joes mack

i have an idea but i better not post it (might get kicked off of site)

i guess that they just want to be noticed. its not like they arent going to be noticed driving a piece of classic american iron or something. or mabey they want to be difrent. its not like they are going to be difrent driving a piece of clasic american iron instead of imports. if they took the money that they spent on the trashy tires and wheels and put it somewhere else in the cars they could have some really awesome cars.but i cant understand it.. joe

some trucks have 2 of these switches they look sim but one of them will be for the brake lights on the rear of the truck one switch will be norm open and one norm closed the low air one should be the open one you can check this with a voltage meter. when the air pres builds up it should close it. someone could also have a wire crossed somewhere.you might want to check where the switch screws into the air line by starting the truck and see if air is coming out of the line it could be stoped up and not puting pres to the switch. this is all i can think of right now i hope this might help..joe

do any of you have any exp with this setup (good,bad) i have been thinking about it and it seems to me that when the truck would go through a dip that when the rear axles rotate on the trunion that it would aply the brakes. this setup would have to have a cable from the z bar to the slack adjuster for the service brakes to work properly wouldint it. im really hoping that this would be a fairly simple and cheap fix for a park brake being that the parts to convert it over to a maxi brake setup arent cheap. and with the current brake setup that i have doesnt have enough clearence for the 24/24 chambers muchless the more desired 30/30 ones .... joe

call watts mack they are good at finding the hard to get stuff.barry,tom,and the rest of the crew will help you in any way that they can or have the means too. tracey the guy in the shiping dept helped me today. he didnt have to help me find a flaw with the credit card that i was using to pay with.but he did when most people would just blow you off and put the parts back on the shelf... joe

i know that the early 70s trucks had a set of park brake chambers mounted on the frame rails in front of the rear axles i was wondering what type of set up this is i have a cut off from a 72 dm 600 that was the same specs as my 69 and i was wondering what kind of linkage it has. im thinking of puting it on my truck if it dont require too much fab work for the linkage. i have the mounts and the z bars that go through the frame. i guess thats what they are called. the chambers are froze up but 24/24 chambers are the same size. any info on this setup would a great help.. joe

the low air press switch prob is the problem with the alarm i would get a new pres switch ($8-12) at most parts stores for a pai bendix might be a little more. the low air press switch should be on the inside of fire wall just above brake pedal. it should have 2 wires. thats my 2cents worth joe

O.K. so i put my 2cents in too quick. today i drove my friends truck it also has a 485mp8 and his dog must have parvo or something. it doesnt have anywhere near as much power as mine and they are speced the same. i also noticed that when pulling a hill loaded and the pedal on the floor the truck would smother and sound like it was back fireing but if you only mash it only about 3/4 of the way it would run better. we changed fuel filters /air filters yesterday when the trucks were serviced. but i didnt help. he has been saying this about this truck for a while but we thought he was joking about the truck. can anyone tell me how to clear the codes or at least get them to flash so we can put them on here and get some help for the truck. the truck is a 09 Granite.. joe

the mp series engines are just like any other. with good service plans the are as reliable as the old 237s but if you abuse them they will be junk just like any other. the truck i drive is a 09 granite with a mp8 485 and i like the engine verry well. im a mack fan through and through i have a DM 600 with a 237 that will start any time you turn the key and the mp8 is almost as good except for the emissions crap that is on them. at first i didnt like them. but now i think they are ok. they are still better than a cummins in my book. after all they cant be that bad they still say mack on them.after a few recalls on them mack has got them sorted out pretty well... joe

thats what i got myself into today while working on a D8K dozer last year we changed the eng oil cooler put( dawn dish detergent in rad and filled with water to remove oil) then it turned cold and we drained water (so we thought). for the winter sence we didnt have any work. we didnt put in any anti freeze we didnt have any. so we just left the hoses off. well today we got some work for it and we were going to get it fired up and ready for the job. except the new oil coolers didnt drain and froze and busted the bonnet(housing at the rear) easy fix right. we start the engine and it starts spraying oil out of the cracked bonnet. so we take the cooler assembily off the engine and both the coolers are now junk. that was a 3500.00 stupid mistake at the min. i just hope nothing else is hurt in the engine. this mistake is going to cost us 4 days of down time if nothing else is wrong.

i know this has nothing to do with the question that you asked but here goes i used to work with a guy that was called 2 dogs and he was from your town and lived on rt 160 thats not your dad is it ... joe

if you horseshoe the aux on the quad you will need a long screwdriver to un stick the shafts on the aux box too if the shifter is worn...joe

check the ground to the frame. i had a truck do this the road salt coroded the eyelet and it would act just like you cut the key off and back on. joe

they changed the dash in late 73 for the 74 models my dads friends had 2 73 models one with the steel dash one with the plastic dash a friend of ours still has the one with the plastic dash. joe

they do work verry good for the coal trucks around here where the haul roads are steep long hills with kick backs in them. if you get your brakes hot and cant make them in one swing you could verry easily go through the berm and over the mountain. i think that the trucks that have them are a lot safer if you use them rite because your brakes dont get hot and you can stop if you need to. .joe

the cat engines have a retarder (brake saver) in the flywheel housing that works off of oil press with the jake brake on the ones that i have seen. but the brake saver that im talking about is on the drive shaft it has a bunch of wound coils and magnets and works off of electricity. with 4 12v batts and a 200 amp alt to keep the batts charged. it dont hold back as good as a cat brake saver but it works verry well and the can be mounted on any truck. ive seen them on 70s model DMs all the way up to the new granites.. joe

the bolts are called huck bolts all they really are is rivets. the trucking company that i work for has allredy had to cut some out on one of their trucks and replace them with bolts the huck bolts are instaled with a hyd press that pulls the threads and squezes the huck to the bolt. if the truck twist the frame very much on rough roads or with heavy loads on a regular basis the huck bolts will become loose and have to be cut out and bolts/nuts will have to be put in.. joe

all of the trucks have 20,000fa and 65,000ra on camel back suspension both the granites and rds. the rd is only 5 inches longer in wb will that make that much dif in ride . joe

the truck that i have drove for the last month is a rd888 with a e7 427 it is a verry good truck but this wed i got put in a 09 granite with a 485 mp8 the engines in these trucks are as dif as night and day i thought the jake on the 427 was strong but compared to the granite it is verry weak with the rd i could come off of the mountain with 35 tons in 2nd/3rd gear with only working the brake saver from 3rd stage to 4th stage without touching the brakes with the granite i can come off of the same hills in 3rd/4th without touching the brakes and it dont have a brake saver. what makes these engines hold back so much better than the older ones? the mountain that we haul coal from has grades that range from 16% to 6% with only 5 very short flat spots on the road the trucks that dont have brake savers or retarders have to come off in lo or 1st gear with 8 speed trans and the granites that have the brake savers can come off in 5th/6th gear im impressed with the engine brakes that the granites have... joe

why is it that the granite trucks ride so rough? ive tried to adj the seat every which way you can adjusted the air bags on cab and still no help the truck is a extended front axle truck the rd888 that i was driving last week rides a lot better the trucks weigh verry close in light weight 43,000 for the rd and 42,700 for the granite if there is anything that can be done to make the truck ride better please let me know. me and the 11 other drivers would thank you verry much.. joe

would that truck have the same rear axle as a 1959 c60 chevy viking from the description it sounds verry sim..joe

the trans speeds are just like a trans in a car the lower the number of speeds the bigger the diff between gears in 5,6,7,8,9 speed trans with the 13, 15, 18 speed trans most have overdrive. they are many difrent trans out there i only know of a few of them mostly because the trucks i have drove over the few years that i have been driving. the rears are what really determin how fast the truck will go if you put a 18speed trans in a truck with 10.11 rears you will be able to pull a load up hill in 15th/16th gear but on flat ground it will only go about 30 mph (just guessing pro not actual) but if you put the same trans in front of 3.73 rears the truck will prob run 85/90mph but when you pull the same hill with a load you would prob have to drop to 2nd/3rd gear to get the load up the hill (just guessing) if it was me looking for a truck to haul the weight that you are wanting to haul i would get a mack with at least a 400 horse engine 18 speed trans 55,000 or 65,000 rears on camel back susp (most rock quaries use trucks with this spec or heavier)with 6.73 rear ratio this will give you a top speed of about 58 mph with 12.00x24 tires the coal truck that i drive has a 427 with a 18 speed and 6.73 rears with 12.00x24 tires and that is about what it runs on the highway on flat ground loaded at 2,000/2,100 rpm it may go a little faster or slower but that is what the spedo says. its plenty fast enough for me in a tandem with 45 tons of coal on my back. if it was a tractor/trailer it would too slow for my likes sence they hold the road beter and dont seem to be too top heavy. this is just my $0.02 worth. joe

east or mac or benson all make triaxle trailers that will carry 40 tons with no problem the coal companies around here use benson or mac trailers and carry 50 to 60 tons a load every day most of the tractors have 475 to 550 cat or cumminswith 13 to 18 speeds the only reason that they spec the trucks like that is we have mountains that are 12 to 15 mile pulls and they want to go as fast as they can and the heaviest rears that i have seen in a tractor for hauling that much weight on road is 46/48,000 lb and for off road they use 52/55,000 lb rears. as for the engine/trans it just depends on how fast you want to pull a big hill (which if you pull it faster you make more money). but like the other post said if you want a long lasting set up to handle off road punishment i would go with 65,000lb rears 18 speed trans and an engine with at least 400 horses. that is just my 2cents worth. joe

hello you can use both but the tractor/trailer would be better for long trips tanden/triaxles are capable of carrying 40/50 tons with a big enough bed but they will be slower than a tractor because they will be topheavy and they have to carry all the weight. with the tractor trailer they are not as top heavy because the trailers can be as long as 38 feet and they are faster because the weight is not being carried completely by the truck it is easier to pull the weight than carry it.so you can use a smaller engine to move the same weight faster. we had a tractor with a 300 maxidyne 6speed and it would move the same weight faster than the RD888s with 400 macks and 425 cats could at the trucking co i used to work for. joe

do any of you have the old die cast mack hood emblems DM-6oo for the cab and a dog for the drivers door. today i took the hood and cab emblems off the truck and in the process i broke the pins off trying to twist the nuts off to remove them (they are verry fragile) so i could start sanding and doing the body work for the old dog would like to have the die cast but would prob settle for the plastic. the door dog is chrome but it is pitted verry bad and would like to find another one the pass side dog is in good shape and the rad dog is in good shape. im trying to fix the old dog up a little and would like to make him look as good as poss..joe