GEOFF

Snowdog, Thanks for the additional picture and the brochure! Yep that is the sundance for sure and the padded dash is what mine has. Very cool old brochure! Thanks! WOW, you are making great headway with your paint restoration. I'm no expert, just a farmer sharing his experience. BUT, have you tried the Meguiars ULTIMATE COMPOUND? My hightech son found out about it and it saved us a ton of elbow grease. It somehow cuts thru oxidation without too much rubbing. My son found out that you are supposed to follow that up with Meguiars's ULTIMATE LIQUID WAX. That is what we used with great success on a couple of old rigs. What I like is that it doesn't go too deep into the paint while getting rid of the oxidation. Expensive products but at least they work well. Looks like your paint has definite potential!!!! Love those old clearance lights that say INTERNATIONAL on them. Got a kick out of that post in your original thread, one that I had never heard before, "a 13 letter, BS spreader" that is funny!!! Whoever ordered your truck was pretty doggone smart. Remember we were coming out of the gas crisis of 1973, unsure if that hit Canada but it was bad down here. My dad ordered our 75 IH pickup with a 345 instead of 392 with the gas crisis in recent memory. That 345 that I have in my 1600 will pull down to IIRC about 1600 or 1500rpms and HOLD!!!!!!!!!! Torquey little sucker!!!!!!!!! And would use less fuel than the vaunted 392. Like the wheel base on your 1700 too. Would love to know about the original owner. Probably a really savvy farmer!!! Is 5th gear toward the dash or back close to the seat in your truck? Did you find the original LINE SETTING TICKET? Seems in my 74 it was taped to the quarter panel close to the clutch pedal. Got my 1700 Loadstar line setting ticket from the original dealership. Be interested in what 5 speed you have. I assume that you are up to speed on using the correct motor oil?? The importance of zinc. Again I am no expert but I have gone to using diesel type oil in all my old Internationals, DELVAC is what I am using. If anyone knows more and if this is a bad decision, please chime in!!!!!! My understanding is that diesel motor oils have the important zinc for these old gas engines. ALSO, I try to use NON ETHANOL gas in my old gas engines. Around here, the gasoline dealer keeps his PREMIUM 92 OCTANE, ethanol FREE. Keep that in mind. If your truck runs fine, just keep running it. Seems to me, my 74, 75 and 76 engines are ok with the ethanol 87 octane but the older ones DEFINITELY prefer the non ethanol 92 octane. See what works for you. Also I am a big believer in STABIL cuz we don't run these old trucks sometimes for a period of time. Carbs are so important to keep happy. You probably already know all this stuff. Just things I have noticed with my old fleet!! LOL! Thanks again! GEOFF

Snowdog, GREAT looking pair! I'm still learning the Mack line up. Not many of them out here in the Pacific Northwest, tons of IH, Kenworth and Peterbilts. Sure like learning about the Macks though. Really try buffing out that original red paint. Whatever paint IH was using back then it is EXCELLENT. My 74 was too far gone and we had to repaint it. But, my 75 IH 200 pickup that dad bought new and I've driven since I was 15 in 1978 still has the original paint and NEVER got parked inside until about 2 years ago. This 76 Loadstar that have is the Sundance version, and was parked inside most of it's life. We buffed that one out and it is BEAUTIFUL! That original paint was THICK and GOOD!!! Give it a thought anyway, might save you some money. That would be very cool to see a stripe on it to match your Mack also. Like the way you think. The interior of you Loadstar is just FANTASTIC!!!! WOW!!!!! I hear you on your 345 running like a sewing machine. You get those SV series tuned right and they just PURR!!!! I've got a 2 with 345's and one 304 that just run SO SMOOTH like you are talking. Sweet running engines!! Enjoyed your link to your original post. Like the comments from the mid west guys that saw a LOT of these Loadstars down thru the years at harvest!! You see them still in use out here too especially during apple and pear harvest which is what I do. I do most of my fruit hauling with bigger trucks but my 2 Loadstar we use especially for moving equipment, runs to the dump, hauling peat moss, stuff like that, where I can put a non CDL driver in them and let them get some experience! Congrats on your outstanding find!! Might post some pics of mine if I can figure out how. All the best! GEOFF

Snowdog, Thanks for the interesting info. Great looking Loadstar 1700 by the way! Sure would be interested in more particulars on your nice truck. Motor, trans, gvw, stuff like that. I've got a 76 Loadstar 1700 with the MV404. Really nice truck but have been having spark issues galore with the first of the electronic ignitions. Will have to figure out the best resolution on this. Got a 74 Loadstar 1600 with a points ignition SV345 and that baby is DEPENDABLE!! Brakes are touchy and tend to not want to let off for a couple of seconds, after you come to a stop, can't figure that one out but we still drive her. Not a good icy road proposition however!! LOL GEOFF

Hey Brocky, great to hear from you sir!! In about 20 minutes I'm heading out to take my Pete 389 out for a drive. Forecast is for snow tonight so this is a last opportunity to take the Pete out and charge up the batteries, stir up the gear boxes, and warm her up a little. You wintering well down there in sunny South Carolina?? The 69 Diamond Reo is safe under cover. Didn't use her much this year, got a CHEAP 87 Freightliner conv, bit more power and easier to keep up with traffic than the old DR. So the Freightliner gets used a lot more for what the DR used to do, short hauls around and moving equipment. Still glad I got that Diamond Reo though and we take care of her. Everything is in good working order now, but still need to do body work and paint to REALLY do the trick on her. Good solid truck for sure! You take care sir! GEOFF

PZ 1, I thought about that. Cat guys didn't want to go into it twice. And we kept running her, thinking RIGHT AWAY I would get that new injector from P.Power. Old Pete, kept hauling the goods, running a bit sicker each day, and the 30% over injector was expected any day. Sure glad when it came though! Even early on, when this injector was on going bad and it really only affected idle, we thought, none of my drivers could remember EXACTLY what kind of manifold pressure we HAD been getting when the truck was truly running well. This turned out to be 27 psi manifold pressure. When we were still hauling with this bad injector, I think we were getting 22 to 24 psi manifold pressure. We erroneously THOUGHT it was still running decent. Remember I have from 2 to 3 different drivers running this truck every week. Sivart, you say you are getting 30 psi manifold pressure. That further confuses me, that is pretty doggone good I would say. Interesting side note, Bruce Mallinson at Pittsburg Power told me, if I remember correctly, with a 14.6L motor, or there abouts, to approximate horse power you take your manifold pressure in psi and multiply by 20. So in the case of my 3406 you would take 27psi times 20 equals 540 horsepower. I had this engine dyno'd and it came out to 537hp at the flywheel. Pretty doggone close to the Mallinson advice! Keep us posted on what you find. GEOFF

204, Well maybe except YOURS!!! We try to AVOID your truck, take back roads and such. Anything to avoid getting into a head to head pull with your Mack. We think you load LIGHT or something!!!! LOL!!!!!! None of us can figure out just how that Mack of yours pulls SO GOOD! I don't think you need ANY kind of tune up kit! GIVE US LOCAL FOLKS A CHANCE!!! You might turn me into a Mack fan yet! After all I am over here on your forums. A good fruit market year, you might see some SUPERLINER in these parts hauling my apples and pears. Need to replenish the cash reserves first though! GEOFF

Sivart, This reminds me of a problem that I had this last fall. I have an 86 Pete 359 with a CAT 3406C mechanical motor. I have 30% over injectors from Pittsburg power. No extras on hand. Suddenly we got a bit of a rough idle. Driver came home. Sounded OK then but from time to time we would hear that rough idle over the coming days. BUT IT GOT WORSE AN WORSE, over time! Still pulled good, but going from idle on up thru the gears it got worse and worse. Still at full throttle it seemed pretty good. Finally as has been described above, we cracked the injector lines (at the pump) one at a time at idle and SURE ENOUGH we identified the culprit. BUT HOW TO GET THE 30% OVER REPLACEMENT???? Called Bruce Mallinson at Pittsburg Power and he made a RUSH ORDER to get it to me. Still took about 1 week. That engine just got SICKER AND SICKER as we kept using it cuz I needed to haul my apples and pears to market. They pyro never heated up though and we hauled load after load. But the BRAKE SAVER temp guage would climb erratically time to time. Then the NEW 30% OVER injector came. I had the CAT SHOP put this in and adjust the valves and jake. WOW WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!!! We had kinda forgotten JUST HOW GOOD THAT MOTOR COULD RUN, when everything was RIGHT!!!! I think that injector was a bit weak, even before it started to idle rough. BECAUSE it runs the best we have ever had it run now. I think it will out pull pretty much ANY MACK now!!!! LOL!! GEOFF P.S. Now I keep and extra injector on hand!

Woops, this will get my post count up in a hurry! Accidently posted before I was ready. Farmers and typing don't mix!! Then I think 2 days later a very good driver, just bad luck hit a deer and pushed the bumper back IN!!!!!! As the song says, THERE AIN'T NO EASY RUN! Heard something about a new building going up over there. Fantastic! Nothing like being in out of the elements! Got the radiator rebuilt in my old 1960 Ford 955 Super Duty dumptruck. Hauled a few loads with that old girl the other day. Nothing like this old iron is there? Drove that truck the first time when I was 10 years old in 1973. That truck is pretty special to me. Well I'll traverse around the site a bit. Seems a LOT goes on over here. The old ATHS site and pretty much JOT sites are slow. GEOFF

204, You probably COULD throw a rock that far. Now you've got me worried I might have hit your place when I shot in the New Year!!!!! LOL! The 86 Pete 359, the blue one was the one that had a couple of incidents. I'm always trying to improve that sweet old truck. I try to make lemonade out of the lemons that come along. The cab leaked bad, needed some new skin on top of the cab so while it was over there we did that too, and painted the top of the cab. All new clearance lights and air horns. Took out a couple of the old antenas that are no longer used. Still kept the old crooked one from back when it was a logging truck. Kinda funny NOW, not funny when it happened. Same day I took the Freightliner to Wenatchee. There was a wreck at the light where you turn to go across the Columbia river. Narrow to get traffic thru the accident. A young guy that I helped get his CDL was going thru and a 17 year old kid in a Honda car glanced off his right front fender/wheel area. Didn't do the Honda ANY GOOD! So the bumper was pushed OUT

Gearhead204 (Rob) This is fitting for my first ever post on BMT! Another northcentral washington guy, heck your neighbor! Pretty nice to still be getting some dirt work done here in January! No snow. Like Herb's old truck. He was sure great to do business with back in the day. Saw him yesterday at the hardware store. My drivers report your Mack is PULLING HARD!!!!!!! And you say it's stock??? No wonder you have gone MACK CRAZY!!!! LOL!!! Did you see my economy truck, that old MAGI 1987 FREIGHTLINER CONVENTIONAL with the Big Cam 4 and 9 speed. VERY basic truck, single stack, steel wheels but got me thru a couple of pinches this year in apple and pear harvest. Even hauled a load to Wenatchee myself in the old girl! Made it but SURE MISSED CRUISE CONTROL! I brought my Pete 359 home from Western Pete in Spokane. We did some enhancements and got a little fender bender one of my young guys had fixed. Also wouldn't you know we collected a deer also! Same side bumper and fender. So got them all fixed at once! All the best bud! Never frequented this site. Great to see you are posting a LOT here. GEOFF