Brockway 361 “Ms. Alison”

This ol girl appears to be a 71-75 model. She has a 1674 Caterpillar turbo diesel mill in her and is riding on 22 inch Dayton hubs.

This truck needs a pretty substantial amount of work, but she’s not bad. Body wise the right hand side is for some reason the only part that has corrosion issues. 1/2 of the butterfly hood will need replacing or at the least a patch, and same goes for the door. The fender seems to have delaminated (aftermarket fiberglass fenders) so I’m going to be repairing that.

Mechanically, she ran and drove to that spot about 10 years ago. These precup cats are good motors so I doubt any issues will have arisen. Needs a shutdown solenoid or a conversion to cable. Transmission is good, 5x4 air shift. Nice.

The hydraulics for the dump body are messed up and don’t work but I don’t really care. Honestly the box itself will go back up for sale probably after a quick paint job and some rust repair. The rear half of the frame has some minor rust jacking and will eventually need a cutoff welded in, but that’s a ways out.

So the basic plan is to do a Vice Grip style resurrection of brakes, tires, lights, mechanical issues and bodywork. My budget is limited but I have junkyard parts I can use to keep costs low. Realistically speaking this is not going on the road soon, she’s gonna be a yard truck for the time being.

She’s getting trucked to me in a couple months give or take. I wanted to wait until the salt is off the road before lowbedding her out. A friend of mine sold her to me, he’s another collector who just prefers older stuff and he offered me the sort of deal that indicates he just wants the ol girl to get a “forever home,” so to speak.

She needs a lot of lovin,’ but I think that if I’m careful I can do a basic clean up for not much money. I know a lot of guys in the antique truck community so I think I can wheel and deal if I need stuff too- I’m contemplating swapping hubs or the front axle at the least for budds just because 22 inch daytons are hens teeth. I also like the look of budds better, but a heavy 20 inch Dayton is something I’d look into also for the right price

My word, I’m becoming diesel creek! lol.

I was a class 7/8 mechanic for a short while and I do not think I ever saw a Brockway, never mind driving one. I understand they are a woods off road truck? Older whites were pretty heavy trucks.

> Body wise the right hand side is for some reason the only part that has corrosion issues.

That is the side that hits the majority of pebbles and stones thrown up by the wheels, from the slope of the road, that gets the majority of splashed salted run off water, over the areas previously hit by stones, that was also previously hit by branches and bushes.

With the caveat that it is possible to bump start most older diesels by turning the crank with a vehicle push or compressed air ... I would do a leak down test and see how much compression the cylinders hold, then load each cylinder up with something such as very light weight machine oil followed by maybe 5w-20. Let it all drain through, then crank it a few seconds to get any remaining lube out. Then drain the oil before starting it.

I never tried to rotate an older diesel by hand, do not know if it is even possible, but, I imagine if the clutch disc corroded to the flywheel, you are not turning it by hand to see if a ring or wiper hung.

I would make sure all fuel lines are basically spotless inside before starting.

Whenever I inflated or deflated tires outside of a cage, I used a hose hooked up to the glad hand with a coiled hose to the end of the gauge, and stood 25-30 feet away behind a solid piece of the truck watching the gauge. Then wait 5 minutes before removing the chuck. I certainly would not remove the tires from this truck while they are inflated. "To the moon Alison"

Could not see what the hood had "The hood ornament used by Brockway was a husky dog with pulling harness, thus giving Cortland the nickname of "Huskie Town USA"."

Probably had a nice plow going by the front, so, I bet it has power dividers.

BTW: Nice truck.

Predominantly they were on highway vocational trucks. The vast majority of them were straight trucks, and of that about 60% I’d guess were dump trucks. I call her a yard truck because I don’t meet all the criteria for historical insurance and I can’t afford this on a regular policy.

Tire wise I know a truck salvage guy who I can get some good used 24.5 rubber from and I have a lead on 24.5 Dayton rims. I have a dislike for the Chicago wobblers but that’s what I’m running because of budget. New pilot hubs are 4 to 5 hundred a piece, plus drums, bearings and lugs. I think I’m going to take an airline and blow out from the tank to the lift pump and the lift pump to the injection pump. Should get everything good. Definitely going to drain out the diesel and put in fresh.

Fresh oil, filters, air filter, etc are all on the docket most certainly. I also want to get rid of the air wipers and convert to electric because air wipers never seem to work well.

I’m not super worried about her being seized because there’s a rain cap on there and the turbo is an updraft so I doubt water intrusion is likely. I will check though. And great suggestion on the light oil. I was a bit concerned as lubrication in the liners now is probably nonexistent.

I’m not super fond of these cat motors because of parts cost so if I have issues with it then honestly budget permitting good Detroit may be purchased.

Originally this truck would have been spec’d with a Viking one way and wing plow. The town that used to own this truck said with that cat in her she’d out plow just about anything. Grandaddy drove one way back in the day and his opinion is that these cats are all low end torque. Hard on diesel, but strong.

These are very well made trucks and are pretty hard to come across outside New England so they aren’t very well known outside the region. The best way to summarize the company ethos is if Mack was a coachbuilder. There’s still a number of em in service up here running plow and as grain trucks, the guys I know who run em never have anything bad to say about em other than the spring ride. One termed these a “Brock-a-sore-azz” because of the springs and the set back front axle. Eventually with the desire to convert over to hub pilot and 5 hole steelies I may see about a New Way or airliner cutoff and kill two birds with one stone. It would also get more useable gearing out as these plow trucks had rears in the upper 4s or low 5s. Course in the 70s 55 was plenty enough and nowadays it gets you run over. 3.73s or 4.10s would be nice. Probably 4.10s if I could choose though.

Reason I bought this is because this has been my dream truck ever since I was 10 years old. She’s gonna be wearing dark blue paint, all new lights, and if I can find somebody to do it hand lettered door insignia and pinstriping. Decals just don’t look the same, there’s something warm and welcoming about the brushed look.

Maybe even get Tweety Bird peeking under the hood with the caption “I taught I taw a Putty Cat” lol

> because air wipers never seem to work well.

Agreed, though they probably work better then the ones on early Jeeps and postal trucks. You go and look for a motor in the windshield frame and see hoses. I suppose when copper and windings were hard to come by and expensive, they made more sense.

> Decals just don’t look the same, there’s something warm and welcoming about the brushed look.

I forget his name, but, there was a guy famous in California for his pin strips, followed by his artwork. I have done pinstrips using masking tape to get straight lines, but, I learned to leave it to the experts for free hand on the Corvettes. Double and triple pin strips freehand, going around curves and bulges, forget about it!

Great you can have a dream truck to drive, even if only on the property. Who knows how the laws and regs will change in 5 years or maybe you will hit the lotto.

Eventually I will be doing a frame off resto, just a few years out. Right now I just want to make it nice enough to enjoy.

Those Edison retrofit kits seem pretty cool, maybe I’ll see about getting a rolling chassis and doing a body swap if I can actually afford it.