Deuce life expectancy.

[ken]

We were talking in another thread about milage on a duece. And how to make them last longer. What do ya'll consider high milage for one of these? i've put more that 160K in the last decade. To some this seems quite high. But for a diesel truck this doesen't seem much to me. Who else has broke 100K? What have you found to be major wear items? Mine have been tires. NDT's wear pretty quickly. And axle pinion bearings.I have replaced them in all three axles. Not to mention spindle bushings. Untill i got lockout hubs. I've gone through two water pumps and 4 generators. (60 amp). How often are you changing your oil? I'm doing it every 2K.

 

[Westex]

This mileage figure you recite imho just shows that these really are TOUGH engines as well as trucks if not over reved and maintenanced correctly.

 

[The G Man]

Sounds like you just got it broke in.

 

[armytruck63]

My deuce has about 31,000 miles on it. I've put probably 3,000 miles on the truck in eight years. The previous 28,000 were military service and movie rentals.

So now, at about 400 miles a year, I would say the truck is semi-retired.

 

[Coal Cracker]

Wish I had the pop corn guy

 

[steelandcanvas]

And then you can have 12k miles on her and throw a rod. You don't know how it was taken care of before you.

 

[Wildchild467]

did you have any spin on filter conversions? with all those miles, what kind of fuel milage do you seem to get?

Good job with all the miles! they sure do like to be run!

 

[Wolf.Dose]

Lifetime of a Deuce, a very good question!
To what I know what the US Army did in Germany: They run the truck some 50000+ miles and than they go to depot maintanance, which means the trucks were completely disassembled, all groups completely rebuilt like engine, axeles, transmissions etc., frames and other stell parts sand blasted, primed, repainted (and during that more or less lost a good part of the readability of numbers punched into these parts).
Then the reassembled them in the so called "all new" state. The odometer after that was reading 0 miles.
On the seat base they affixed little triangle plates which documented the total rebuilt. However, these tags are part of the seat base and will most commonly say nothing about the other parts. The reassembly used just the parts available and NOT the original parts that belong to the frame. I know this for I once visited with the Escadron de Souvenier the depot in Savem, Lux, where they rebuilt the trucks (1984).
Engines are relatively easy to check, for they carry the tags of rebuilding on the engine. So you can say for shure about these engine, when they have been rebuilt the last time. If lucky, you find bearing and piston oversizes mentioned. Thats all.
For these trucks are babys of their time, the design engine livetime is probably limited to 5000 engine hours in hands of a carefull driver. Or some 250,000 miles, which is a lot for a truck designed in the early sixties and based on a design of the early fifties.
Wolf

 

[markmontana]

? i've put more that 160K in the last decade. To some this seems quite high. But for a diesel truck this doesen't seem much to me. Who else has broke 100K?

Ken, so far you are the high mileage KING. Great info on your truck and your experience, thanks! Drinks are on me if we ever run into each other...

 

[Earth]

My Deuces are immortal.

There is a logger in the next town over that likes to brag how his early 70s log truck, of which he is the one and only owner, doesn't have one single original part on it. He has even replaced the cab. I have a million mile Peterbilt, so we know trucks can last, and go for the high miles. Green ones too!

Thank you Ken for telling us about all those miles. Bet you still have that little wire holding the tamper proof cap on the FDC fuel adjustment! The best running Deuce I have has about 45,000 miles on the clock. The worst had only 9,000 miles on it, but the rings had collapsed, so now it has 98 miles on a new motor. I have been "rotating" my use of the Deuces here on the farm, so they only get about 1,000 miles each per year. I rotate so I can claim to the boss that I need them all; a strategy I'm sure she sees through. My favorite is an ugly drop-side with an LDS. This truck likes hills. That's good here cause you are either going up or down in this part of VT. We only have one place on the whole farm where it's level enough to check the oil.

I've had to replace/re-build alternators. Haven't had a bad water pump. Changing oil regularly and using Rotella. Changing out axles and tranny oil when I get them. New coolant and block heaters. I've been buying spare parts and putting them in inventory, like we have always done with the tractors.

Great post. Not that its bad to hear about shot rods, but it's excellent to hear about 160,000 miles!!!

 

[WyoDeuce]

Ken, Thats awesome. 160K is allmost unbelievable. I can only hope I make it that far. I am at 26,xxx. Mabey in a couple decades I will break 100K!

 

[bassetdeuce]

In a past axed A3 thread, Lonegunman challenged me by saying "you can chime in" when you have a multifuel that makes it 100,000 miles. His opinion was that a CAT 3116 was so good, yet the multi/A2 was junk (not capable of lasting like the CAT). I doubt I'll ever get to 100,000 on any of our 3 Continental LDTs, or even our NHC250, so I say congrats Ken! You make us proud.

 

[Josh]

To answer your oil change question, 10k miles or 1 year what ever comes first.

 

[jesusgatos]

Ken, I LOVE hearing that. I put 4000 miles on Mah Deuce in the first year that I owned it. Almost finished going through the whole drivetrain. Just doing a light overhaul, but I'm getting ready to swap-in a brand new/rebuilt LDS (along with the turbo you ported for me). Running all Amsoil fluids, and I've got a Spinner II centrifuge that I'm planning on installing. Don't intend to change the oil any more often than I have to, but I'll have it sampled regularly. Also going pretty nuts with fuel filtration. Going to be running a full-kill system made up of RACOR components. Doing everything I can to build-in reliability. Hope it all holds together, because I'm planning on logging a lot of miles in this thing.

 

[Wolf.Dose]

Oil change intevals: Annually is a good choise. Especially if the truck is driven only short distances. With long distances it is not so critical with nowadays oil. I change on my M715 and my J24 the oil about every 6000 miles without looking for the time. I experianced, it is a good choise between time and distance travelled. Transmissions in the J24 get every 2 years new oil, in the M715 every 8000 miles (even the manual says every 12000 miles). That is a good choise for me between oil wear and time.
Wolf

 

[papabear]

i've put more that 160K in the last decade. To some this seems quite high. But for a diesel truck this doesen't seem much to me.

Dang...you put 16K miles per year on a deuce?
I salute you Sir....I don't wanna drive a deuce, 5ton, or any other MV 500 miles per year...but then again...

I'm old, fat and lazy!!

 

[lonegunman]

I will agree with the Basset, there is at least one multi-fueler out there that made it past 100K. There are thousands of 3116's out there with 100K plus on them. My brother wrenched on A2's when he was in the army and when queried he felt the A3 was a better choice of deuce. He liked Cummins engines better than Cats, but that is a different story all together. He also said that on multi-fuelers, the rods were prone to exit the block and that happened a lot more often than he liked. He felt the engine was not prone to long life when operated by the typical grunt.

Everything is rebuildable and replaceable on an M35 and nearly all of it is available. I like the fact they are short on electronics and have nothing related to a computer.


After driving 3,000 miles in mine, I am hoping you got a more comfortable seat to make those 16,000 miles a year bearable.

 

[bassetdeuce]

Lonegunman, some folks with A2s probably do have over 100,000 on two rebuilds and just don't know it. One thing I've learned about all of our MVs is that the guages suck, and are an estimate at best (maybe not - replaced several times during the trucks lifetime). Then again some were almost never driven, like the some of the ones you experienced. I'd also wager that the high milers are much better runners than the garage queens. My best running deuce has a motor and running gear that looks like its been through he11 and back (a very USED truck). A couple class II leaks, but runs perfect. A former Army depot level mech took a long look over that deuce of mine and crawled under it looking at god knows what, then said "I would sign that truck off as fit for duty!" I dunno, but if I needed to choose a dependable truck to make a somewhat slow escape with, I'd poke the button on that one.

 

[bassetdeuce]

Hey Lonegunman, you re-wrote your post.

 

[pittdog]

The military should have never got rid of em ! that new crap they got now, there top heavy, and you need a electro degree to fix em !