O/Op's were laughing when I showed up, but soon their tune changed when the found out we had to go down the access beside the track. I quickly offered to drag the stretch trailers in, turn them around and stretch them out, if I got the 1st load out. There was one old (brought out of retirement) company driver there also. The O/Ops said "you may be 1st out, but you'll be last in"! The old guy said quietly, "We used to move super loads with a 6-71". Yeah, I was 1st out and 1st delivered, but everybody heard me coming! I have a Dart oilfield truck from the early 50's. I had a 200 hp 2 valve 6-71. It had a 66,000 GVW (most road tractors have 52,000) and hauled much more as a CGVW. That said, you can not climb Butte grade in low gear at 5-7 mph like I did back in the day,, with O/D O/W loads, you'll get hit a dozen times before you reach the top. I used to almost get hit coming down that grade with the jake on full at the recommended 25 MPH. Drivers both "professional and John Q Public" are not paying attention, and anything that causes them to look up or god forbid, disengage C/C might get you shot at or hit. When I retired, my trucks had around 425-440 hp and were deep into the "Fleet" hp ratings of the day. I moved the same freight, and got it where it needed to go in a timely fashion. I did it the old way, by keeping the left door closed. I ran most times around 65 mph. Tires and fuel went much further, brakes lasted and I had time to react when stupidity happened in the front window.

More or less comes down to: do you slide the reverse idler gear (separate fork) or do you slide the main shaft gear one way for lo, the other to engage with the reverse idler (same fork). Two way to get the same result. The F51 in my IHC is sliding gear for low/rev. They did make some two speed reverse gear trans, now it gets complicated. Mine is sliding gear for low/rev and constant mesh (but no syncro's) for 2nd-5th. Shifter throw is much greater on the rev/lo gate than the rest.

To make thing less clear, some transmissions use sliding mesh on the lowest gear and constant mesh on the rest. Makes it easy to use 1st gear on the mainshaft for reverse as well, most often straight cut gear. The main advantage other than wear (you are going to get wear somewhere, constant mesh just move the wear to the dog clutch) is it makes the trans easier to shift, you are moving less mass.

1st an most likely is a bad connection. If the ground side goes to the frame, and the the engine is connected to the frame with a braided strap, it adds connections and likely fail points, The starter is the highest amp draw on the battery, so run is few connections between it and the battery as possible. Make sure all connections are clean and tight. On my old six volt stuff I run the ground right to the starter mounting bolt, or a bolt on the engine or transmission that is at least 3/8" and make sure the metal around the bolt is clean. I then replace any braided straps between the engine and frame to make sure the engine is bonded to the frame and the same with the cab/chassie. I don't know your engine, so am going to give general advice which may or may not apply: if the starter has a remote solenoid switch make sure it is conducting when activated. A bad ground to the cab thought the mounting bolts, or a bad ground of the cab to the engine both can cause failure. If the starter is operated by a mechanical link and "button" on the floor, the contacts in the mechanical switch on the starter could be at fault. The starter itself could need some attention, Starters of this vintage often had "oil cups" at the rear and sometimes front end. Many times the starter motor shaft ride directly in the cast iron cover and the oil wick is all the keeps it from galling on the shaft. My manual calls for them to be lubed every 500- 1000 miles! Most never see any attention. The starter could have internal problems, like a open segment on the commutator or one bad winding on the armature. If you suspect the starter, pull it out and connect up to a battery with jumper cables, it should kick and spin (just do a quick test, don't run for a long time with no load). Because the truck cranked over on a new battery but then doesn't, could also be something like a stuck generator cut-out drawing the new battery down when the engine isn't running. Check for sparks when you connect the battery leads, there shouldn't be any, with everything turned off (headlights etc). A test light, or volt meter can be of help to check for voltage drop across connections. A quick way to find poor connections on the starter (if it will crank at all) is heat, feel the connections after the starter has cranked (you did say it would crank with a fresh battery) and any warm or hot connection is a bad one.

What Terry said, and blow out the bolt holes when your done with the tap.

Kind of a step back from marine use. Marine has access to an unlimited heat sink, so water aftercooler make more sense,

If you can get the whole core engine for the same or close to what the head cost, I think you'll be better to do so. I have two core 855's in my shop right now. Having something to pull a small part or turn in for a core while you are working on the trucks engine is money in the bank. Having to run to the dealer for some small part that broke when you were removing, is a pain, having a core engine in the back of the shop you can pull that part off of is priceless.

BTW how long did the tip-turbine stick around? I thought of them as a 70's and may be early 80's thing, but have no idea when they were phased our.

I really liked the idea, Never ran one, so don't know how they did in service. It allowed an intercooler without re-designing the nose/ radiator placement. Same reason Cummins used the low flow cooling for a few years. In the end Ait to Air charge cooling with the cooler in front of the radiator became the standard, but it did require a re design of the nose for it to fit, Mack and Cummins could allow their higher power engines in trucks that weren't originally designed for them. In the end, everybody went to the air to air in front, so these "work arounds" lost their reason for being.

Next time you have the front hubs off, measure the brakes, measure the bearing spacing, and write down the inner and outer bearing numbers, (both the inner and outer races on both). I have Ford front hubs on both my Spoke wheel trucks. Ford used a different "cone" but same outer cup and bearing spacing. By changing the cones I was able to use on my Eaton and Rockwell front axles. IHC (Spicer) had different bearings and bearing spacing, so took a different hub. By spending some time in catalogs you might get some indication of what axles take similar bearings, and then find one and pull the hub to check spacing of the bearings and drum size. By looking up the bearing spec's you can get the hub bore, by looking up the seal spec's you can get the seal bore in the hub as well as the seal dimension on the knuckle, sometimes the seal bore and bearing bore on the hub are the same, and sometimes they are not.

Linkage gets adjusted 1st and should not need re adjustment unless someone has monkeyed with it. Because the lever is on a shaft it runs in a arc, you want the center of the arc, where mechanical advantage is the greatest to be where the clutch is pulled/pushed. The internal clutch adjustment is for wear and moves the release bearing in or out. Clutch brake is just so you can get it in or out of 1st or reverse with the truck stationary. It is not used in normal driving.

Yeah, we got pretty far down the rabbit hole on the weight thing, But, I do think weight had very little to do with demountable's going away. I had to "special order" on the one new trailer I bought. They even tried aluminum spokes, but that didn't work out too good. Anytime you see aluminum outside and steel inner, you know the reason is looks, there is really no other reason for that. Since I did all my own work, from the smallest to the biggest I saw the advantage of spokes, and liked the look with the chrome hub covers and nut covers.

All I'm saying is cutting 3 tons from a unit, is not as easy or cheap as it looks on paper, cutting 1000lbs, 2000lbs sure, but once you try and get to the last pound it can cost more than it returns. I have been on some of these sites in ND and at that time the roads weren't good, even had to bring stuff in on a corduroy road (made of timbers). Your point about once sand is needed is a good one, and may be a single drive would do ok. I would gladly trade any weight penalty for spokes and a mounted spare, esp when going "off the beaten track", Not a problem if you are getting paid a "day rate, that you get if you move or not" but as you said, that didn't last.

I have heard the same arguments over the years, but never saw someone come forward with a spread sheet to show it. I can build a truck that will go 130 mph on paper but will never be able to achieve that in the real world. Real world money also includes re sale if you aren't going to keep it. I wonder how well that outfit with stripped out trucks does in driver retention? If you have constant turn-over you will never see a ROI the lighter weight is supposed to give. A 1% variance in weight is 450 lbs, much more than the difference between wheels, cost go up and lifespan goes down with aluminum, my question is at that 1% how long would it take at the rates, assuming you can hold the weight to less than the 1% to pay for all the extra? The difference of that 450 comes to pennies, not dimes or dollars. That is 4.5 hundred weight, but most would only pay 4 as it is not a full 5 hundredweight. I don't know how you were paid, but most trucking pay by weight is by the 100 weight. You are not going to see pay back on every pound. I've never seen it. Single drive with tag gets stuck in rough ground, needs a tow or gets damaged by a dozer pull, Yep that comes off the top line. Get stuck enough times, you'll be told to keep off that site. Seen a lot of companies and even more O/O go under thinking they can tweek this or that and outsmart everybody else. actual profit never came close to "on paper" what they thought they would see. At the end of the day, it is how much goes into your pocket, not gross number on a hypothetical spreadsheet. If you are making "stupid money" on high rates, there is no incentive to pair down for a small gain. When I was doing heavy haul, I sure didn't care what my tractor weighed, but did care if it ever broke. There is a point where more weight carried and the cost of getting light enough, costs. The ideal is to hit the point where you get good life and maintenance while still not being too heavy. Down time kills more trucking companies large and small than can be gained by higher per load revenue. Made my living as an O/O for about 30 years, retired without ever going under, seen boom and bust, and seen an aweful lot get caught up in the bust because they thought it would last longer and they could get out from under the note they carried to get in on the boom.

exactly my point, single drive axle with pusher or tag, lightweight engine, 5 spd with 2 spd rear all will make much bigger difference than wheels. If you want every last lb then sure I can see it, but most care more about "looks". Most are not looking for every last pound, if it is that important, then it is likely the rates are so close to the bone that the only way to make it is to strip down. It is always a trade off between durability and service life and weight. Cutting fuel capacity is an easy way to stuff more on the truck. Steel disk wheels and I could scale 53K on the deck with my small cabover and aluminum trailer, more than just about anybody else, but rarely did the extra weight carried really pay meaningful dividends, more often than not most expected to load the truck to max for the same pay.. When I was starting out there were truck companies that specialized in one thing or another, stripped down to minimize weight, and tried to "out haul" the competition, problem was they were locked into the fortunes of who they hauled for and couldn't adapt if there was a problem, they are all gone now. Having good service life, and flexibility is more important to me, than an extra hundred pounds or so, most times even if loaded on a scale, it is hard to get to the lb, may be with cyro-gases it can be done. Assuming you are going to make an extra $20K is assuming all loaded trips are going to pay more and the trailer is going to be loaded to the last pound on every trip. Super singles and aluminum rim cut weight, until you blow one tire and it takes out the tire and aluminum rim with it, then you loose a lot of that extra cash, duals will not generally take out the rim with a blown tire. spec'ing for every last lb is very expensive, aluminum frames differential carriers, transmissions all could be had in aluminum, but the cost is why they are no longer popular, they also didn't give the service life that heavier cast iron did. Back when I bought my trailer, going from all steel/wood floor to composite const cost about $1500-$2000 more and may be got you 700-1000 in weight savings, going from composite to aluminum cost another $10,000 and got you another 1000 lbs in weight savings. A company hauling their own product can justify spec'ing to optimize for that product, but even then they often don't, the "savings" don't pay for the extra expense. Custom two hopper aluminum may save weight, but when it starts prematurely cracking either has to be replaced with another custom, or a money pit to keep it in one piece.

Not really, they are heavier (a small bit) than aluminum hub pilot, but lighter than steel disks. The weight difference is so small as to be a non-factor. A few hundred pounds between the heaviest and lightest is hard to justify. Spoke hubs the spokes are hollow, the drum is inboard and so lighter (doesn't have to extend over the hub and wheel studs). rims are lighter. Somewhere I have seen the weight of each type hub, complete with tires, the difference was not as much as they want you to believe. Far more weight can be shaved on other spec's than the hub type. Steel disks are the heaviest, then steel spokes then aluminum disks, then aluminum super singles. You don't see many aluminum frame tractors anymore but they were lighter, weight isn't everything.

I am again, going to suggest looking for a whole core engine. Talk to the independent shops, tell them what you are looking for, they may know of a yard or even a customer that has some "junk" trucks that would be willing to part them out. 1st find out what heads will work. If it were a Cummins, I could tell you, I don't know Mack engines that well. I might even try Reading truck (used to be called something else, big truck equipment co) in SLC as they outfitted the Utah DOT Macks, they may know where to find used Mack stuff Once you know what heads will work, then go in person to places, most will not put in the time on the phone or internet inquires, If they don't have it, they just say no and move on, in person they may send you to the service mgr who may know where what you are looking for can be found. Most places will do all they can for someone standing in front of them. Be prepared to buy a whole core engine, many will not want an engine missing a head sitting in the yard, As I have said, whole cores can be had for less than the rebuilt heads you were trying to find. I would stick to cores that will turn 360 deg or even better running cores. Dealers aren't the best for this stuff, they deal in new and don't see the old stuff, plenty of independent shops around SLC, I don't know much about south or east Utah. I don't know where you are located. With a whole core engine, you get core injectors, which you'll need or have to pay core charge, and more spare parts than you can shake a stick at, in the long run it will pay for itself and the repair of the engine you have now.

I would not buy tires until you need them. They will age just sitting. If you have 10.00x 20's you will not have a problem finding them when the time comes. If you want to go tubeless, most sizes will not be too hard to find, new or re-con rims would be needed. My tire shop will re con rims, (blast and paint) cheaper than I can do it. I must admit I never gave them a tube type to do, as I didn't trust them not to loose or mis match the lock rings when I got the rim back. IIRC it was $45 to blast and paint, might have been $35 I preferred tires made in S Korea or one of the other SE Asia countries over China, Most countries down there mfg tires. I stuck with Khumo's or Hankook's but I was running them commercially. I have been running tube types long enough to have had Goodyear and BF Goodrich tube types, but they stopped making them in the 90's I think. If you not loading them, and just going to shows, the cheap China imports will likely do.

This isn't a "stuck" injector, it is one that has been peened in like a rivet. The nozzle end has been hit and expanded like the end of a rivet. A true machinist should be able to mill the nozzle end off and press the injector out. Injector is ruined but you don't want to do more damage than has already been done to the injector copper area at the bottom of the hole. This too has to be replaced (injector copper). A place that claims they can fix that head, should be able to and have dealt with this problem before. I'd contact them 1st and see, they might say just send it as is. The last thing you want to do is make it worse. I'm not convinced that head can be successfully (at least economically successful) repaired. Injector is junk, valve seats are junk, injector hole and copper are at least damaged, worse case mill the injector out like you were boring the raw casing. That is not a job for a DIY or even most engine machine shops, it is a specialists job, and that is where this head should be going anyway.

I believe Frank lives in Stonewall county between FT Worth and Lubbock, but you'd have to contact and ask him if you are serious. I've never met the man.

Also there is an adjustable restriction on the exh side of the motor. It keeps the motor and blade from "flopping" too fast to the other side. Keeping pressure on both sides of the motor piston keeps the speed steady regardless of load. Too much restriction (back pressure) and the motor will be slow or not move at all, too little and it will slam side to side too fast. The control knob can vary the speed of the sweep but the exhaust restriction can also. On full speed, with a wet glass, you want it to move quickly but with no "flop".

Looks like the terminal at the top may be 2 terminals, with a fuseable link between them. Hard to tell for sure, I am trying to find others on the .net to compare.