During this week’s episode of the Oakley Podcast, hosts Jeremy Kellett and Megan Cummings are at the Mid America Truck Show (MATS) and joined by Bruce Mallinson, Owner of Pittsburgh Power. Bruce shares insights on enhancing truck engine performance with products like Flash Point and Max Mileage fuel catalyst. The episode focuses on the importance of truck maintenance for owner-operators’ livelihoods, the role of turbochargers, optimizing fuel efficiency through proper gear ratios, understanding turbo boost, practical advice to improve truck performance and fuel mileage, and more.
Key topics in today’s conversation include:
- LIVE from Mid America Truck Show (0:35)
- Megan’s First Truck Show Experience (2:56)
- Pittsburgh Power Products and Services (6:37)
- Improving Diesel Fuel Quality (10:51)
- Personal Experience with Pittsburgh Power Products (13:45)
- Tuning Semi Trucks for Fuel Efficiency (15:27)
- Cleaning Diesel Particulate Filters (18:58)
- Pittsburgh Power’s Origins (19:44)
- The owner-operator’s love for his truck (21:33)
- Gearing for better fuel mileage (25:44)
- Educating owner-operators about truck performance (34:24)
- Turbo boost and its impact on fuel mileage (40:40)
- The compressor wheel (44:21)
- What’s Next for Bruce? (46:01)
- Trucking Should Always Look for Improvements (49:16)
- Final thoughts and takeaways (52:28)
Oakley Trucking is a family-owned and operated trucking company headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. For more information, check out our show website: podcast.bruce oakley.com.
Transcription
Bruce Mallinson 00:12
I’m 75 years old. I still love to ski and I still love this snowmobile. Celebrated my 75th birthday. Still love the trucking industry. Still up being around owner operators talking down or offering it was helping owner operators. It’s a wonderful feeling when you can improve a person’s life by making their truck better and making their life better, making their family’s life better.
Jeremy Kellett 00:34
Welcome to the Oakley podcast, trucking, business, and family. This show is brought to you by Oakley Trucking, headquartered in North Little Rock, Arkansas. The purpose of this podcast is to communicate with Oakley owner-operators and their families by giving them up-to-date information concerning Oakley Trucking and the trucking industry. From business advice to safety updates to success stories. Also to give an inside to outside truck drivers that might be interested in joining the Oakley family. I was a little distracted they’re gonna my wife’s got an ice cream cone over there. She’s torturing me with the belief that gets ice cream and then looks right at me.
Bruce Mallinson 01:11
So I just see now we’re talking about that. But she knows when you lock the book. Can she hear us?
Jeremy Kellett 01:17
No, she can’t hear you can’t hear what we’re saying. See?
Bruce Mallinson 01:23
Man, I love ice cream. That’s where I gotta go when we’re finished now. She’s a pretty tall girl. Oh, yeah, she’s taller than you.
Jeremy Kellett 01:32
She’s no, no, she’s not. But I’m shrinking a little bit
Bruce Mallinson 01:37
may turn. I lost an inch and a half. I hate it because I bought the inversion table. Now they turned upside down.
Jeremy Kellett 01:45
I got that. And Asana I love both of them.
Bruce Mallinson 01:47
Do you have the exercise ball to lay across though? Do you need that? Because, hey, cuz you’re gonna start this? Yeah. And you don’t want that? Yeah, you know? Yeah,
Jeremy Kellett 01:56
that’s a, she worries about that all the time, too, because she’d I’ll catch her sitting down and she’ll kind of bow over now I’ll reach over and rubber back, she’ll pop back up. Like that. So
Bruce Mallinson 02:07
you know that word lumbar support becomes very important. But
Jeremy Kellett 02:11
no, Megan has is, you know, does a lot there with even permit stroke paperwork, she processes applications for other recruiters. She lives in Canada. And she came to me one day and said, Hey, I want to do a little more, I’ll be interested in recruiting. And I said, well, let’s just take you to the truck show and get you a full dose of the trucking world. And then I said also, I kind of like to get you on the podcast a little bit to help me, you know, just as feed off of each other because she’s pretty quick, you know, pretty, pretty smart, pretty quick with it. And she carries on conversations about anybody. So that’s kinda working here in this setting.
Bruce Mallinson 02:56
So some Megan’s first show. Yes. What do you think? You
Megan Cummings 03:00
I know that, as soon as we got here yesterday, I was so excited. I texted Jeremy about it, because it was just like, This is so cool. And you know what? I’ve felt like this since I’ve been here, just like I’m around my kind of people. Yeah, you know what, and it’s just like, everybody’s here for a common thing. It’s really cool that it’s so big, but it’s all about one thing. I really enjoyed it.
Bruce Mallinson 03:23
So we do an owner operator snowmobile conference. It’s the same way we take the owner operator out of the truck, but to trucks still in the mind. And so we sled, we climbed mountains. Sometimes we ride pretty hard. And then we still talk about trucks. And in the evening we have some drinks and dinner. And we talk about snowmobiles, and we talk about trucks. And it’s basically my favorite vacation really, because when you get into it, and this is it, I mean this is the granddaddy of them all. This is the biggest in the world. And everybody here is good people and good hard working people. Yeah. And look at the age of the sun. And there’s some guys here older than me. Yeah. And they won’t give it up. Yeah, that’s a very addictive industry.
Jeremy Kellett 04:14
That is we see it all. At Oakley we get a lot of guys give it and if you
Bruce Mallinson 04:19
want what you have at the booth to get slow. Stand in the out. As it guys walking by you. With your eyes, you look in many eyes. said Stop saying May I ask you a couple questions. They’re gonna say yes. Say yes. Right. And especially with the smile on their eyes, you know? And so saying, are you happy with who you’re least to? Now, are you strictly a tanker? No, we’re hoppers, induction pneumatic tanks. All three when you can ask Com Where do you live and not just ask him some questions saying, Do you ever think of Oakley Do you know much about Oakley? And do it right in the hallway right now? But I got slow. I stopped people in Al. Really?
Jeremy Kellett 05:12
What can you imagine Bruce? I am 23 years old. Getting into trucking your first truck show at the age of 23.
Bruce Mallinson 05:21
It’s pretty awesome. I was 19 when I got into trucking. And my first truck show the first time I was here was probably 86 or 87 and had been coming ever since. Wow.
Megan Cummings 05:37
How long is so when did they first start the mats? The shows?
Bruce Mallinson 05:44
It was 50 years ago. Yeah.
Jeremy Kellett 05:46
It just celebrated or 50 maybe a couple years ago
Arrow Truck Sales Commercial 05:50
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Jeremy Kellett 06:37
So tell us about Pittsburgh power. You know I visited with you last year. You were nice enough to sit down with me and I can tell you Bruce, I’ve heard so much about that episode over the past year that it’s you hit a home run with it with the Oakley podcast and we appreciate you doing that because our listeners man you just you can communicate with our kind of people you know the owner operators of Oakley trucking and all the more operators out there. What’s been going on since last year?
Bruce Mallinson 07:11
Well, since last year, we came up with a few new tunes, we’re getting more into the Volvo packaged. We have a new chemical called Flashpoint. It adds cetane lubricity injector cleaners because we do have our max mileage, fuel borne catalysts that burns 70% More of the certain carbon in the combustion chamber, rendering the emission systems trouble free. Now our goal now is let’s add makes the engine smoother and quieter. Let’s continue on that path. And Dr. Jane Gates does a great job with the max mileage. But I have another friend that I met 40 years ago who is also a PhD chemist. And I’ve worked with his products on all but we were always so busy with just the engines and now we’re expanding a little bit and we have our flash point. And that has cetane lubricity, injector cleaners and all kinds of other things that I can’t even pronounce because I’m not a chemist. And you know, we have the snap on Tool Guy comes to the shop and we have a Cornwell Tool Guy and both have their trucks loaded to the gill and the Cornwall guy, the steepest hill we have on rod A coming out of Butler. He’s got a 6.7 Cummins in his step band. And he’s overloaded. He gained five miles an hour with our new Flashpoint. Come on up the hill. Wow. And JR Hillhouse, who runs a 379 repaired a cert out of Mississippi 1,386,000 miles on his truck. We have it set at about somewhere between 750 and 800 horsepower. He’s been running the catalyst since we came out with it and in 2018 2019 He’s now running a flashpoint and he’s smiling. And he just bought a new Ford diesel pickup with the 10 speed automatic. And he says I’m going to drive this slow, we’re just going from Mississippi to Louisville and in 10th gear, run it on like a 58. He got 27 miles to the gallon. Come on, run into Flashpoint and the max Molly’s catalyst. I don’t know if it’s a three quarter ton or one ton, but it’s one of the two. That’s unheard of, and, and he loves it. He’s loving Flashpoint. So we just got our first pallet in 168 gallons a week ago and it’s gone. So we’re going to be starting to get a lot of good reports and the second pallets on its way. We do have it here to show We’re probably gonna run out with it. So between our Flashpoint and our max mileage, we’re making diesel fuel better. So if you think about it, back in the late 90s, twice, the government took care of Fein C Tang aromatics, there was one other chemical that they took out of diesel fuel along with gasoline. And they keep making it weaker and weaker. So you know, if your body wants to be Pristine, you have to put a lot of protein into it. You got to work out, you got to stretch. Well, if you want your truck to be Pristine and run and be responsive, and give you a good fuel mileage, longevity, you’ve got to make the diesel fuel right. Because the diesel fuel right out of the pump is not that good.
Jeremy Kellett 10:51
What’s Mikey? Why are they doing that? And that’s a whole nother episode of lotion. I mean, that’s the holiday. So the bottom line is they think they’re taking these ingredients out of diesel that’s going on like you barn that
Bruce Mallinson 11:06
took the paraffin out paraphilias the wax, that’s Looper lubrication, they took the aromatics out aromatics make power. And they took the cetain. And there’s one other chemical that’ll come to me.
Jeremy Kellett 11:24
But anyway, and that’s that by knowing that what they’ve taken out, then the chemist can we
Bruce Mallinson 11:29
know what to put back? Crying I got you. So you’d have to make it right. Did you ever go to a grocery store and buy a steak and you’ve cooked the steak and there’s no flavor to it? Really? Did you gain anything? Did your body gain anything from that steak? Now though, you got to go and get that grass fed prime steak. Then you’re gaining something? Well, that’s, that’s what you got to do with the diesel field? Yeah, yeah. She’ll go into Sam’s Club. They have some pretty good prime steaks, or what’s that other one? Bezos bought? Whole Foods? Oh, yeah. Yeah, you’ll see. I like the New York strip, and they’ll say a prime New York trip is $37 a pound or something like that. Let’s say my God, that’s ridiculous. But boy, does it taste good. So we have to do the same. Let’s talk about gasoline. When I was young, back in the 50s, you’re dumping gasoline into the lawnmower. The fumes are coming out and you’re smelling the fumes. You could see the vapors coming out of the tank that’s gone. So gasoline is not like it used to be. It’s surprising that cars actually run as well as they do on it. But it’s taken a tremendous amount of engineering. But if you have an older car, or an older pickup truck or an older tractor chainsaw lawn mower, it doesn’t matter. Harley Davidson put the max mileage catalyst in, you’ll be surprised how much better run it’s one cc per gallon.
Jeremy Kellett 13:02
I actually bought a saw last year after this show. After the show we did the podcast we ordered. They come in twos. I think two quarts might have been quarts. I can’t remember what to level. And I started using it and my pickup. I’ve got a GMC 6.2 liter gas bar. And I’ll tell you what, I could tell the difference. I mean, I could tell a difference in fuel mileage. And I just felt now you know, driving it, I felt like it had a look a little more respond. You didn’t have to push as much in the past, you know. And I thought man, that is some that is working great. Think
Bruce Mallinson 13:51
about this, if you push less on the pedal for the same response, and the same speed. And what’s that equate to? better fuel mileage, though? That’s true. So when you make a change in a semi truck, like you gear it properly, we’re going to talk about gearing because these truck dealerships do not understand gearing. And I don’t know why these guys don’t study a little bit. But they’re selling people, trucks geared wrong. But when we take a semi truck, and we make that truck run along the highway, whether it’s 6065 70, we try to get you to stay more to 6065 Because there’s more fuel mileage there. If we can get my buddy back in office like we had a few years ago and get the price of diesel fuel down. Then we can drive faster. But right now with the price of diesel fuel, we have to drive a little slower. But when we make that semi truck run along at highway speeds with 80,000 pounds, or you’re hardly touching the pedal, you’re actually holding your foot back. That’s fuel mileage. Wow. And then you and you roll into the throttle, and everything’s right. And that left front wants to pick up and charge into the hill. Oh, that’s an adrenaline rush. It’s Megan, which, here’s what we get. We get adrenaline. You get dopamine. That’s a drug addicts get high on and you get endo morphemes. The three together are more powerful than cocaine.
Megan Cummings 15:25
And all that. You get your product. Now you
Bruce Mallinson 15:28
get, you get that after we tune your truck, and we set everything up. If it’s an older truck, we change the manifold and the turbo tune ECM. If it’s a real old truck and it’s mechanical, we reflow the pump and the injectors. We gear it properly and make it so it just runs like a thoroughbred horse.
Jeremy Kellett 15:47
Don’t drink it. Your body?
Megan Cummings 15:52
Well, Bruce told me. So can you use that for? Can you use that for regular gas treatment? What? What if I could pop it in the Toyota Corolla?
Bruce Mallinson 16:01
What is your opinion of Yoda?
Megan Cummings 16:03
It’s a 2019 2019
Bruce Mallinson 16:05
tax, you put one cc per gallon, okay, we have syringes, but you can get syringes at any pharmacy. Sometimes they are just given to you. They don’t last real long because they don’t have a rubber O ring in them, they have plastic and they will grow with the cattle. So
Jeremy Kellett 16:24
it’s that fine of a small amount that you need to use a
Bruce Mallinson 16:28
for a certain one cc per gallon, you need a syringe for gasoline. And you put it in there. If your Toyota holds 16 gallons, you put 16 CC’s in and you top it off, and the next time you’re gonna buy gasoline, say you’re at half a tank and you’re gonna buy 10 gallons with 10 CC’s in, fill it up. Okay, now, if it only does you put 10 CC’s in and it only takes seven gallons, you’re still okay, on a brand new car, you’re going to want to run it pretty easy until you can put a couple more gallons in to make up that difference. I did have my aid already kind of derailed on new one time. I had a couple more CC’s in it. And ECM said, or his gasoline is a little hot.
Jeremy Kellett 17:17
So it makes a big difference. You need to put what’s recommended,
Megan Cummings 17:20
How soon should you be able to tell how soon you will be able to see the difference.
Bruce Mallinson 17:26
And you probably see it in the first block, really for
Megan Cummings 17:30
for trucks to for trucks to all all vehicles in
Bruce Mallinson 17:34
a semi truck, one that has three, four or 500,000 miles on it takes 90 days to clean the engine, but you’ll feel it once you once the catalyst gets through the fuel system. Maybe in two or three blocks, they’ll kill it. It’s that it’s that instance it helped
Jeremy Kellett 17:52
Rusev they clean the filter and stuff and then start using it. Hi,
Bruce Mallinson 17:56
You mean the DPA for you to hide so we would rather you not because if your engines are really dirty, the media gets a lot of dirt coming out and some of it’s going to get into the DPF. There’s a term called Face plugging. Okay. Let’s say the lady does cake makeup on and she basically baked her face well. That’s what can happen to a DPF Guys, guys that are listening are gonna listen at the no we have a lady involved now. We can relate something to her. Yeah. So anyway, it doesn’t happen often but it can happen. So we would rather than wait 90 days to have the systems cleaned out and then get to a DPF alternatives. That’s a franchise based in Denver Colorado okay. And it is without a doubt the finest way to clean DPF. We became a franchise to DPS. So you clean them with DuBois. We do it at our place. Yes, which is to let everybody know where it’s at in case we get some new listeners we are in SaxonBurg Pennsylvania, 30 miles north of Pittsburgh, just four miles off a route a. So coming out of Pittsburgh, you have interstates 79, route 19, route eight and route 28. And they all kind of fan out from the city and we’re between route 28 and route eight, not far off and 19 are right or high 79
Megan Cummings 19:26
Is it okay? I had thought of this question earlier when I looked at the notes. So it’s called Alright, it’s called Pittsburgh power but you guys are located in SaxonBurg. Is it just because you’re so close to Pittsburgh or that’s the biggest
Bruce Mallinson 19:44
we used to be 14 miles north of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is the main city okay. So people know where Pittsburgh is. And the reason we used to be Diesel Injection in Pittsburgh when we sold Marmon trucks we were Diesel Injection And Marmont of Pittsburgh. The reason we went to Pittsburgh power was I had built an RV and I was towing it. I didn’t build it, I had it built. It was a Newmar kountry area. I had a pace trailer behind it, and I pulled it with a T 600 Kenworth single axle, so I was three feet long and I would be odd in the West to Southwest. Working RV shows truck shows going to people’s garages, helping them tune up their motorhomes or dodge pickups. I was just enjoying life and driving my Kenworth always wanted to drive a truck. But I didn’t get to haul freight. But I hauled my house and I would hear people on a CB radio saying, I’ve got to take this truck to Pittsburgh. This truck doesn’t run right friend of mine was in Pittsburgh. Those boys really know how to tune up a truck. And it wasn’t Diesel Injection because there’s a Diesel Injection in Cincinnati. There’s one here in Louisville, I think, one in Atlanta, Georgia, and I was skiing one day and I was in Vail, Colorado. And this old boy called my cell phone now I’m old, but he was older than me. And he is dropping the F bomb and cursing and swearing about it. A fuel pump that he bought. And his truck runs slower. Big cam Cummings I’m sorry, in I’ve invented over 42 items for the big cam Cummins, we take the 400 and we produce 800 horsepower. When you buy apart from us for a big cam that trucks gonna run good. So I’m listening to this guy scream as I’m standing on a ski slope. And I said Who did you deal with it? My shop in Pittsburgh? These What do you mean Pittsburgh? Because I got this in Atlanta. I said, Well, why are you calling me? So I got a Diesel Injection in Atlanta. I said why are you calling me? Don’t you own Diesel Injection? I said I own Diesel Injection of Pittsburgh. Well, then I knew I had to change that name. Yeah, because people were confusing us. And we always strive to make the owner operator love his truck. You know, when a man loves his truck, he treats it better. He looks forward to driving it. We had two people stop by the booth today. They love their trucks so much. 3.4 million miles, ones at 379 feet. The other one was a Freightliner classic. Well, what? They were both 3.4 million. I think one was 3.8 million. Wow. So you know, they give that truck a lot of tender loving care.
Jeremy Kellett 22:31
And a lot of these guys, they want that, you know, they feel that connection with the truck. And you know, it’s to some of them. It’s more than just a tool mod. You know, it’s everything. Some of them. It’s everything. Yeah. Well,
Bruce Mallinson 22:45
Megan, think about this. Mr. Owner Operator lives. Midwest as a nice little home couple of acres. It’s got his truck with a white couple of children. What makes life possible? To truck? Right, yeah. And if he’s on Sunday afternoon, he gets home Saturday morning or Friday night. He really needs to pay attention to that truck on Saturday. Sunday can be family day, and then he’s back out on the road. So the truck is so important to that family. And it’s important to everybody in North America. Right?
Jeremy Kellett 23:26
Yeah. And I mean, just outside looking in what little I do know about Pittsburgh power, you’re, you’re giving them that just but you’re giving them that ability to get connected back with a good truck because there’s a just over the years, since they’ve they’ve done the you know, more sensors, the DPF system, the, you know, maybe there’s just been some major truck problems, and it’s just been a disaster with a lot of them and, and by you given you know, your products, I mean, I feel like you think you can get back to that of not being aggravated with your truck all the time, but being proud of your truck.
Bruce Mallinson 24:06
So a few years back, I got a call from neck, Clearwater Peterbilt. I’m thinking Clearwater, Florida, says Clearwater, Minnesota. I didn’t know there was a clear water Minnesota. He said, “I want to be at Maximianus.” The catalyst dealer said no, you don’t. Because 80% of your work is emissions, and you’re gonna lose the 80%. And he said, No, I want to sell a guy a new Peterbilt. And I want to put them on max mileage. And the next time I see him, I want to see a smile on his face because he loves the truck. And he comes in for other things. Maybe it’s an oil change. Maybe they have the overhead set. Maybe it’s her overhaul. And I said, What about 80% of the work? He said we have so much work. We don’t care about the emissions word. And really, who wants to work on emissions? I mean, as a mechanic We want to make improvements. We want to make a guy’s truck run better. We want to see whether we’re doing an alignment, whether we’re doing a clutch or transmission, or re gearing it or giving it some more horsepower and torque. We want him to be happy. Fixing emissions. Man, that’s a horrible job. You know, so they Max mileage.
Jeremy Kellett 25:24
They’re backed up with all the
Bruce Mallinson 25:27
mission. So Nick was right. But my other friends that run truck dealerships, they don’t want to give up that 80%. I said, think about it. Your customers are going to be happier. So is Nick doing that? Oh, yeah. Yeah, Scott Summers is happy because they’re running the candles. So let’s go on and talk about truck dealerships, especially Kenworth Peterbilt. I love Kenworth and Peterbilt trucks, okay. But I’m working with the engineers in Denton, Texas. I’ve got them where they’ll put 253 gears in, we still need to go to 228 gears for the new x 15. And the back car engine, because everybody is setting the engines up. So they run lower RPM than Volvo and Macker diamond, the 900. Some are running them at 875 RPM, you could run a pack car and an iOS x or an X 15. Cummins is on the level at 1000 1100 rpm. And that was unheard of years ago. So in the back when I was young, everything had 411, poor 10, gears and 390s. And we’d put 370s. And everyone was concerned about losing horsepower, or losing speed on a hill. Now we all had 13 speeds single over 13, you just dropped on a half a gear the 370 gears and allowed you to let the RPM drive a little bit lower, get a little bit better fuel mileage, but gave you a better top end if you were in a hurry.
Jeremy Kellett 27:01
But didn’t that what the manufacturers are trying to do is produce trucks that get better fuel mileage?
Bruce Mallinson 27:07
Well, they are trying to do that. But I had two guys in my booth that I was just leaving brand new Peterbilts and the dealer put 336 gears in one and 320 fives in the other. These guys want to run 74 miles an hour, it doesn’t work. Because they’re there by bit team and a quarter to 1550 RPM, the ECM starts to cut back horsepower and torque at 1400. So when you’re on the engines producing power, now there’s no fuel mileage. So what I have them are going to do for the next couple of days, they’re going to drive at 60 miles an hour. And we’re going to see where their Turbo Boost is. And we’re going to see where their fuel mileage increases too. And then I have them going back to the dealer and saying Why did you put these rear ends in? And the salesman said, Well, that’s what we’re doing for everybody. But it’s wrong. Yeah, no, just because you’re doing it for everybody. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. There are changes. So I’ve got a guy in Oregon to help him change the guy in Maine, he and his wife drive, they got two new pizzas, they’ll be in this week, they are going to have the pack car engine 253 gears, the 13 speed auto ship. I wanted them to have the 18 speed auto ship because it is a double overdrive with the 250 threes I wanted them to run in single over. But when they’re in New England and they’re gonna run a little bit slower because nothing’s level up there. Right from Pittsburgh and the north of Maine nothing’s lover
Megan Cummings 28:49
so these people reach out to you or they pass customers they
Bruce Mallinson 28:54
I specify a lot of trucks. Okay. A Spec a lot of gears for people that seems to be about what I’m doing mostly now in my semi retirement years is helping people spec new trucks or somebody’s looking at three or four used trucks and they’ll find out what engine what transmission what gear ratio now call me and get my opinion on what truck they
Jeremy Kellett 29:18
assume. And Bruce, you have people in your company that are just as passionate as you are and keep the tradition going with everything that you built.
Bruce Mallinson 29:30
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And you got to have you again No, it’s not every guy that comes through the doors like that. No, you know, you go through a few employees until you get to the pick of the letter and they have to be performance minded they have to be perfectionist. And I like to get first Born’s but that’s hard to find. First boards are workaholics. overachievers, they feel nobody can do it as well as they Um, stand out of the way and let them do it. I’m gonna be the last born. But I’m a perfectionist. And I don’t know where I got it. But my dad was somewhat that way. And my dad was a hands on guy, he’d take everything apart and fix it before he’d go and replace it. But, you know, they came up through the Depression, right, but had to do that. Yeah. So then you have to think you have to think like a farmer. You know, we have some, we have some owner operators raised on a farm, their closest auto part score is 128 miles away. You just don’t jump in a pickup truck and run down to the park store. Right? You take what you have. And then I was working in Jamaica. I have been in Jamaica several times, working with our owner operators there. They take parts that we scrap, and they redo. And they’re pretty sharp, like, fix them. I’ve seen him take a cab over internationals and put two steering axles on him. I mean, we’d never think of trying something that simple like that. No. And they’re junkyard is their place. And we’d go walking through the junkyard, don’t pull stuff out, and they’ll redo it. I mean, they’re not. A lot of the people in the islands are like that, because they can’t run out and get the parts. You
Jeremy Kellett 31:18
have to like it with what you got, right? Yeah.
Bruce Mallinson 31:22
So back to gearing, yet we have to gear these new trucks to run like 1100 to 1400 RPM. So if you want to run at 65 miles an hour to new Kenworth or Peterbilt, and you’re gonna run your dealer is going to talk to you and you’re going to run an 18 speed or a 13 speed, and you’re going to run it in double overdrive, you have to go no lower than three away. So think about this three away from the sweet spot, right? 308 does a higher gear ratio, then a 390. But it’s lower in numbers. Okay. So at 393 7411 is low, to 64 to 53 to 40, sevens Walmart, Walmart is running 247 gears with a direct drive transmission. The reason we want you to run in direct gear is because you gain about 80 horsepower. And every horsepower you gain, you gain about three foot pounds of torque. So you take 80 times three 240 foot pounds of torque. It’s torque that pulls the truck up the hill. So people say, Well, if I buy gear, my truck, but those 240 sevens or 250 threes or 260 fours I’m gonna lose power in the hills. No, you’re going to gain power on the hill, because you’re going to be in direct drive your direct gear, which is one to one, which is your hardest polling gear. overdrives are not hard pulling gears. When they first came out with overdrives it was called a go home empty gear. You weren’t supposed to pull when, when the door and Max diesel first came out in the Chevy and GMC pickup. They had a trailer tow button you pushed and kept that out of overdrive though.
Jeremy Kellett 33:29
What do you think now? I mean, we got a lot of short owner operators at Oakley, of course, but some of this is just over, you know, over my head, don’t you think it’s because a lot of the owner operators don’t understand what you’re talking about. And I mean, how do they do it because they’re going with what the dealer is telling them, you know, and here’s what, here’s what you need to do to get the best performance out of this. But as the owner operator, he needs to know that himself. How’s he gonna find that out? I mean, I know he can talk to you to listen to this, and he can
Bruce Mallinson 34:06
read our articles. He can listen to our two radio shows that we do one on Monday, one on Tuesday. They can call us. But there’s a tremendous amount of information on our website. There’s videos, there’s all the articles that I’ve written since 1987.
Jeremy Kellett 34:24
What do you think most of them don’t know that are out there right now. An owner operator who has his own truck probably doesn’t understand.
Bruce Mallinson 34:32
They don’t understand gearing.
Jeremy Kellett 34:35
Yeah, I can see that too, just by the owner operators. I know I mean a lot of them, some of them do and get that are
Bruce Mallinson 34:41
involved. Now if you take the ones that raise stock, cars, drag race, they race anything. They understand Garin
Megan Cummings 34:50
for those that may not be none the wiser. As far as this goes, is there ever a point where it’s like okay, it is a point of no return like there’s no no going back and fixing it. Or can you?
Bruce Mallinson 35:03
You can play, you can always fix, you can fix anything. Right? Everything is possible. And never, never say can’t. That’s a word that we can’t stand is can’t. When somebody says I can’t do that, oh, yes, you can. We’re going to show you how to do that. So if you buy a truck and it’s geared wrong, we can change the gearing. Now sometimes you can do it for about $7,000 or $6000. Sometimes if you buy a truck and it’s got 350 fives and you want to go to 240 sevens, now you have to change the whole housing. Now that becomes more expensive. So then you want to call people like L KQ. And get prices on differentials or try to find the whole housing with the proper gear in it. And Rob, at El que que in Easton, Maryland, is up on it,
Jeremy Kellett 36:03
but you’re going to the source, MHC Kenworth Peterbilt and you’re trying to go to the manufacturers,
Bruce Mallinson 36:10
I’m dealing with the manufacturer, the truck dealers and getting it done wrong. In that, they’ll have the mentality that you have, you have to be in double over to get cruising speed and fuel mileage. And that’s not true. Your cruising speed is determined by your differential, not by your transmission. Your transmission just makes it possible to get there. Now, here’s why. I like gearing, a truck and direct urine. You ever been on i 70. Cross in Utah? Well, there’s plateaus out there. Well, it’s amazing. When you’re from the east you don’t even study plateaus in geography. But until you’re out there, and you ride up one, it’s 60 or 80 miles across the top of it. Now when you go down the other side, you’re going downhill for 18 miles. If you’re going downhill for 18 miles, and you’re geared and direct and 6568 60 miles an hour’s your speed, put that shifter back into a big hole, that RPM comes down to about seven or 800, that turbo boost will come down to about two and let it roll. Let it roll 80 miles an hour, let it roll 85 there’s nobody out there. There’s no police. There’s hardly any cars. It’s free miles. You can gain four or five miles to the gallon for those 80 miles by using speed. Most everybody loves speed. I love speed. But when you’re dragging a trailer, when you’re going across the level, you can’t speed and get fuel mileage. But you can speed one downhill Interstate at Western Iowa. First time I crossed it my Kenworth I said today do this on purpose. It’s a perfect roller coaster. It’s like they did this on purpose. Well, you get on a CB radio and you make sure there’s low traffic. And there’s no bears. And you let it roll. Megan, what takes a roller coaster uphill?
Megan Cummings 38:26
Isn’t it? Isn’t it powered by some kind of an engine to go uphill and then
Bruce Mallinson 38:31
Have you ever written a roller coaster? I’m not a big fan of roller coasters.
Megan Cummings 38:35
I’m not. I’m not an expert because I don’t like them.
Bruce Mallinson 38:38
I say that the roller coaster is being pulled by a chain up the first hill. Once it clears up the first hill, there’s no engine. It’s all momentum. When you have 80,000 pounds going down a highway and 18 wheels turning. Don’t you have momentum. If you go up you’re going Donna’s a grade and you let the Jake brake come on at 65 miles an hour. You’re losing fuel mileage. Turn the Jake off, get that cruise control on. Ease into that throttle. Use the downhill. It’s free miles,
Jeremy Kellett 39:18
quit holding a bug.
Bruce Mallinson 39:20
Don’t hold it back. Let her roll. Let it run like a thoroughbred through the dip and up the other side use momentum. Now, you know if it’s rush hour traffic and you’re in New York City, you can’t do that. I’d been in Iowa on Sunday afternoon. And I couldn’t do it because Interstate 80 was packed in this world. These people were born on Sunday afternoon in Iowa. That was 25 years ago. So I’m sure it’s worse now. So you can’t always do it but when you can do it coming here to Louisville from Cincinnati we ever drive that row down and up. All you can do is let her roll and use Oh my mind I’m going up the other side. So turbo boost gauge to drive your Audi now coming from Florida I had to fly oh, you flew here till 12 hours. Holy moly. Well, we had a flat from Fort Myers to Houston to here. And then you have the weights at the airport for 12 hours. From the time we left to the time he got his 12 All he could have driven it. I know a person drove it and 13 But anyway, so any turbo boost. The lower you keep the turbo boost gauge on the level, the better the fuel mileage to explain turbo boost. TurboCharger boosts it and forces air into the combustion chamber. It takes 220 parts of air to burn one part of fuel. So let’s take a cup. Do you want to burn a cup of diesel fuel? Do you need 220,000 cups of air so a lot of air isn’t water. So the turbocharger Do you know why the turbocharger was invented? Tell us smaller aircraft. normally aspirated gasoline engines couldn’t fly over the Rocky Mountains. They quit and clear the 14,000 foot peaks. So they put a turbocharger on it because of the thin air. This was the thin air and if you ever want to try it stop up in the top of El Paso as a rest area. Get out and run up the hill. See how many feet you can make it before you’re huffing and puffing. You might make it 60 feet, might think you’re in good shape, but 60 feet tall. You’re gonna go I can’t
Jeremy Kellett 41:44
do that now Louisville, Kentucky.
Bruce Mallinson 41:47
So anyway, the turbocharger was made to simulate sea level. They wanted to just because they weren’t concerned about making a performance. They just wanted that normally aspirated gasoline engine to think it was at sea level when it would hit 15 or 16,000 feet. Sure. So then a turbocharger finds a way to find its way onto cars. Saab was one of the first people to do it. And then in the diesel engine, classy Cummins Plessy Cummins was the person that took Rudolph diesels. Rudolf Diesel made the first diesel engine in Germany, but it wouldn’t power anything. Classy Commons was the chauffeur for the Miller family in Columbus, Indiana, who owned the banks and class he was their chauffeur, and he had a little wooden garage. You have seen the Harley Davidson garage where they started at Harley Davidson in Milwaukee. If you ever see that building, wealth class, this garage was about the same old wooden garage. And he took one of their cars and made a diesel engine and drove it from Columbus, Indiana to New York City on a couple gallons of diesel fuel. And that was the start of it. And that was the start of turbo charging. And we’ve come a long way; however, it takes exhaust flow to make a turbo boost. And we have to push the exhaust through a snail shell. And, Megan, think of a garden hose. If you squeeze the nozzle down the water shoots way out, right. But if you open the nozzle up or take it off, it just runs out. But do you get a higher volume running out? While wet exhaust we don’t want back pressure in the engine we don’t want restrictions. So we have to have some to spin the turbine wheel in the turbine housing, which looks like a snail shell because it gets tighter as it squirrels up to spin the turbo. Now, a turbo spins at 8000 RPM at idle. Well, when those trucks go up a hill it’s spinning at 110,000 RPM or more so that if you could see your turbochargers spinning, you would be backing out of the throttle, because it’s hard to believe they can stay alive and explode and they float on oil. So and the compressor wheel the fresh air wheel that sucks like the vacuum cleaner sucks the air in through the air filters. It actually expands its aluminum. And if you could see it, if you could have a camera in there, you would see it growing and so the rule is ease into the throttle and ease out of the throttle. If you’re hard on a throttle, you can explode your turbocharger
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Jeremy Kellett 45:46
before we even get close.
Bruce Mallinson 45:49
Oh we need another hour.
Jeremy Kellett 45:51
We might get it but I got somebody else coming. But before we even tell our listeners what’s happening with roof smells.
Bruce Mallinson 46:01
I’m 75 years old. I still love to ski. Still love to snowmobile and celebrated my 75th birthday with a brand new SkiDoo 850 Turbo that had a tuned over 200 horsepower, zero to 60 in two seconds. She’ll just stand straight up. You know she’s a wonderful machine. Still love my motorcycles. Still love boating. I still love the trucking industry. Still up being around owner operators talking to owner operators helping owner operators. It’s a wonderful feeling when you can improve a person’s life by making their truck better and making their life better making their family’s life better.
Jeremy Kellett 46:43
Do y’all got any more truck shows?
Bruce Mallinson 46:45
This is the only one remaining. We lost most of them. Yep. And you know, some of the reasons were labor unions. pet peeve of mine. Dallas was a mistake. When the city bought the convention center and the one year they were given us all parking tickets while we were unloading our booth. I said to the female policeman. So what are you doing this for? Well, we need money for the convention center. So this $35 ticket you think is going to save this. All it’s doing is really irritating us. And I called the chief of police and left her a message. She was only a couple blocks away. I said you better get down here because you got
Jeremy Kellett 47:28
problems. Did you hear back from
Bruce Mallinson 47:30
no chin and show up either. And now the Dallas show’s gone. We had a nice show at the racetrack in Charlotte, North Carolina for a couple of years. That’s gone. They’re all gone. Boston’s gone. Cleveland. Oh, the union in Cleveland was horrible. They went to an owner operator and bought a park. They wouldn’t let him carry it out.
Jeremy Kellett 47:53
So Bruce is in a good spot right now. You’re 75 living, living life lucky. Want to say Elsa Khomeini you want anything in the future that you’re let’s change it up or you just enjoy. I want
Bruce Mallinson 48:08
to see Spain. Okay, Norway, Sweden. And I’d like to go back to the Bahamas. The Bahamas has some pirates and then some things going on right now that aren’t good. Yeah. Let’s click that. I want to do some more traveling but I do have a puppy and it’s going to be on April 19. His name’s Bentley. You’ll hear him on our radio show because he likes to bark, is a mini goldendoodle always all 19 bound or he loves the right on the sea to guide us. He loved the sea and what Chesapeake Bay was like. Okay. You know that Chesapeake Bay is the number one inland boating waterway in the world. The knots 200 miles long, has a tremendous amount of river speeding into it. It’s a great boating place. We’re just south of Annapolis, Maryland in the summertime and place called Edgewood, or Edgewater, Maryland. And I enjoy it.
Jeremy Kellett 49:11
But I can tell it’s probably learned. Yes, yes, I
Bruce Mallinson 49:16
I started working when I was 10. Well, we have and I’m still working.
Jeremy Kellett 49:20
And it’s a pleasure to be able to, to talk to somebody that is so passionate about what they do. And they’re so smart. You know, just It amazes me just to sit here and listen to you talk about all this stuff that I don’t I sure don’t know about at all but man it is just impressive that you’re so smart about all this and you’re and you’re wanting to you’re wanting to push it out there, you know to everybody else and make you want other people to understand it and get to know it and and and that’s really impressive to me.
Bruce Mallinson 49:55
Well, think about the word improve if you’re You’re not constantly trying to improve your body, your hell, your truck, your house, your car. Which way is it going? Right there is no level. If you’re not improving, you’re going downhill. And so coming from the race car industry, I held a track record and analysis lenses for seven straight years and road racing from 73 to 77 parts, I’m sorry, 79. And if we weren’t always looking for ways to make that Corvette faster, and faster through the bends, we were going to get beat. And my competition were engineers from Nassau and Cleveland. I was just a country boy. And these guys were smart. And we were young. But I had a great welder and a fabricator. And we could think, and we would try things. And sometimes they weren’t, sometimes they didn’t. But you know, the first bend, we’d hit 110 miles and iron Nelson’s ledges, and it was a flat turn. And let me tell you, there wasn’t much grass on the outside of that, Ben, because if you did something to the suspension, and it was the wrong way, you are going out across the dirt at 110 miles an hour, spinning circles. So we always thought and we and when I got into the diesel engine business, and I started meeting owner operators, I said, these guys are just like me, they’re a bunch of gear heads. And they’d come by every afternoon and sometimes into the evening and we’d go get stuff to eat. And like Joe when you talk to Joe lately, I haven’t talked to Joe lately. But yeah, he needs to and we would talk about let’s improve and and and just keep improving and just keep making better. Look at the show trucks outside. Do they get better every year? The minutes are unbelievable. I love the way they have a mod front now. Yes, that’s where they should be out. Those guys work so hard, and spend so much money and time to make those show trucks. They should be in the front so people can see them. Now it wasn’t that I didn’t care for them when they were out back. But now they have. I guess they’re having sled poles on Saturday night. Oh, I don’t know. A tractor pole. Oh, tractor. Oh, yeah, in the arena. Well, they’re all parked where the show trucks used to be okay, so I love seeing the show trucks I pronto.
Jeremy Kellett 52:28
Oakley Trucking is a 100% Owner Operator company. We specialize in Hopper, bottom and dump and pneumatic drivers. We provide the trailer free of charge and you provide the truck. We have a large customer base that reaches the whole United States as well as parts of Canada. Our owner operators live anywhere from Texas to North Carolina to Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and everywhere in between and we get them home weekends. We take it seriously when you join Oakley trucking because we need you to be successful. Oakley offers great benefits and a competitive mileage base. So you know that when your wheels are turning, you’re generating money. No matter if you’re loaded or empty. We understand that you want to make a good living and that you make our living. We only take on independent contractors and to be honest with you, we are very particular on who we lease on. You must have a good driving record, good work history, and a clean, dependable truck. So if you’re interested in Oakley trucking or just want some more information, you can go to Oakley trucking.com. Listen to our weekly podcast, the Oakley podcast and subscribe to our YouTube channel. Well, a great show, as always, you know, Louisville’s always been a good show for all of us to get together with the trucking community and learn about each other and, you know, finding products like yours that help owner operators out there. And it’s, it’s great. I appreciate you coming over and sitting down with me, and having this discussion. You too, Megan. Yes. Thanks for having me.
Bruce Mallinson 53:48
And if you’re at this show, and it doesn’t make you feel good about being in the trucking industry, and then you should find another
Jeremy Kellett 53:59
words of wisdom. Bruce Rocha. We appreciate you man. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks, everybody for joining the Oakley podcast. We sure appreciate you tuning in every week and we’ll get another one coming for you next week. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Oakley podcast: trucking, business, and family. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate or review the show on the podcast platform of your choice and share it with a friend. We love hearing from our audience, so if you’ve got a question, comment, or just want to say hello, head over to our website, theoakleypodcast.com, and click the “leave a comment” button. We’ll get you a response soon and may even share some of the best ones here on the show. We’ll be back with a fresh episode very soon. Thanks for listening.