7Mary3

We run M2-112's with Cummins ISL-G natural gas engines. A lot less problems than current generation diesels, drivers and mechanics love them. Agreed the new mid-range Detroits are fine engines, heard good things about them. I expect Freightliner will be phasing out Cummins going forward. And they should offer a gas engine on the M2-106, they offer the PSI 8.8L LNG engine in the M2 through FCCC, no idea why they don't offer the gasoline version as well.

I believe that is indeed a widely held belief and from my perspective (35+ years in utility and municipal fleet maintenance) it is not true to any great extent anymore. No question it was true in the past, I remember when Chrysler was the biggest in fleet sales and their success was due in part at the time to their full vehicle line which included everything from police cars to school buses to heavy duty diesel trucks. Another reason was they practically gave vehicles away to fleets. 'One stop shopping' made things a little easier for purchasing departments, parts and service were simplified to a certain extent, but those advantages just were not enough to justify sticking with one make all the time. As an example, the fleet I work for now buys Ford and Chevy for light trucks, our latest class 4 and 5 purchases have been Chevy and Isuzu, and class 6 and above are almost exclusively Freightliner. Always interested to hear from someone on the manufacturer;s side, thanks.

The Acterra was interesting, basically a HN80 cab on an FL60/70 chassis. In effect it was a close approximation to the HN80 medium duty F series replacement Ford was working on before the sell-out. Since Ford intended to keep a nominal presence in the class 6/7 market after they sold out the heavy trucks to Freightliner, they stuck the then-new Super Duty cab on the old 1980-1998 F series medium duty chassis and created a 'new' medium duty conventional. It lasted only a couple of years before for the Blue Diamond joint venture. Funny Hebe originally intended Acterra to be a separate make that existing Sterling dealers could not sell unless they had an Acterra franchise. That didn't go over to well with Sterling dealers, many of which still sold Ford medium duty trucks anyway. That coupled with the pricing as you pointed out doomed Acterra from the start.

Hebe's Freightliner guaranteed price buyback program cost Daimler a lot of money. His record at Navistar wasn't too good either, but Ustain's decision to go with 'advanced' EGR probably did more damage to International. As far as Sterling was concerned, I heard the Hebe wanted Ford's dealer network and vocational presence more than anything else. In retrospect, Freightliner seems to have earned a strong vocational presence on their own, irregardless of Sterling. Although Freightliner bought the Ford HN80 for next to nothing, I never thought it was that great a truck. Freightliner put a lot of money in it and even created a medium line (Acteera) but it was never a strong seller. It's likely the HN80 would not have done any better under Ford ownership, so it's hard to say if the deal was really all that bad for Ford. That's the story I was told about the 'big block' Detroits, that they were indeed done by Detroit here in the U.S.. I suspect the new medium diesels were done in Germany and 'tweaked' by Detroit.

Mainly work. Over the past 4 years, we have been phasing out our class 6 and 7 diesels, replacing them with CNG powered units. The Freightliners we buy have the Cummins ISL-G. Drivers love them, quiet, no vibration, plenty of power. Mechanics love them, MUCH less maintenance and repair compared to diesels.

GM's upcoming Hummer BEV truck and SUV platform will spawn commercial vehicles. Rumor is something for UPS/FedEx/Amazon for one. And perhaps some military BEV's as well.

I am rapidly getting to the point that I have no use for diesel, period!

Exactly. And Mulally's biggest accomplishment was breaking the fiefdoms up. Unfortunately, after he left they came back.

One of my industry insider friends used to joke about 5 years ago that GM was hiring a lot of EV/BEV talent and paying them to do nothing in a office building in Warren, MI.......

Any news or rumors on the 650/750 update?

I think FE heads were lighter than regular Chevy Small Block heads!

No doubt the external exhaust ports helped, but that was the story I was told. And looking at the heads, I believed it! I don't miss tearing those things down, that intake was heavy.

Yes, Chevy did use that design on their 60 degree V-6's, I was told to facilitate better intake port routing as the space between the heads was very narrow. Not sure why Ford did it on the FE/FT, but I think the resulting small cylinder heads held the FT back a bit in larger trucks because they didn't have a lot of water in them. My employer ran a few 361XD's and they always ran hot when worked hard.

Deck height is 245.11mm, bore centers 115mm. Sorry, don't know the other measurements.

Might indeed be possible. Sleeves are another possibility. These modern low-tension piston rings do not cause a lot of wear anyway.