RZucker
Senior Member
I think a loy of that "unfriendliness" has to do with the amount of money the company has lost on warrantee repairs on EGR coolers, VGT turbos, and aftertreatment products, the profit margin has to be getting pretty thin.
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Memories for us old truckers
- Thread starter Truck Shop
- Start date
I think a loy of that "unfriendliness" has to do with the amount of money the company has lost on warrantee repairs on EGR coolers, VGT turbos, and aftertreatment products, the profit margin has to be getting pretty thin.
Truck Shop
Senior Member
Little know fact but Cummins has changed hands 4 times in the last twenty years IIRC.
Truck Shop
Truck Shop
RZucker
Senior Member
A little preview of the pics I found. "61 KW I drove on weekends when my grain hauling gig was Monday through Friday .It had a 350 Cummins with a 9513, I actually drove it more before the sleeper was installed. I actually found this truck for the owner, it was about 4 miles from Truck Shop's Mack. At the time it had a really strong NH250. Wish I had bought the thing myself. 
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Truck Shop
Senior Member
Ah ha a new photo poster! Nice old girl RZ.
Truck Shop
Truck Shop
Birken Vogt
Charter Member
Can you clarify that a little? As far as I know they have been a public corporation for a long time. I do agree their customer service has gone you know where.
Labparamour
Senior Member
RZ,
I love the hounds.
Here’s my girl....getting ready for the day.
When she’s on, she’s on but, when she’s ready to relax...
I’m loving the pics and vids on this thread.
Darryl
Truck Shop
Senior Member
Public or not corporations get bought and sold. And I very well could be wrong but they had a very
large cash infusion in the early nineties. The big cam engines hurt them severely. Then they started
to branch out with Onan, Nelson and Holset.
Truck Shop
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DMiller
Senior Member
Same is holding true around here as well TS. Just had that run in with the local Cat house, Cummins is a royal mess down in STL, the Detroit Dealer is not much better and chassis Manufacturer shops are iffy at best.
RZucker
Senior Member
They really don't turn out too bad just snapping them with my phone. But I need to get them scanned, they are loosing color and focus. There are some pics from the early 60's of my grandfather's equipment spread.
RZucker
Senior Member
Thanks, Cooper is a rescue dog, the vet said Black and tan and Bluetick cross, with a bit of something else. I think there's some pointer in there, he loves to point quail in my shrubs.View attachment 182677
RZ,
I love the hounds.
Here’s my girl....getting ready for the day.
When she’s on, she’s on but, when she’s ready to relax...
I’m loving the pics and vids on this thread.
Darryl
Wes J
Senior Member
I worked for a company that made some parts for Cummins. I wonder if their own internal quality control is as strict as the ringer they put their suppliers through. They were brutal to work with.
Cummins doesn't seem afraid to get in bed with other manufacturers. They have had a long relationship with Case IH and some of the smaller Cummins engines are very similar to old IH and Case engines. Case New Holland now owns the Italian engine manufacturer IVECO, so I don't know what the status of that relationship is.
They have some Chinese stuff going with Dongfang. I don't know who is the winner in that situation.
I know that they have owned Holset since the 70s. But, I don't know about the others.
The biggest thing Cummins has going for it is that they have outlasted everyone else. They are really the only independent truck engine option. Paccar has their own, Freightliner has what's left of Detroit Diesel, Mack and Volvo have their own, International had their Maxxforce disaster and is now using Cummins. No more Cat.
So, even though the ISX is/was a pile of junk, they sell a ton of them because there is nothing else.
Truck Shop
Senior Member
Your correct Wes, Cummins sells right now because there the only Independent left standing. Back when Cummins was making the BCIV, New BCIV, NT88 and the 444 there
were several class action suits against them. Some of the big fleets like C.R. England had bought hundreds of trucks powered by the Big Mistake. The word was out on those
engines and Cummins sales plummeted, stock was real cheap. The one thing that redeemed them sort of was the design of lower press fit liners starting with the NT88 but
even the NT88 was a turd. It was a know stay away from NT88 CPL numbers 839 & 840-total problem child's. Then Cummins ReCon engines were trouble- they were installing
that wonderful piece of crap called a repair sleeve in a last ditch effort to save old blocks that had bad counter bores. When installed one repair sleeve was cut into the other
repair sleeve because Cummins {IMO} could never figure out they needed to change the bore spacing. There was no meat left between counter bores after a 20/40 liners
had been installed. Had Cummins added just 5/8" to the length of the block when building the 335 they wold have had less deck issues. Cat, Detroit and Mack had less issues
because they didn't have three heads. The old variable time 475's with twin turbos is a great example of too much boost using a three head system. You couldn't keep head
gaskets in those engines, broken head bolts, cracked water ports and counter bores that ended up crooked as hell. The deck surface was so waved out from end to end
after 400,000 miles coolant leaked from the head sealing area like a soaker hose.. But even after all that I still like CPL 625 BCIII those were good engines.
Truck Shop
were several class action suits against them. Some of the big fleets like C.R. England had bought hundreds of trucks powered by the Big Mistake. The word was out on those
engines and Cummins sales plummeted, stock was real cheap. The one thing that redeemed them sort of was the design of lower press fit liners starting with the NT88 but
even the NT88 was a turd. It was a know stay away from NT88 CPL numbers 839 & 840-total problem child's. Then Cummins ReCon engines were trouble- they were installing
that wonderful piece of crap called a repair sleeve in a last ditch effort to save old blocks that had bad counter bores. When installed one repair sleeve was cut into the other
repair sleeve because Cummins {IMO} could never figure out they needed to change the bore spacing. There was no meat left between counter bores after a 20/40 liners
had been installed. Had Cummins added just 5/8" to the length of the block when building the 335 they wold have had less deck issues. Cat, Detroit and Mack had less issues
because they didn't have three heads. The old variable time 475's with twin turbos is a great example of too much boost using a three head system. You couldn't keep head
gaskets in those engines, broken head bolts, cracked water ports and counter bores that ended up crooked as hell. The deck surface was so waved out from end to end
after 400,000 miles coolant leaked from the head sealing area like a soaker hose.. But even after all that I still like CPL 625 BCIII those were good engines.
Truck Shop
hvy 1ton
Senior Member
Cummins hasn't put any engines in CNH Ag equipment since 2008. After that it's been all FPT/Iveco.
DMiller
Senior Member
Fiat Allis ended up with a breed of Iveco engines, could not keep heads or head gaskets on them as had a free standing cylinder arrangement NO continuous block deck(saved weight and material during casting} In other words CHEAP as CRAP. Mack sold the MAGIRUS line of trucks as their own when I worked there, called them Mid Liners and were the epitome of JUNK.
I do not see much of ANY decent engines or equipment any more.
I do not see much of ANY decent engines or equipment any more.
RZucker
Senior Member
Looked at a Midliner "conventional" with service body once... Ran away screaming.
Wes J
Senior Member
I thought Midliners were Renaults from France.
RZucker
Senior Member
Actually, I think you're right.
Little service call this morning . Buddy Wayne got hit by DOT yesterday with a grocery list of issues . None of them put the rig in any danger .
What got him pulled over was a binder chain around the trailer dolly brace struts . What happened is he caught some rail road tracks pulling into a job site . Tweaked the landing gear a little & popped the diagonal brace off at the aluminum bracket on the trailer frame . So to get home he chained the brace rod up to the trailer .
He needed to leave with the truck today at 3:00 pm ....
Told him I could not get it done in time to where DOT would pass the repair work on the landing gear .
He said OK ... I'll go ahead & haul this load as it is and bring the rig over Friday & fix the landing gear . I said " Cool ! "
Buddy Wayne is an old school trucker . Turned 81 last month .
Funny part was he hollered at me as I was leaving . Walked up to the vehicle & said ..... " If you ever catch your boy playing with toy trucks in the sand box make sure to tan his hide good so he wont grow up to be a truck driver " . LOL !
Got the landing gear lined out .....
I first thought Damn ! Just Damn ! But was able to glue the pieces back & hammer things in place . Had to make a new drive shaft connecting the landing gear as the old one was left on the job site . Went better then expected & someone got a load of lumber the next morning .
Keep on Truckin Old Buddy !
Birken Vogt
Charter Member
California Dept. of Forestry had a bunch of them, they were the main thing for a while. They replaced some old C-series Ford and International cabovers with 3208s and 466s and such. I saw at least one here locally where they ripped out the Frog engine and put in a C-series Cummins. Well years went by and Mack abandoned that platform entirely and they could not get support any more so the Macks are gone but some of the old Fords and IHs they replaced are still around.
Truck Shop
Senior Member
Pete used those Renault piles in there business class beaters some years ago. I did a in-frame on one ten plus years ago-before I got done I was looking for a step stool and a rope.
Truck Shop
Truck Shop