[Lewis Ranch]

So I've been on the hunt for another medium duty truck to pull goosenecks hauling hay and equipment. I've been looking at a fl60 Freightliner with the 3126 cat and 6 speed manual trans. Anybody have any good or bad experience with this line of trucks?

 

[mlappin]

So I've been on the hunt for another medium duty truck to pull goosenecks hauling hay and equipment. I've been looking at a fl60 Freightliner with the 3126 cat and 6 speed manual trans. Anybody have any good or bad experience with this line of trucks?

Dad owned an expeditor truck that was a FL60, overall good truck but several things are Freightliner only and they are very proud of their parts.

 

[ARD Farm]

3126's tend to develop leaks around the front timing cover and pop spacer gaskets ocassionally.

To bad you aren't closer. We have a single axle Volvo short nose conventional with an ISX Cimmins (pre tier 4) and a 10 speed roadranger that would make an excellent g'neck truck. I've been thinking about buying it myself.

I believe it's a 500 or about 2 times the balls the cat has and ISX's are basically bulletproof. It's a cummins/cat copied 3406 block painted red instead of yellow.

 

[JD3430]

I've yet to hear anything good about a 3126.
Would rather see 5.9/8.3 cummins or DT466 power if its gotta be a small diesel.

 

[Lewis Ranch]

I've yet to hear anything good about a 3126.
Would rather see 5.9/8.3 cummins or DT466 power if its gotta be a small diesel.

I thought the 3116 was the bad cat engine, from everybody I've talked to the 3126 is supposed to be a good engine in which the c7 cat was based. Only problem is they really aren't rebuildable, I will agree the 8.3 would be my first choice.

 

[ARD Farm]

They are all rebuildable (for a price) (with the exception of the 3208, thats a toss motor). Problem is support. Cat has divoriced itself from the on road engines so everything is now aftermarket.

The one 'bad' engine that Cat made was the C13 twin turbo ACCERT engine. As it attains hours/miles approaching 500K (miles) it either pops the head gasket or develops internal issues leading to a major meltdown. Guaranteed to blow at 500K or before.

Really, none are what I consider 'long term' engines today and all the manufacturers know that and have degraded their warranties to reflect that.

10 years ago you could extend the engine warranty on a DDEC engine to almost a million miles and it was not uncommon for a 60 series to run a set of mains 750K. Today you can't even get a 750K warranty on a Detroit.

From what I see in and out of the shop and our own private fleet, the ISX-C engines are the most trouble free (and simplest in design). Don't know about the little Cummins but the big ones seem to be working well as can be expected on DEF.

 

[JD3430]

See if you can find an 8.3

 

[ARD Farm]

I'm not in the sales department, I'm in fleet management which is seperate. You can contact Mike in Sales at Freightliner of Toledo (800-333-9087) www.freightlineroftoledo.com

We offer Freightliner trucks, new and used, WesternStar Trucks, new and used full parts service and collision and frame service plus Reitnauer trailers.

Hope the above link is permissible. I'm an employee in an unrelated department....

While I see inventory come and go, I don't have any 'hands on' contact..... I know when units are coming out of the fleet for retail sales and what units are on the block for removal. Thats it.

Like I know there is a day cab Western Star coming out with an 18 speed roadranger on 48 rears double framed double steering boxes with the most sought after and desireable Cat engine ever built, 17 liter NZ series 3406 Bridge thats well capable of 1000 ponies and still be reliable.

Got my eye on that one for a glider broject.

 

[Lewis Ranch]

I currently have a 95' westernstar with the 3406 cat. Problem is for the last few years most of my hay has shipped long distance and that combined with a 53' step was the best option but now it's staying more in this area and you can't manuever that rig like you can a single axle and gooseneck.

 

[crbearden]

This is an old thread but I hope this comment is still relevant. I bought an old County mechanick bed truck without the bed. A 98 Chev C8500 w/ 3126 & Allison Auto & single axle. Oiginally it was spec'd for a county dump truck and was used for one month as a dump truck. The mechanics had this truck pulled into the shop every night. It even smelled new inside. The Allison had been upgraded to the heavier older model from the original 643. The 3126 smoked out of the breather like a freight train after it warmed up. We pulled the 3126 and found out that we were a year too late to get the warranty rebuild that Cat had offered for engines built in France with porous cylinder walls. I am a Hy-Capacity parts dealer so, I purchased all the overhaul parts including pre-combustion cups for about $1200. I would have had that engine rebuilt for less than $2K if it had not been for the [email protected]#$%^d nachinist that was supposed to bore and install the sleeves. I can do it myself, I have all the equipment, but I got involved in a construction project and let this idiot do it. I had a young fellow that did part time work for me doing the overhaul. He picked up the block, and the "machinist" decided to charge $1800 instead of $300 for his part. He claimed that the sleeves I had bought were so hard it took a new tool bit on every cylinder. he also could only bore it out at 0.003in each pass......... I found out later that he worked with one hand clutched around a Coors can. Well, we got it runing and so far no problems. It will pull a 42ft tandem gooseneck at 65mph with 25 4x5 bales on it. The allison is nice when I need my wife to drive it. Since my knees are getting worse every year, I am getting to like that Allison also. You can also find a lot of those 3126 engines in school busses. As I understand the problem was with the ones built in France and they had porous cylinder walls. This let coolant get into the oil. The one we overhauled showed evidence of that in the main bearings.

I had a 3126 Cat in a 2003 Sterling single axle Class8 with a 40K figure 4 hydraulic boom. The truck was geared high because it was unloaded most of the time. Flat out it would have run 90. However, it had an electronic governor that would hitat 78mph and shut it down until 68 then open back up. Sterling dealer would not reprogram it due to liability issues. I hated to drive it since it had no power on long grades even unloaded. ( note that I was running in Western OK ) Flat as a board most of the time... I retired before I had to whip a service manager at the local Sterling dealership. Worst truck I ever had to drive. I brought it home from Louisville KY to OKC after the 4wd was installed at Marmon-Herrington. 60 mph top speed before the dealer prepped it. Truck did not even have a cup holder in it!!! Cab in my old 75IHC Loadstar was nicer!!!!!!!