More Old Trucks On The Road?

yep, 1693 was the original 425. Referred to it as the "Clatterpiller" because of the noise it made at idle.

 

LOL , as Dad always said when talking about a engine.... If your going to work a horse you gotta feed it .

 

not to mention the cool factor of a nice 359 is off the charts...

 

They idled a lot smoother than a Cummins, but they sounded like they were falling apart!

 

I don't know. A 70 foot beam on a 71 White COE? I ran a 83 white, I call BS on the one gear drop. Likely story.

This I have to see.

 

The truck itself has no bearing on what it can pull though. Engine / trans / diff's determine that. O'l Mr. Drake ran his Cabover GMC Astro pulling the exact same loads as we did. Most of us were running 290 to 350 Cummins and the 83 362 had a 310 hp Caterpillar in it. Mr. Drake was always right there within 15-20 minutes of our arrival time from Armco in Middletown, OH to Armco in Ashland, KY. Keep in mind he was running a 6V92 Detroit Diesel. The F-700 series Mack Cabover that Brian owned with a 237 had more trouble keeping up than he did lol.

 

A guy my dad drove for bought a few 352s from a babyseat manufacturer. This was in 1974. They were geared slow, around 60. Supposedly they were putting 500 to the wheels. My dad drove one hauling produce out of CA. He said that on the hills, he only had to split it to direct. He ran with a couple w9s that had 12v71s. They ran away from him on the flats, but he caught in the hills.

1693 Cat.

 

Thank you for your explaination. I feel better now that you presented good information. Ive been wondering.

For those Millenials too young to remember old iron, my White had a 300 cummins big cam. With a 9 speed eaton I think it was. ANYhow... as soon you hit a hill with that particular truck, she falls down on the rpms In order to kick that lazy engine up to down shift you had to kick the pedal twice.

Keep in mind there was NO computer anywhere on those old mechanically natural air breathing compression engines. What they did though to compenstate was make beautiful music when everything is in balance going down the road. And some days they really sounded good. Sometimes when they were sick, you could literally hear it coughing and know it's not feeling well. Im not trying to be strange talking about those old engines in human terms, but it literally was a advantage when you don't have a computer that sounds like a weed eater engine.

 

Too true! You used the gauges then, like oil temp. You could tell if you were working it too hard.

I learned in a 1964 Peterbilt 281 with a 262 Cummins and 4x4 trans. I didn't spend much time driving at the time. I didn't start driving for a living until 1998.

 

Yes, some of the old truck had like three dashboards worth of gauges. 40 or more. Almost like a 747 Pilot.

Any of the needles going a touch too high on a particular part of the entire tractor usually led to a very logical and progressive step by step of other needles increasing in temp or changes that diagnoses the problem in particular in a few miles.

I miss those days. Being able to mentally pull up the affected part or whatever is wrong in my visual mind and work the problem that is developing. I was at my best then.

Today's truck computers give you like only 4 gauges, how fast, when to shift, fuel level and coolant. I feel insulted. I don't want it.

Does that make sense?