Just some work pics

Tradesman said:

I've been saving this because I knew eventually you'd come over to the dark side.

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I knew this was coming, the whole way back I was muttering to myself in the cab........

crane operator said:

I knew this was coming, the whole way back I was muttering to myself in the cab........

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It's like anything if it's the right tool for the job use it. Hope it works out for you.

Looks like a great truck crane, strong, simple and likely will be a great money maker with easy maintenance.

Congrats man. I know I was pretty impressed with the 1295 i spent to day in. Smooth operating boom truck. Seemed like it had a pretty good chart from what I remember. Your gonna enjoy the 350 hp and 95' boom.

Gold dog is for a Maxi-Torque engine, silver for a Maxi-Cruise. The 350 is a Maxi-Cruise. The difference is the percent torque rise.
That's the R-model cab, virtually unchanged since 1965. They are hot, adding insulation helps. There should already be a heater hose shut-off, it'll help. The CH cab was the comfortable cab, it had about 1.5" of insulation on the floor and firewall.

mitch504 said:

Gold dog is for a Maxi-Torque engine, silver for a Maxi-Cruise. The 350 is a Maxi-Cruise. The difference is the percent torque rise.
That's the R-model cab, virtually unchanged since 1965. They are hot, adding insulation helps. There should already be a heater hose shut-off, it'll help. The CH cab was the comfortable cab, it had about 1.5" of insulation on the floor and firewall.

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This site is amazing- you guys are a fountain of information, I knew someone would chime in.

Monday I've got three different crane's to move, then I'm going to dive in on it. Unfortunately everything is headed back to the yard, I guess its time for late summer lull. I'm going to figure out the surging first, then I've got to do something about the front steering, I'll never make it into a tight jobsite like it is now. Then everything else.....

crane operator said:

Good: like the mack cab, roomy and good visibility,

Seems like a ton of heat in the cab, maybe that's all mack's, but I'm going to check heater hoses/ install shut offs, and seal up around the shifter boot to start.

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I think you're the first person I've ever heard say that a mack had a roomy cab. Remember to keep your fingers curled around the steering wheel when making turns. I forgot one day and palmed the wheel around, drove the ring and middle fingers of my left hand into the front corner post.

95zIV said:

I think you're the first person I've ever heard say that a mack had a roomy cab. Remember to keep your fingers curled around the steering wheel when making turns. I forgot one day and palmed the wheel around, drove the ring and middle fingers of my left hand into the front corner post.

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I'm kinda tall at 6'6", and I struggle with some cabs for leg room, cabovers are real bad, some kenworths the lower dash nails my shins. The truck crane cabs that I mostly drive, are really small. The only real trouble in the mack was the clutch pedal is kinda high, and my leg ends up by the steering wheel against the door.

I guess I was kinda surprised, I had heard the Mack cabs were real tiny and I was worried, but they're not too bad. I can see how you would get your hand on the post, I looked at it today.

Evidently it isn't a 350 hp, its 300 in a EM-6. I don't know how to identify between maxitorque and maxi cruise, I imagine that's injectors, pump settings etc?

Finished flying off the manlift from the 10th floor of our big building project this morning. I went up and rigged it and took some pictures.

Okay, here's the mack hood tipped to its stop, with the boom in the rest. I'm thinking I can run the ball up almost to 2 blocked. I'm going to make up a ratchet strap, to go between the ball and the front bumper. In the morning you should be able to pop off the strap, tip the hood, check oil and antifreeze, without having to start the crane and let out cable.

Get to the job, pop off the strap without having to go up in the cab and let out cable.

Get done, boom it down in the rest, and then when down on the ground doing outriggers, put on the ratchet strap.

The hood will just clear the ball, with the boom in the rest.

It doesn't have on of those winch buttons on the front bumper.

Took down a 40 ft tall dust collector today, in two pieces (which were subsequently further disassembled).

Welcome to the Mack club, I didn't know there was such a thing until I got mine. I have a picture on your front end headache ball/hood situation I'll post later, and how I resolved it on my National. But for now, here's a couple Mack mutts having a faceoff, mine and a welldrillers rig I was on a job with last week.

That's funny, a well driller's truck I'm guessing.

My rig came with a hand winch to tension the winch line while going down the road, here's a pic. The setup goes: the first thing I do when getting out of the truck cab is to walk around the front and undo the load hook, I use a large crescent wrench) then the outriggers, then I'm good to crawl up in the cab and go right to work.

When I'm done working, I stow the boom, retracting it in to 32.2 feet, which is so I can fit it in my shed AND close the door. I can open the hood enough to check the oil and the rad fluid, I have a wood prop to keep it up in the partially open position. After retracting, I winch up almost enough to suspend the ATB weight so it doesn't jerk on the switch (but not quite, I don't want the buzzer going off while I'm retracting the outriggers) while going down the road, then outriggers up, and then back up in the cab to raise the winch line the last few inches to hold the ATB weight up, and then I shut it down and the last thing is re tension the winch. One thing I have learned to watch out for: while I am busy picking up my pads and stowing the outriggers, some well meaning soul will often snap the load hook into the winch, the problem there is when I get back in the can and then winch up that last 12" or so, it rips the winch strap up/off! I have taught my regulars to NOT hook me up, ever, "I'll get it," no big deal as the strap is just scrap 2" load binder webbing, but still it can get annoying have to replace so I have gotten in the habit of walking around the front to eyeball it first. Since I don't want my headache ball banging agains the steel front outrigger, I have a sacrificial scarp of glu lam secured there, that I replace when it gets ate up.

If you are not tight for room lengthwise like I am when parking, why not just leave the boom run out a bit so you have free access to the hood?

Got to go set a couple generators today, both at cell phone sites. Took the 25- 3,000lbs or so. Was a tight fit in the fence at the one site.

Pictures of the condo building we finished up. Also got the 70 ton home and we needed to fix a outrigger. These drop out the bottom, so it takes a little cribbing to get them out.

craned this pipe today. The towers to the left to be taken down soon also.

Most of the outrigger pads on my new little boom truck have broken ears on them. I hate it when the pads won't hang, so I spent the other day welding blocks on them, I've got the new bronze latches ordered.