Terry T

I am assuming this is "Edgar Davor". Since you are at ATHS and here asking this question you are probably on several other boards asking the same question. The answer is............. There is no answer! Everyone will have an opinion, but no one can give you an answer, especially since you question many of the replies that you get. It appears to me that you are trying to write a paper, possibly for a class project. There are many people on all these sites that would like to help you out, myself included as I did make a rather indept reply at ATHS, but it appears that you are looking for a very specific answer and as I said before you can get opinions, but I don't think you can get an answer. T.

Your in the right place, When you say bad shape, do you mean body is shot, engine seized? I didn't look down thru the various forums, but there is one for just about anything you need here. If you need help with the Holmes bed, make a post over at aths.org . I think Spanky is the Holmes expert over there or possibly Shifty, but one or the other has a lot of knowledge of Holmes beds. Can you post some pics of your B? T.

I haven't looked closely at the new Volvo's that UPS Freight is running so I am not sure if they are doing the same thing with division. In the past two days I have taken a closer look at the UPS Freight Volvo's and the do not say "Volvo" in the center of the grille. T.

As for the UPS trucks not having MACK on them. Look closer at any UPS truck. For as long as I can remember, back to the Diamond REO's, Astro's and F Model Macks UPS has not had the manufactures name on them. The F models did not even have a Bulldog if I remember correctly and the first CH612's and CH613's had a handle in place of the Bulldog to tilt the hood. I was once told the reasoning for UPS to dis-allow a brand name on a truck they purchased was because they were not being paid to advertise the type of truck. Think back to the GMC Astro's, Diamond's, F models, IHC's, Fords and now Sterlings, IHC's and Macks. I haven't looked closely at the new Volvo's that UPS Freight is running so I am not sure if they are doing the same thing with division. T.

Fred, I have never been able to get it to download either, Had Tom(?) email it to me once, a couple years ago, asked him to do so again earlier this year and no reply at all. T.

Barry, Sorry, but this is the only pic I have of it, I thought I had few more at different angles. T. Note:Could not get pic to download. sorry Barry.

My opinion is that a Cat is useful as a boat anchor and little more. Keep it Mack. T.

Dustin, Right at the moment ebay and other online classifieds are flooded with Mack MR tractors, both single and tandem axle tractors. These are former US Post Office tractors with a lighter steer axle and on air ride rears (I believe they are on air ride). Typically an MR is a vocational use truck mostly used in refuse or as a platform for concrete pumpers requiring much heavier spec suspensions (typically on camel-back) there-by setting higher than the USPS tractors. I have an interesting pic of my old Ford LTL9000 wrecker with a twin steer MR cab and chassis on the back. I was towing from Advance Mixer (now Terex Advance) to the Mack dealership to have the air ride removed and camelback installed. Apparently someone decided that you can put a concrete pumper on air ride, Advance said ahhhh..... NO! So I towed it to the dealership to switch the suspension and towed it back as the drive line had already been removed and cut to be reinstalled with the bed. For your application an MR tractor would work out real nice and will get you in and out of tight quarters with minimal effort. Terry

CH's were almost never orginally spec'd as dumps so yours most likely has been converted to a dump. Best thing to do is take the VIN to your nearest Mack dealer and they can pull up the info on their computer and tell you what it was orginally spec'd with. Typically in the Midwest/Great Lakes area a CH613 road truck will be bought, the sleeper removed and converted to daycab and the frame may or may not be stretched to accomodate the dump bed. Chances are you have a 12K front and 38K rears.

Chris, My former employer has hired several of their mechanics out of Northwestern T

Thad, The only real way to make a small fortune in the trucking business is to start with a LARGE fortune. To ask people all around the country and the world is not the best way to go about it. This is also a bad time of year to try to speak to the owner of a dump truck outfit as it is the busy season. Now the way to get a feel for vocation work is to find the owner of a small operation who will sit down with you and tell you about it. The best way to do it is to be born into the business, but it doesn't sound like this is your back ground. Find the right owner or supervisor or small fleet owner who you "click" with and you have a way to get your feet wet. If you have the means to buy a truck, insurance, fuel, maintainance you are ahead of the game too, but there is little chance anyone will put you on without experiance. As in anything new, "baby steps" is the best way, maybe the right guy needs a "gopher" around the shop, and as the relationship grows, so does your income and your ability. I am kinda rambling, but I think you need to work on this closer to home. I mostly learned the wrecker business on my own, but I had my bro-in-law and his brothers as my back up most of the time and my relationship with many other towers grew as well. You can do what ever you want if you put your mind (and your back) to it. Make the right friends and you can go a long way, but don't rush, live and learn. T.

Chris, At age 13 I went to work washing trucks, learned to "lot" drive at 14 (tough learning to drive a car after two years of big trucks, the cars were all missing one pedal!). At 16 went into the office as a billing clerk, and went on thru all of the office positions up to and including operations manager. during same time also drove locally when needed (which was often). Got out of the office and went OTR at 25 for a while, then back into operations, and back to OTR, and back to Ops, then into sales, then bought a heavy duty towing operation, then got out of towing (full time, still do it part time for a few friends) and I am currently running local T/L. It's nice to be home every night, no weekends, and not married to my phone anymore. I can still remember being 14 or 15 ('bout 100 lbs) trying to dismount and remount truck tires (both tube and tubeless)! Man what a lot of work. T.

Chris, We had one R S/A with the 2 stick 6 speed, the remainder of the S/A's were 5 speeds and our tandem R's had the Mack 10 speed (Superdog could tell you the model #) that you split each of the 5 forward gears (like a super 10), and could select reverse giving you 5 reverse gears. I have seen many R models with Fuller 10 speeds as well. T.

If anyone ever runs across one of those "high-rise" units that is usable I would really like to hear about it. I would like to put one on my '70 F Model. T.

Barry, Along the lines of not taking things seriously, I was looking thru my photo albums on BMT and I noticed that in my B model album of the approx 7 pictures all but one have been looked at between 50 or so to 150 or so times. The other one has been viewed over 200 times! It is the one that I labeled "Topless"! T.

I don't know quite as much about the history of my F model as I do my B model. I do know that it was built for Geiger Brothers Inc of Pandora, OH and "Placed" by Lima (OH) Mack Sales on 12/11/1969. It is an F795LST originally built with an END865 and a 5 speed. The second owner, Dan Rodiger swapped in an ENDT711 and tri-plex. I have know Dan for a number of years as he use to have a large fleet of R models that he ran (still runs a few trucks today) out of his home on US 33 just east of Wapakoneta, OH. Dan sold this truck to another party who had yet another person backing him. Unfortunately for these two their deal went sour. It was after this point that I discovered my F quite by chance. I was called to hook a KW from the Ft Wayne truck plaza and tow it to a shop near St. Joe, IN. After dropping the KW I made small talk with the shop owner and eventually got around to the old Mack setting in the corner under a trailer. I said some day after my B and after I do an R, I would like to restore or have an F model. He said "there's your F Model", I said yea, like that one, he said no, "that is your F, take it, get it out of here, but you have to take this Marmon over here too!". I hooked the F, and brought it home. I went back, got the Marmon and scraped it (nothing more than a busted up shell with engine parts scattered throughout). Any time I want to start the F all I have to do is put the battery charger on it for about 45 minutes and she will take off on less than a full revalution. Currently it is setting on the back burner waiting for me to get the B done, but it does run very well, just doesn't stop so good as only the brakes on one wheel work.

My B model was built for the E.W. Bohren Company of Woodburn, IN in September of 1964. I was born into the trucking business in September of 1965. In 1970 my dad's friends helped us move from Ft Wayne, IN to Findlay, OH. The thing I remember most about that move was the B Model Mack that Don Parrish Jr. provided (as well as his muscle!) and the single axle trailer. Dad was being transfered by CW Transport to become TM of a new terminal that wasn't even built yet and the Ft Wayne TM, Rex Heare, and a dispatcher, Jim Bearman (who is now my father-in-law), also helped with the move. The B used in the move was not the one that I currently own, but Don's father, Senior or "The Old Man" as we all affectionately called him bought the truck in 1972 and numbered it 203. We moved back to Ft Wayne and eventually my dad went to work for Parrish Leasing. My dad and my father-in-law both drove 203 thru the years and in my early teen years 203 was relegated to yard work and taking trailers to the truck wash (because the seals didn't leak and you could stay dry inside as opposed to the much newer IHC 4070's and 4070B's!).I went to work for Parrish when I was 13 and I lot drove it alot as a 14 and 15 year old, using it to bring trailers into the shop and re-arranging the yard. By the time I turned 16 203 along with 200, and 201 both B's (one of which was the one that moved us in '70) had been parked. 202 was an R model that lil bro Gary Parrish crashed & totaled while returning from Ft. Madison, IA with a brand new Fruehauf trailer. eventually all the old B's, R's and IHC's were scraped (very unfortunate, but this was still in the late 1980's, who knew!), except for 203. It just kept setting around, every once in a very great while it got started, but by about 1990 it was "permanently" parked. I kept seeing it set there and set there and finally in March of 2004 I stopped and talked to Don, made him an offer and hooked it up the next day. Unfortunately money has been tight since I first started on it and it is in "pause" mode right now, but I hope to get back to it this fall or winter. It will retain the red, black, and white that Don Sr. believed all real trucks were painted as well as the #203, and I believe that it will get the name 'The Old Man" in memory of Senior. I am going to add a Holmes wrecker bed to it though instead of keeping it as a tractor.

Block, To each his own, but I have seen exhaust systems like you mentioned and personally I think they look worse than a White Trash '70 Nova with the butt end jacked up 10 inches with M50 Dayton Radials sticking 6 inches out the rear wheel wells! The bracket's are still available from Mack, so one might as well do it right. T.

Contact Vomac Truck Sales and Service in New Haven (Ft.Wayne) IN. ask for Dave Sarka or Jeff Mekus. They are the old time Mack guys at the dealership and they had a hand in putting proper duel exhaust on a R model last year during the complete restoration for a good customer. Either one should know exactly what you are talking about, but if not just say it was Boeke's Maroon single axle. Their phone number is 260-749-5061. T.

Well..... Good news and bad news, I have exactly what you need. That's the good news, bad news is I will be putting all of it on my 1970 F795LST. I will keep you in mind, I will be talking to a fella that I know who has a LOT of older Mack parts. He has a little bit of everything, Trannys, rears, engine components, etc. Terry

The '95 CH613 wrecker that I ran had about 15 or so extra lights on the bed and in a 2 1/2 year period we replaced the headlight rocker switch twice. Not sure if it is related to the extra lights drawing thru it or not, but it is a possibility. T.

I am not sure why you would want more than 400 hp for a unit who's primary reason for being built is to set still and move liquid concrete. Schwing and Terex typically spec's their own chassis for such an application and I think that if they felt their product needed more hp they would order it that way. If you are worried about getting from point A to point B faster the minimal hp that you are going to get to the ground after upgrading probably won't be worth the expense. But then again I am 40 now, and I have realized that you can only get from point A to point B as fast as traffic and stoplights will let you.

Joe, Funny you should mention stopping. As the truck sits, it weighs 82,000#. After the mechanic finished working on the truck, he took it out for a test drive. At some point the two lift axles had been raised and he was completely unfamiliar with the operation of the truck (i.e. actual weight) as he approached the road he intended to turn onto at 55 mph he attempted to slow down...... well........ He continued on to the next road then made his turn, he got back and inquired if there was also a write-up on a braking problem. At this point I got a phone call from the service writer. "Terry, do you know that Campbells truck won't stop?" I asked about the position of the lift axles, Greg asked Rodney and came back to me, "up". Well it isn't going to stop then, that thing weights 82,000#. It was at this point that I was asked to come to the shop and take it back out for another test drive checking for a power problem and etc. The truck carries 24,000# on the steer axle alone with the axles up. I wrote an article about the truck that was in Bulldog Magazine a year or two back. Barry, Gotta love Superdog's with 750's too. If it ever goes up for sale, give me a ring. I have my eye on an R with a 70 about 12 miles from me, but I don't know if he will ever sell. Below is the truck I drove before the dealership decided to "make some changes" after I got hurt at work.

Barry, Nice looking project. Joe, Single axles are nice, but I am kinda partial to multi axle hooks as seen here. I have never had the opportunity to operate this truck, but I have driven it and man, what a ride! Belongs to some friends of mine in Ligonier, IN. They are on US 6 just West of town, if you ever happen through the area on a week day, stop in and see Freddy and Dan. Freddy is off this year having surgery on both arms, but Dan will be around. Terry

Mike, I don't think you can place a monetary value on vintage trucks like you can vintage cars. The market is totally different. You have to consider what is valuable to you not to the next person. You will never get back what you put into a truck restoration. You have to do it for you, not value. By rights I should have kept the B61 wrecker that ran and got rid of the B61 tractor that I am restoring, but the tractor had more value to me as I, my dad and my father-in-law all drove the truck while it was part of the fleet. The wrecker only worked the yard, was not plated as long as I can remember. Now, the B67 is "rare" compared to the B61 as there were many more 61's built than 67's. I don't have the numbers handy right now, but Barry or someone like Mike Harbison could tell you off the top of their heads! I do know where there is a B67 cab/chassis for "best offer" about 30 miles from me right now. body is average, "ran when parked" and the frame needs a lot of help. Terry