My Dad had a ‘72 R686 with a 237 and a Maxitorque T2050 five speed with Mack 38k rears and a Camelback suspension, plus a ‘58 B61 with 180hp 673 and a Quadraplex with a fixed tag axle, both without power steering. He always praised the Mack powertrain and called other trucks component trucks. Although he had high praise for the Detroit Series 60. You just couldn’t kill those old Mack’s!
Best and TOUGHEST transmission Mack ever made... That triple countershaft setup can't be beat behind them old Maxidynes.... I still have a '69 R-686 Twin Screw Tractor on the road.... Hell of a truck!... If ya can put the power to the ground, and keep traction, they'll pull the world along with ya wherever ya want to go...
you bet yeah!!!! drove a 69 and 71 for RI BUSSE out of chicago, passed up petes and k whops with their hoods open all the time....the only thing that suck was getting DOTed...
Never cared for the maxidyne setup, best Mack I ever drive was an E6 360 with a Mack 10 speed behind it, kind of the opposite of a 237 and a 5 speed it was more like driving a normal Cummins except it lugged died a little better.
Macks always punched above their weight. That 12 liter would pull as hard if not harder than the 14 L Cummins and 15 L Cats. And they sound sooooo good.
@NPC-mt1cz no misconception. You are correct about Mack rating their engines at the wheels versus flywheel, but their stock and trade was their fast torque rise. This truck is a prime example......5 speed transmission and the ability to run above 65k gross combined weight. The Big 3 weren't doing that on a regular basis.
Absolutely the Maxi-Torque 5 speed and the 237-250-300’s were bulletproof, I’d love to find one to drag low boys with. An older DM800 with a 300 plus and #55k bogies with a #25k front axle, what a monster.
Seriously- is there anything more dramatic than a M A C K attack? The Look the Sound The feel Guddam transcendental experience For Me- I Tell Ya ..I walk away feeling 😌
Air starter I love. Mack is the only truck I've ever seen that keeps 100 lbs of air pressure over a 3 day weekend. Keep in mind the only thing airride on that truck was the airride seat. And the air tank was the big sidesaddle 50 gallon one.
The exact truck that I learned on & drove for 3 years straight , from 16-19.....was a 1975 R600 dump with a 15 cubic yard body & a 5 speed transmission.....What a truck.... Never touched that clutch except for 1st & reverse..
That must be a pre-1975 R600. My dad owned nothing but R600's (starting in 1975) but I've never seen that style dash before. Back then our trucks all had twin sticks and a very low gear for starting in the soft sand of our pit. At idle you could slide the stick into first with the clutch engaged and the transmission would give one click (no grinding) and then the truck would start to crawl ahead. A very low gear indeed. I miss the sounds in this video.
The metal dash is the older ones we have a R 600 with the gullwing hood and it has it I was told it was last made in 1967 the 5 speeds woud make a good city delivery truck no split takes a bit of getting use to the long rev change between gears easy to use done a lot of miles with it now just a retired farm truck still working just not on the long hauls got a v8 Ultraliner for that Its still a nice truck to drive not a bit rough to ride in very rough to ride in nothing has fallen off it alsmot identical to the day it arrived in 1983
Love these steel dash Bulldogs. 237 and 300+ Maxidyne matched with the 5 sp Maxitorqe transmission is a great setup. Sounds like 4 inch exhaust. Sounds so beautiful drove many a mile in these old dogs. Stay Safe out there, God Bless
@@Jeepdriver75 Ever 300+ I remember had 9 or 10 speed Roadranger transmissions. It had a narrower torque curve and needed a few more gears than the 5 speed.
When we were using 5 speed R models for pulling log trailers we often had to get a skidder or dozer to push them away from the loader because they couldn’t take off in the soft ground loaded. 6 speeds could. I do miss driving R models though, the sound and feel of the transmission is unlike any other truck!
Yeah we also have 2 tri-axle dumptrucks with the 6 and seven speed. Even the six speed's first gear is a little high for my liking if you get into soft ground. The seven speed however has a great low and reverse gear.
Back in the mid 70's my dad had a number of R600 with twin sticks. I believe the one stick was for the five gears in the maxitorque transmission and the other gave direct, low and reverse. Low was only used in first gear, so the effect was a six speed transmission. (I was pretty young back then so I may not be remembering this correctly). Anyway, our trucks often had to start out heavy loads (120,000lbs. or more on five axles) in the soft ground of our sand pits. With the truck in low range in first gear it would crawl away without having to touch the throttle. Back then my dad was able to order custom trucks from Mack and have them tailored to our needs. This made them a very effective truck and the R-600 ended up being the only truck my dad would buy until Mack stopped making them.
@@deborahchesser7375 100%....LOVE the mack R model my absolute fave truck. Used to see a MINT triaxle R Model all the time when i was riding my bmx bike and the roads near my house were being repaved. It was Straight piped and sounded absolutely AMAZING. Could hear it from so far away. SEARCH loud Mack R model oil truck on RU-vid here and that is a slightly tamer sound but exactly the same 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼
@@redline350zHR I think I’ve seen it 237 with a 10 spd sounds damn good if that’s the one. Check out DM886SX it’s green with a 300 plus Mack motor it’s a true bad ass Mack
The best straight piped engine sound. Mack trucks are undefeated on that part. Not Cummins nor CAT and neither Paccar or Navistar.They sound awful straight piped. This is the only truck that you can hear it from miles away and y'all say:that's a mack,a bulldog is coming.
I had a neighbor friend when I was a teenager who had a 72 R-600 that had a 6 cylinder Mack with a 5 speed gearbox. The tractor was set up for running chemicals and it had a pump on it that we rebuilt several times. I remember that he would run around 20,000 miles a month and he would bring it home to do the maintenance that we could do on it. Give it a bath and then he would be out on the road. He would mange to be home for awhile most days and then weekends. I was broken hearted when the news came that the crankshaft broke somewhere in Connecticut and he sold it for parts. Then he bought a 82 Binder Conventional with a Cummins and a Roadranger. At that point I was 18 years old and he taught me how to drive it. I had my Articulated license until he got divorced and moved to Illinois and then the government started with CDL’s. I had been injured in a motorcycle accident and I was concerned that the state wouldn’t allow me to continue driving. But that old Mack was a great part of my teenage years. Watching this brings back memories.
Put a 6 speed in that thing and a Jake brake . Shift with the Jake brake engine RPMwill come down fast so engine will never lay on it's face. Keep engine in its torque band 16 to 18 and you will save fuel. I did
Watchin' this and I'm missin' ridin' shotgun in bigrigs. This one has particular pzazz too thing's been running for what 20~30 years? damn! Slick drivin' to boot.
But I found that driving a Mack five speed vs a non turbo 6-71 or 8v71 Detroit is vastly different. The revs drop so quickly on those two cycle Detroits that you have to shift at lightning speed or blip the gas between double clutching. Meanwhile you have to wait for the revs to drop on a Mack five speed before shifting (read a short book! 😁) as I learned on an R model flatbed with a six speed T2060 with an Eaton tandem in 1991. Even driving a Series 60 is vastly different than the two cycle Detroits as the revs drop far more slowly. The revs didn’t drop quickly on the big Ford gas V8s like the 477 and 534.
Love that sound. Do you have any video's of this truck from a distance going through the gears? Or pulling a hill from a distance? Or even someone driving right next to you as you go through the gears?
What year is your truck I got a 1969 R model with the same dash in it and what motor is in yours I got the 237 Mack motor in my truck would like to see more videos of yours thanks
Yeah this truck is a 5spd, we have a triaxle dump with the 6spd T2060 (5 speed with low range in first/rev), and another with the T2070 7-speed (5 speed with low in 1st/2nd and rev). The 2070 is much nicer for any kind of off-road application.
I know. I thought he was sitting on the floor to start with. Why sit tall and proud when you can peer over the wheel like a little old lady on her way to church?
not sure what year the R model was introduced , around 66 I think , this one here is a 1966-72 R model , looks like it has some good gears in the diffs, my first job as a mechanic, my employer had 35 R models , they were rough and yes , shifting from 4-5 when accelerating, you hoped you were not climbing a hill .
My dad drove a Mack R model It was a 1968 to haul grain back in the 90s till the early 2000s. I remember the shifter bobbing furiously at certain RPM's that you would get up too at speeds on interstates such as I 70 and I 75. No point to my post just remembering the past.
The hoods on the R600's are too short unfortunately. You might be able to with the R700's, however engine compartment width may still be an issue. The Superliner hoods were designed with the length and width to accommodate such a massive engine.
If not an E6 237 it sounds like the ole 673 or 711 Thermodyne Mack that were in my families B models & very Early R models ( 66 & 67 Models) back in the day. Green dash tells me that's an Early R model up to an 72 or 73 model @ the latest. I miss that sound on a daily basis.
Wasn’t 73 the first year of the tan interiors? I drove a 67 R600 that was a 237 6 speed and it only had two parking valves that were between the seats on the back wall of the cab.
