convoyduel

They will beat the absolute hell out of the driver. Been there, done that.

Meow Mack

I saw one of the new single axles going up I-270 on Monday evening. The passenger side horn trumpet was missing (base was there), the front bumper was pulled forward on one side and pushed in on the other and it looked like there was scrapes and damage in the right side of the hood. Fuel tanks were black with dirt on spilled fuel. Great to see how well the new equipment is being treated. 😞

With that wheelbase and those 8 stud wheels, I wonder if that was an LTL tractor of some sort? Don’t know if anyone that ran Valueliner tractors. Any ideas what it’s first assignment was?

The red paint and white painted roof are from Cal Fire. The white stripe is a reapplication if theirs as it was peeled off forcibly with a rubber wheel. The “Retired Cal Fire” logo was placed where the old Cal Fire logo was. Although it was Dozer Transport 2540 out of Ishi Camp it’s whole life, Cal Fire doesn’t mark them as “Dozer Transport”. There was some removed lettering from them on the base of the door so we added the blue stripe and the wording to cover it. Truck is an ‘88 LT9000 with factory 400hp 3406B, 13spd, 10.8/38k 4.11’s on Hendrickson walling beam. I mostly just cleaned it up and replaced some stuff with NOS OEM. Truck had 205,000 original miles on it when I bought it in 2018 from Cal Fire. Pulled a JD 850B around on a lowboy and a belly dump its whole life. I sold it last summer to a nice man in Colorado who knew what a find a rust free big block Cat powered L9000 was. I sold it when I ordered the new Rubber Duck truck.

Broadway Ford Truck Sales was the heavy Ford dealer here. They are located just south of the Gateway Arch and sold all things truck and SUV from Ford. I don’t believe they sold any cars. Almost every contractor bought their Ford trucks of my kind there. When Ford old out to Daimler, they became the Sterling dealer. When Daimler bought Western Star, they didn’t get the dealership....it went to nearby rival Degel that sold Mitsubishi trucks. (Degel ran into a lot of issues and had their Star dealership pulled). Eventually, Truck Centers that is the big regional Freightliner dealer got the Star dealership. Broadway Ford Sterling continued strong until Sterling’s demise. When Daimler stopped Sterling and named the parts and service locations for Sterling, they named Truck Centers as the parts/service/warranty dealer and Broadway was left with just light and medium Fords. They are still there but a shell of what they once were. They had a fire in their service department maybe 5 years ago or so and just boarded up that part of the building but use the rest. Their Parts counter is like a time warp back to 1980’s Ford dealerships. Problem is, they really have little to nothing left and mostly just deal in generic or aftermarket stuff. I went in there in 2019 to get some OEM a Ford parts for my ex-Cal Fire LT9000 and they had nothing. Not even a door seal. All of those Louisville’s for 28 years and nothing left available. Very sad. I still see a lot of new Fords for contractors around town with Broadway’s logo so I guess they are getting by.

Looks like a cross between the Freightliner vocational cab and a VHD cab. Very disappointing. Still trying to figure out the huge humps on each side of the cab roof.

A few of those yellow R models reminded me of the early 80’s yellow Shell gasoline tanker tractors. They had aluminum wheels all around and the single right hand aluminum tank with the basic step below the driver side of the cab. Saw them all over St. Louis then one day....poof!

Maybe it’s a Volvo with a resale value. That would be new.

The Eagle Express Lines Mack was a 1988 R685ST that was purchased new by Eagle in Chicago. It was the 100th truck the company bought (they were all Mack then). It was red with a silver frame and came with EVERY interior option available at the time, including full gauge package with an air actuated oil level gauge. It had an E6-350, 12 speed Mack and 3.70 rests on Camelback tapered leaf with all aluminums. Truck drove like new, rode smooth as silk on the road and had a whole lot of throttle left at 70 mph. The truck was assigned to the senior driver and was the truck used for public relations functions. There is a picture of it posed with the World Trade Center in the background. When the company changed its name to Eagle Express Lines, it received the new company red white and blue paint scheme and a blue frame. The driver passed away and the truck was put into Eagle’s garage in Chicago and maintained by two brothers who are the lead mechanics at Eagle. When the original owner of Eagle passed away around 2014, the sons took over. As part of cleaning house, they put the truck up for auction on eBay where I found it. when I went to pick up the truck, the mechanics had no idea it was being sold and were quite emotional about it. I drove it back to St. Louis and changed the “Eagle” to “M.O.T.” As a nod to the Museum of Transportation where it was on display. By late 2015, I decided to thin my collection including it, the Rubber Duck truck and several others. I sold the truck on eBay in November 2015 to a guy in Chicago that ran all R models in his dump operation. I got quite a bit more than I paid for it and was very pleased at the time. He repainted it all white with a blue frame and added a sun visor. He had several others very similar to it and as far as I know, he still has this one but sold one similar. About 2 weeks after I sold it, I received a call from a young man who asked if I was the guy that bought the Eagle Express Mack. I said yes and he went on to say he would buy it no matter what. He told me he was the son of the man that exclusively drove the truck for Eagle and had rode with his dad quite a lot in that truck. I was heartbroken to tell him I had just sold it. I have him the buyer’s contact information but was pretty sure it wasn’t for sale. That still bothers me to this day. I would have sold it to him for what I had in it. It absolutely broke my heart to hear that kid’s disappointment.

Here are a few of my St. Louis Mack’s that I own or have owned. Never should have sold the Eagle Express parade truck. I’ll have to dig up pictures of my fleet of ex USPS Mack’s, my old Lloyd Lynn ‘99 CL713 and ‘02 RD.

Volvo and Western Star have completely turned the St Louis dump truck market into their sole territory from Mack and Ford/Sterling. Still don’t understand the Volvo thing.

Those models are absolutely amazing.

The R&D costs of designing Class 8 trucks and remaining on top of government vehicle mandates, emissions mandates and the like cannot be carried within the pricing of relatively low volume, high production cost Class 8 trucks. The European companies that are buying into American truck brands have R&D and engineering resources through their other automotive brands. Modem vehicle technologies like lighting, electrical systems, canbus and multiplex electrical architecture cannot be supported by Class 8 sales alone yet remain at or near the leading edge of the various technologies.

I see many of these trucks daily and have for years. I bought this black ‘02 KW T800 new in 2003 from KW of St. Louis. Super nice single turbo C15 475, 13spd, 20/46 on Chalmers. Was a tri axle with a 20k steerable lift that was bent or welded cockeyed from day 1. Chewed thru tires like crazy. They wanted the truck back to the dealer that installed it in Indiana but we never had time nor could afford the down time to fix it. Sold it to Mike Waller in 2007. He’s now running a dark red 2019 KW T800 quad you have in a later post. We ran out of Simpson in Valley Park and down off 141 in Arnold. I think Mike converted it to a quad a few years ago. He sold it to CJD last year.

Interesting that they went with the earlier CH style shallow rear wall cab, I guess to get the BBC down. Nice looking truck but the auto shifter is straight out of a mid 90’s setup. Also, without a crew cab option, they miss out on a lot of muni/state DOT sales. Hopefully they aren’t priced like the Titan was.

‘98 EPA Series 60 12.7L 500hp, Fuller 13 spd, 3.55 Meritor RT 40’s on Airliner 46k.

See if you can reference a gauge and sending unit from ‘02 RD690S vin 033790.

Are you sure it’s an E7? My 1990 CH613 has an E6-350. Decent truck just squishy on power.

That would be an extremely reliable truck. Won’t be the torque monster feel of a 475 Cat but it will be consistently reliable, easily serviceable and will drive very nicely. The EM7’s felt more powerful than the E6’s which were kind of slushy in the CH’s. The mid to late 90’s CH models are excellent money makers and don’t exhaust a driver. The only real downfalls were that the cabs tended to rust around the rear windows and underside corners if they ran in salt and weren’t cleaned much.

Trent, are you upgrading or having a problem with a current setup?

We are painting them. Air horns are in the works as well but we may stay with longer round Hadley’s because of the mounting differences.

Graphics applied. Still have to paint the air cleaners and battery box and swap the muffler for a polished stainless muffler.

Here’s an updated photo from this week. Still working on some details.

I’ve seen a handful of the HV’s here in St. Louis. Tried searching for the specs or other information about them and no luck. Mack lost a long time contract on this one. The ‘93-‘00 Postal Mack’s were very well spec’d trucks that made me a lot of money as the second owner of a bunch of them. Those MR’s were great fictional trucks but did beat the holy tar out of you. My favorites were the ‘00 CH612’s. Best money makers I’ve ever owned. I’m really looking for one of the last ‘03 CH612’s with the real CH hood but the drop window doors. Only a handful were made. I know St. Louis has at least one.