Color of Semi Trucks motors, Broken down on the side of the road.

From Tim Ahlborn (Mackinac 359...Peterbilt expert)...


Engine color if in a pre 1984 Peterbilt:
Detroit Diesel
Caterpillar
Cummins

Engine color would be WHITE.

There were exceptions, but before '84 white was the color that Peterbilt ordered its engines. Caterpillar was the last to stop painting them white.

 

Not saying the newers Cats arent POS because unfortunately they are but its not always an engine issue when they are broken down.

 

Strip the emissions junk off and reliability increases dramatically. A local company here of about 200 trucks had a few DPF Cat's. One driver said out of the 3 years he drove his assigned truck it was in the shop a combined 11 months........all for emissions issues not engine issues. That's what amazes me about the guys with new trucks (owner operators) with EPA engines who insist on not stripping the junk off so they can "keep they're warranty". You know the warranty that covers all the stuff they would take off anyway.
Given a choice between a problematic unreliable engine with a warranty, or one that actually runs without a warranty, I'll take the 2nd option! When they start covering down time I'll keep it stock.

 

You may be right on that. I never knew why there were white Cat and Cummins, most that I seen were in Petes but seen them in others makes as well. Dont think I ever seen a white Detroit maybe it was the fact that the ones I did see or drive were covered with oil

 

I lifted my hood and found an orange cat. Frickin' thing sheds everywhere! My trainer said to drop the lasagna and back away slowly.

 

I have never seen a white cummins in a paccar product, all have been cummins beige. As far as the red cummins in the internationals, that was done by international.

 

You're right, I dont think the unreliability is all Cats fault, emmission restrictions are imposed on them by govt and it obviously hasn't been easy to meet but on the other hand a lot of failures I see with Acerts (the last Cat engines were got out here were your EPA 04 engines) are really just from poor design and underengineering, the same problem that the early Cummins Signitures had. I think newer stuff is designed by CAD operators rather than real engineers, They design an IVA housing that breaks in service they dont seem to understand why and beef up the housing in the wrong areas and now they still break, IVA oil pressure sensors that fail repeatedly, its an oil pressure sensor, surely they have figured out how to make a reliable one of those by now, it seem to me they are trying to keep costs down by using cheap suppliers, internal wiring routing is a joke, new engines with wires that get contacted by moving rocker arms, this is all really simple stuff I would have thought.

Remove emmision gear does make them more relaible I have no doubt, the first thing I tell customers to do with an Acert is put on free flowing mufflers but when you buy a new product it should at least be relaible from the factory, even if the power and fuel economy is not great.

 

I drove for a guy in Northern Ky years ago that had a 359 Pete 400 white Cummins. More than once I was told that was a odd looking CAT while I was checking the oil in a truck stop.

 

What year was the truck, both my Peterbilt and my Kenworth are from th era where if they had CATs in them they would be white, but they are both cummins powered and are both beige.