Terry T

If your looking for something like the DT powered IHC's or FL Freightliners, Mack doesn't offer one. When I worked for the local Mack dealer, one of our customers was a drainage tile company (plastic drain pipe, no weight-lots of bulk) who needed a medium duty truck. The one owner did all the spec work for them, spec'd super light weight R690's with EM-7's and 7 speeds, had a special order code for a super low profile, light GVW suspension/platform. Needed to lower the truck, in order to get as tall a rack as possible on the unit to put as much tile on as possible. It would have been easier for the customer to order a Lopro IHC 4900, but they like their Macks. Recently seen some low-pro Granites with their name on the door. There is always a used Midliner or Freedom, but then your not getting a Mack. T.

Don't remember for sure. I think all of our R's at the time had am radios. I seem to remember seeing somewhere however an R with an am/fm/8 track in the dash. T.

Watch ebay as they show up on there every once in a while. Very hard to come by. T.

I don't remember the year on this truck, the pic was taken in 1979. Truck is a V8/5spd.

The E9 was a 998 c.i.d. engine. I recall seeing 440 E9's, possibly 400's, but Mike H. would probably know best though. T.

When I was selling Mack's in the late '90's we were having trouble getting build slots for pedigreed trucks. Mack could only build so many transmissions and rears per week. Our customers were forced to make the choice wait on Mack or go with an Eaton/Spicer/Rockwell or what ever their names were at the time. The other thing about offering vendor components is to get new customers by offering them a Mack with components that they already have in their current fleet. This way they don't have to keep more parts in inventory. Other than the engine, they had all the components that they were use to and kept inventory for. T.

In regards to why Mack stopped production of the RD/RB. 1st off, don't get me wrong. I have never been happy with Volvo aquiring Mack, nor was I happy when Renault owned them. I believe that the real reason that the RD/RB was replaced with the CV was the result of about 4 different things. a) Although it worked very well, the design had run its course. Almost 40 years and 4 decades. Gov't intervention to protect us from ourselves with required safety up-grades that probably could not be put into the platform, new requirements for engine emissions that result in redesigned engine compartments, and the such. c) Future drivers. Humans are getting larger with each suceeding generation. There was only so much room in the R cab. And humans are getting lazy. There is a need for a platform that can adapt to future drivers who grew up playing with Playstation and X box, as opposed to us who grew up playing outside, with our friends, getting exercise and developing stamina to actually work. d) The biggest thing that killed the R platform........ Typically a "truck guy" no longer buys the trucks. A "bean counter" does. He doesn't care about longevity of the units that he buys, only the bottom dollar. just my .02 worth. T.

Thad, The V8 Macks of the era often had 5 speeds behind them. My F originally had an 865/5speed, The 1st Cruiseliner that Parrish Leasing bought had a V8/5 speed combo and the only R700 They bought also originally had the V8/5 speed combo. T.

Must be something about crossing the centerline to strike "honey dippers"! I had to leave the ATHS show in Auburn, IN in June of '05 to help with this one. The Dodge dulley crossed the centerline, and struck the Paystar. The Paystar rolled over onto its right side, then onto its top and came to rest on its left side, all the while doing a 180 degree turn facing the direction it was coming from up against a tree.

Back in the late '80's/early '90's Cummins put out a service bulletin suggesting that drivers no longer idle their engines do to fuel washing down the cylinders. Their suggestion was to set the engine RPM's at 1,000 when parked. When the company I worked for at the time began taking delivery of the E7 powered CH612's and 613's in late 1990 they set all the trucks with a 3 min idle shutdown, or bump the switch once and it would take it to 1,000 RPM and run forever. I have done this ever since, bumping up between 800 and 1,000. Especially in winter it allows the engine to maintain it's temp. It also makes it easier to use the steering wheel as a desk (not as much vibration!). I don't know if washdown is still a problem or not, but it is a pratice that I have chosen to continue. T.

Slopoke: Very nice looking CX. One of the septic pumpers up this way claims "No. 1 in the No. 2 business" Mackboy: If you see the images dark, I would bet your monitor is failing, We went through that on our old computer. It made viewing most pics very difficult, unless they were taken in a very bright room or in very bright sunlight. T.

Actually the low air indicator is a small circle with 3 arrows pointing at it. The "O" with an "X" is the shut down indicator hence the button with the same symbol which reads "shut down override".

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.