I do very little heavy haul anymore, it makes my day a lot easier pulling the semi dump over the mountain, and in our contract situation more money. Going around the pass takes up to 2 hours longer. That's why we truck, to make money, isn't it?
I've noticed on the forums drivers wonder why I need all that power to pull the end dump at only 80k. Some flatland wannabe truck drivers get "just flat" nasty about it.
I told one that he needed to get a life and got my post deleted.
What ever happened to the US federal regulation that mandated a certain of truck horsepower so as not to hold up traffic?
In our situation, with a narrow 2 lane road and a 9000 elevation pass to go over with heavy traffic, IMO the only way to go. I don't like to follow slow vehicles so I don't feel I should hold folks up myself. I get accused all the time of running light. My answer is, you are welcome to go in the scale house and look at my invoice ticket.
We still have my Pete 359 wide nose 1971 3 axle tractor in the yard. It had a Cummins NTC 335 when I drove it out of the dealership new. Didn't take long for me to uprate the 335 to a NTA 420 (aftercooler/pistons/injectors/cam timing) along with a Switzer 4LH turbo. Put a couple million miles on that in the mountains, still has the original crankshaft/flywheel/block, but that's about all.
Right now I'm having more fun modding the 7.3, and the motor parts are easier to lift also.
