• 2010 Kenworth T800 Owners Manual

2010 Kenworth T800 Owners Manual

Still one of my favorites, this example, a 1980 International Transtar Eagle, belongs to Steve Constantin of Hamilton, Ontario. Photo by Jim Park When it comes to the trucks they drive, the men and women who today steer and gear this nation to prosperity have never had it so good. I spent the past weekend at the Classic and Antique Truck Show in Clifford, Ontario, about three hours northeast of Detroit, Mich. The show was sponsored by the Great Lakes Truck Club, and drew more than 200 pre-1975 vintage trucks and about 100 more '80s and '90s long-nose and cab-over-engine classic trucks. What struck me while walking the show was how many of the trucks on display I had driven over the course of my career – not the actual trucks, mind you, but similar models. It was a bit like going out for dinner with all your ex-wives and former girlfriends at once.

Talk about stirring up ghosts. This 1988 R-Model is hardly changed from the '75 model I started on. Still one of the best trucks ever for drivability, IMHO. Photo by Jim Park I learned the craft on a 1975 R-Model Mack, and I've had a soft spot for the R-Model ever since. It wasn't very roomy. The windows were small, and climbing out of the thing could be perilous.

But it was comfortable and it held the road like few trucks I've driven since. There were about dozen really well preserved examples of the R-Model at Clifford, and I savored every one of them. Also present were a very healthy number of working Freightliner COEs.

The second company I worked for had a bunch of them, but they were all pretty old even then. My steady ride was a '73 Freightliner COE. This was about 1980, and that truck was one of the older ones in the fleet.

It had a ridiculously short wheel base and manual steering with some sort of odd air-assist system. You could turn it off on the highway, thank God, because it wasn't as sure-footed as my R-Model. In fact, the air-assist seemed to pulse, which caused the steering to jerk, and that caused some stress on tight corners. Check out this for more on what drivers had to contend with back in the so-called good old days. But here's the best part. The trucks were designed short (164-inch wheelbase) in order get in under the length restrictions in place at the time for pulling A-train doubles, in this case very tall non-baffled tankers on air-suspension, loaded three-quarters full of asphalt. Between the short truck, the jerky steering and the air-sprung tankers swaying away behind me, there was never a dull moment driving those trucks.

My favorite truck at that fleet was a '69 Freightliner with a 220-inch wheelbase and a naturally aspirated 6V-71 Detroit. It could barely get out of its own way with a 115,000-pound tri-axle load behind it, but it rode as smooth as glass. There were several sweet-looking old Freightliner COEs at Clifford as well. This '76 Freightliner COE is much the same as my '73, but slightly longer. This one belongs to Mark Patience of Thamesford, Ontario. Photo by Jim Park Among the more entertaining trucks I drove during my first 10 years in the business were a late '70s long-nose Western Star day-cab without power steering (for a city delivery outfit); and an early-'80s Freightliner COE with a double-bunk sleeper, a 244-inch wheelbase and a 'buzzin' dozen' under the doghouse. That's a two-stroke V-12 Detroit that made 525 hp at 2400 rpm, but only 1,300 lb-ft of torque.

It went fast, but didn't pull hills very well. This 2015 Freightliner Argosy is obviously not a classic, yet.

Compare it to the '76 model above. Photo by Jim ParkThere was also a rare Cummins 903 V-8 in there as well. It was in a Hayes COE that had a Mack F700-style cab. The 903 was usually found in farm tractors, boats and even a few shunt locomotives. There were a few in trucks, but mostly I think they were drop-ins, not original equipment. It was one of the most distinctive-sounding engines out there, and it was loud as hell. It's official, finally; hours of service is going electronic.

In his On the Road blog, Equipment Editor and former driver Jim Park tells fleets and owner-operators to prepare now for a cut in productivity and make the necessary adjustment to your operation while you still can. You simply won't believe your eyes when you see what some dumb-.ss truck driver is doing in this YouTube video.

Equipment editor Jim Park is just glad he was kind enough to leave behind this bit of evidence. Does anybody have any idea who this guy is?