I've brought home some crazy projects, but my friend took the cake here.

Sooooooo ,
Eat your Jealous Heart OUT!
(I like the QUOTE : Not gonna buy another Truck !, at Least, Until.....
I FIND ONE ! )

 

use wd40 for starting fluid on diesels. it has lube and is will not damage the engine like either.chris

 

I was always told never use WD-40 on a Diesel it is water based and water will not compress and will bend or shrink your rods,bend valves etc.

 

I saw a restored Mack like this at a truck show last year. Beautiful trucks,and amazing how small they looked next to the new trucks. Cool project!

 

When somebody does a remake of "Duel" your truck gets the part. The origional was an old Peterbuilt, your truck is scarrier by far.

 

I think there was a Mack like this in Maximum Overdrive, now I'll have to watch it to make sure.

That is a TON of potential!!

 

That much ether is not good for a diesel. It's REALLY hard on the ring lands. A diesel injection pump is "timed" so doesn't inject any fuel until the pistons are near TDC. Ether ignites at a very low temperature as compared to diesel fuel, which means that the combustion event is happening quite some time before the piston is anywhere close to TDC. This is ESPECIALLY true when the engine has been running for a while and has some heat built up in the chamber. There is extreme preliminary ignition when it's done this way. I know diesels are basically "detonation ignition", but it is timed detonation. I hope your buddy doesn't have any cracked ring lands or broken rings in that McMotor.

Some responses mentioned that the ether provides no lubrication, which is true, but if you think about it neither does diesel fuel or WD-40 when it burns in the combustion chamber. Cylinder lubrication comes from oil being flung off the crank, and that being sprayed by the piston cooling oil jets, which spray oil on the bottom of the pistons to take away some of the heat. The only thing the diesel fuel lubricates is the injector pump. I hope your buddy's pump had some residual fuel in it to keep the plungers from scoring.

I know it's a pretty doom and gloom post, hope none of this happened, but I wouldn't do the ether thing any more than absolutely necessary to get it running on fuel. And don't load it up with spray before cranking the engine. Get it spinning, then spray.....

 

We were dicking around with it tonight. The tanks were already bypassed with two hoses right into the lift pump. One suction, one return. We purged all the old fuel and air out of the filter, and the hose from the filter to the injection pump, and it still won't run. It puffs grey/white smoke when you crank it, but just won't catch. You can still get it to fire on ether but it just craps out.

It would really help if we knew anything about diesels. We're just winging it.

 

Crack open the connections right at each of the injectors and crank it to see if you have fuel there. If there's air in those high pressure lines you'll never get it to start until you bleed them.

You admitted that your familiarity with diesels is limited. You really should seek out someone who knows their way around them, might save you/your buddy from making any expensive mistakes.

 

If I was him Id definately get my CDLs and he can make places to park it

 

I saw this at a show in January 2012:

 

sounds to me like the pump lost its prime.

 

One cool old Mack !!!
Love it...and thanks for the video..
Cheers......

 

i work a fall festival at a farm in northern ill and the farmer has 2 of the round fenders restored to show quality and they are beutifull

 

Cool old truck man. Tell your friend congrats on the find!

 

The two guys hosing ether in the videos were the diesel experts we know. One works at a diesel shop. I had to walk him through the wiring to get the truck started.

 

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Saw a super stock tractor run away at a pull once, scary as hell!

 

Those old Macks are cool rigs. I drove one that was a yard truck back in the late eighties, The split shift was a bitch to use.

 

that will be fun. reminds me of this build thread http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=439617&highlight

your friend might be interested in seeing it.

 

White smoke is no combustion. It's the raw fuel not getting hot enough to burn. Low compression does that. The ether should be getting the chamber hot enough to fire the fuel. You have extremely low compression if it will only run on ether and not run on fuel. Bad injector pump pressure or nozzles that aren't atomizing could contribute.

Now you know why it was parked.

I would have took the Autocar home...

 

There is a rumor that a diesel will get "addicted" to ether, in that once you start using it too much, the engine almost never starts without it. Don't know if it's true or not, but I think it might be. If there is an issue that makes the engine hard to start, and you use ether instead fixing the root cause of the hard starting, the root cause will only get worse. Too much spray can crack ring lands and break rings, thereby lowering compression. For a while you can get them to start by using MORE ether, which builds up some heat and get's it running on dinosaur blood. But after a while this addiction to ether renders the diesel a real pain in the ass to get running, and the only fix is either a rebuild or retirement.

This may well be the case here, it is an old diesel that may just be worn out......

 

I had a 4-53 that was like that. every morning, even when it was 80* air temps, ether the first start. Than the rest of the day it was OK. Had good compression and did not loose the prime. Just a bitch to start.

 

I had a 57 Mack B65T Triple frame concrete truck that I got for free. i had no way of moving the entire truck, so I took the cab, fenders, grill etrc and left the rest. I was going to build it on a E 350 chassis with a 6.9 diesel. The whole project stalled out and I gave the parts to a friend in Michigan who restores Mack B's. I still have the heater door cover, horn button, front hubcap,data plate, and dash insert from it. It had a thermodyne diesel and a quadraplex trans. If you write Mack trucks they keep records on all the trucks they've built and they will send you copies of all the paperwork, build sheet, order form etc. They even sent me a HUGE service manual for FREE, though they do take donations. Good luck on the project. I really wish I would have kept mine.
Matt

 

On the subject of CDL's, in some states it's not required to drive the truck as it is a "historical vehicle" and not being used commercially.You have to have it plated as a historical vehicle and have it posted that it is not for hire. I have a CDL A so it's not a problem for me.

 

I know the guy that currently owns the Pissed Off Pete, there's been some minor changes since those photos were taken but the truck is still badass...

 

Veery cool bigrig! I love these and them old Dodge"Big Horns" that used the 56?-60 Dodge truck cabs

 

It's interesting you should mention Dodge Big Horns. The guy that restors the B model Macks also has a restored Big Horn.

 

That's why my friend has the board ready. We've seen enough run away videos on YouTube.

 

That'd be a great little commuter! Ha! Oh Lordy..