Saw an old B-Model Mack tractor today on the back of a trailer. Dang I love those old rigs! Some of the old timers say they were sometimes hell to drive with the quadraplex transmission and the "Armstrong" power steering.

 

"Armstrong" power steering! :hellno:

God those were the days!! You had to know how to back, with that steering system! You woulda wore yourself to a frazzle if you didn't learn quick!! :bow: :bow: :bow: :bow:

 

I learned on a 1959 B model, used to have to stand up to make a turn, Stan's right you learned fast or you wore yourself out.

It's why I hate Macks, they were not driver friendly back then.

Check this out.............he's got it covered !

YouTube - Quad Box Shifting!

 

Now that dude was flat SHIFTING a quadraplex!

 

That would get old really quick

 

It did..........That's why I have to laugh at all this "retro" crap in the truck world today, the "good old days" weren't all that great, that ol B-model I drove, no A/C, no air seat, no power steering, no air ride, no radio (couldn't hear one if there was)

I'll keep my air shifter, power steering and air ride any day over that stuff

 

That style truck is not for the faint of heart! Back then...the guys you saw driving those trucks...Not an ounce of flab on them!

The old B was one of the trucks I learned to drive in. We had a 58 Mack on the ranch, that we used for feeding, during the winter. You could set it up for idling down a meadow, get out on top of the trailer and start kicking hay bales off in sections. Just kept an eye out for the ditches! If the truck started off centerline, someone would climb back down and correct the course!

LOL.....Great truck for ranching or farming...great for logging and dump trucking....but not what you wanted to cruise the road in for certain! A town like Butte Montana, in the old B, could kick yer azz in 20 seconds and not break a sweat doing it! Lot's of hills and stop signs! I hauled one load of calves to the livestock auction yard there...picked a couple loads up there, when I was still in high school. Those were some long days! Climbing the old "Pipe Stone" pass, with a trailer load of calves, was a shoulder breaker!

Last I knew, that truck was still being used by an old rancher as a snow plow! He had a bunch of counter weights from one of the mines bolted to the frame. I would bet the same seat is in it! Just a new piece of carpet thrown across the springs and wires!

When I got to drive the new Chevy stock truck....I never went back to the Mack!

 

lol I could talk to you old timers all day man.

 

I haven't driven one of those in over 30 years. You could really work up a sweat in the summer shifting all those gears. I lost my brakes once in a truck that had a quadraplex. Now, that was interesting.