HorsePower

I used to have a shiny 290 never took it to a landfill. Unless you consider Jersey city

 

Ever been in a landfill? 395hp is more than you need. In a landfill you need 24.5 tall rubbers and full lockers. Along with something other than a 10spd. Oh yeah. A good tow point in the front helps too. You will get stuck & you will need to be pushed/pulled.

 

Yup you got plenty of hp.... you just need lots of rear gear.... like 4.10 or higher

 

You don't need hp, you just need gearing, as low as you can go.Way back, drove a 76A-car show truck with a Spicer 6+1 with deep reduction and a little 290cummins, 11 x 24 rubber and that truck would just walk anywhere in the landfill and look good doing it.They just don't build them like that anymore.And I'm talking 60k in a transfer box. Here's a tip, don't ever try to make time in a landfill and keep a good eye on where your going. I can't even count how many times I've seen drivers with s//!+ wrapped around their driveshafts, mattresses are the worst.

 

Ive been up on a land fill twice in a 2001 century with automatic. It featured a manual gear selector so you can pick the right gear pretty low down in the box and get the thing up that vertical goat trail. It's not a place for tractor trailers but we got it done.

You do not want horsies as Tombstone69 stated. Reduction is your friend. Fortunately you have a mack. Which means you can go offroad. Very carefully.

Being a trash truck, you aren't in a hurry. Speed is not your thing.

They simply do not build trucks anymore. That's one reason I enjoyed that old Superliner with her 15 speed. You can gear it down lower than most of today's tractors can.

 

Good advice is given here.

If you are going into a landfill you need a truck that's geared more like a dump truck, geared low with a deep reduction and a good walking beam suspension or at least full lockers.

Actually the less horsepower you have probably the better. With a lot of horsepower you tend to spin the wheels and then they grab something solid and you blow out your rear or snap a driveshaft.

That is one situation where horsepower is not on your side. But the gearing definitely has the most importance.

 

I did rock crawling with a walking beam mack on milk farms in two instances every other day on my route and goodness it's better to do it in the rain so you can humor it across some of the larger boulders. Otherwise the tires grab and give you what I call hippity chop. The hippity is the hopping and the chop comes from the punch into your lower spine as the tires grab and #### near stall the engine which itself was in one hell of a first of 5 gears with a operating range of like 600 all the way to 2500. And were crawling at 1000 or less. Not too much.

That trailer would be rocking on the 5th wheel as we force it around in place on it's tandems. Pretty tense. Im just happy not to have to do stuff like that again. Some people love to go out and go rock crawling. But ive done it enough already long before they did.

 

Make sure the plate is on bottom of bell/housing where you grease throw/out bearing in case they pull your new truck from the trailer and get mud packed inside clutch? don't ask me how i know this