Not here anymore they laid off about 70% of the drivers & are rumored to be moving the testing to NC.

 

Autoshifts are Junk. Even the new generation. Changed out 2 XY shifters today trucks were only 2 months old and they have been updated parts. Have seen lots with grief of all kinds. Allisons are expensive but way more reliable.

 

the class 8 allisons are stout no doubt about it. they're 4000 series Allisons. Lots of heavy chassis wellhead service equipment has the allisons.

 

The ones we were testing which have not been released for sale yet were a vast improvement over the ones currently on the market plus we were testing some 18 speed autoshifts that were pulling 137,000 daily & spending at least 40% of the time on 6% grades.

 

Where did you do this testing?

 

Right out your backdoor on 26.

 

Outfit on Swan Island? I was going to go to work for them until I found out only night work was available. Not for me. How do they get away with 137,000 lbs around here? And where did the 900 ponies come from?

 

7 axles non-reducible load gets you 137,000 gross & the ponies come from hand built pumps that they claimed cost 1.5 million per, & they for sure were putting out some serious power since you could pull Biggs hill with that load & top it at 55 mph if you could hold on for the little bends.

 

I thought that outfit just hauled weight around and made a round trip for experimental purposes? What kind of non-reducible did you haul?

BTW, are you working now? Looking for work?

 

They took mt cans & then filled them with concrete to get up to weight.
And yes it was run as hard as possible til something broke.

 

You won't convince me, I think they are still junk. Eaton manuals are great just thier autshifts are junk. Not somuch the hardware just the electronics and contol components.

 

Then its nice that its NOT MY job to "convince" you my job was to test them to find the weak points & for some strange reason they can hold up pulling 137,000# 24/7 which seems to be enough for me.

 

I saw 2 of those rigs today. A 7 axle lowboy and an A train set. They were in the rest stop on 26 just East of Elsie. Talked to the doubles driver. He weighed about 105,000 but he said the lowboy was 137,000. Neither one had 900 ponies though. I followed them for a while before I got to a passing lane and they did OK up the hills but not 900 ponies worth.

 

A year ago they were testing some new pumps for Detroit & I could not even guess what they are testing currently some times they swap motors on a weekly basis.

 

I figured it depended on what tests were being done.