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Western Contractor RD vs. RD


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The only thing I know for sure is that the Western Contractor RD has a hood that is 55" long vs. 57 1/2" for a regular RD model. Also, the fenders measure 17" high on the backside, vertically, behind the front wheels on my truck. Not sure if ONLY the WC RD has this measurement as I have read that 13" is a common height in that part of the fender. My question is; what other differences are there           between the two models? I doubt Mack built both just to have one with a slightly shorter hood. Anyone an expert on this?

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I believe mine has all those things. IDK about the axle setback. I wonder if the hood is also taller by a bit and if the WC is more compact in other dimensions than just the hood. Like I said, I can't see a truck manufacturer making two different body dimensions for such a minor difference only. Though the regular RD does come in 3 different fender lengths, 13", 14 1/2", and 17". Go figure 

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The only difference is the front bumper to hood grill (cannot have any bumper sticker out past the front of hood.  must be a flat line top to ground) and axle spacing for bridge law.  the whole design has to do with bridge law out west.  they count the bumper to back of a cab as a dimension that must be a certain length. also the normal mount of the bumper on any Mack is usually out past the grill.  for some reason that bumper sticking out is taken into the bridge law formula.  don't ask me why I don't understand it my self. 

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It's the distance from the axle centerline to front bumper that's critical- many states allowed a straight truck to be 40' long and for bridge formula purposes rounded fractions of a foot up or down. So a 3 axle mixer with a boost-a-load would have both the front steering and rear boost-a-load axle as close to the ends of the truck as possible, allowing an outer axle bridge dimension of just a hair over 35'6" which was rounded up to 36' in a 40 foot overall length. Thus the 28" bumper to front axle center dimension on a RD Western Contractor Special got the buyer an extra 500 to 1000 pounds of payload.

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