oh come now, remember how fun it was to crank the whole cab forward!?! :lol: :lol: :lol:

and the view just before going under a 13'6" bridge... :lol:

 

I learned to drive on a 1984 International cabover. This was in 1998, I was working for a HHG company. What fun that was to learn to drive on.

 

For me it was a 1973 Transtar 1 and I hated that thing rubber block suspension and a spring ride seat.

 

yeah...not only did you have to climb into the truck, but you had to climb into the sleeper when you were tired. :lol:

 

Yeah head first then feet first back into the seat.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: oh, the memories. i bumped my head on the ceiling so many times...maybe that's why i forgot to get out of trucking... :lol:

 

I drive a 2000 KW k100. This is the last year they were made. Air ride suspension, air ride cab, and air ride seat. Mine has a longer wheel base so it rides pretty good. Its got the 110" inch double bunk sleeper and I get descent fuel milage, about 6.5. Anyways I love this truck, wish they still made COEs.

 

This is really true. I had one of those corner mirrors, but visibility was still incredibly horrible in that blind spot. I nailed one fourwheeler, which I managed to keep off the books. I broke the turn signal off at least twice. I mangled countless sets of lugnut covers on that right wheel.

I never realized how dangerous that truck was until I finally got into a conventional. I haven't driven a classic conventional, so I don't know how they compare. The more modern aero styles such as the Kenworth T600 and International 9200 both have vastly superior visibility on that right side. From a safety perspective, I'd rather drive my T600 with all the mirrors missing than that Pete with all the mirrors in place, and properly aimed.

This much is true, but I think the biggest danger is if you rear-end another truck, or crash into a cliff wall or something. I had a horrible accident in my cabover, not preventable, where I was unable to avoid getting tangled up with a fourwheeler performing a stupid human trick. I obliterated the living piss out of that SUV, but the only damage to that Pete cabover was a broken turn signal (the socket still worked, so I put a new bare bulb in it to continue up the road) and the corner of the bumper bent into the steer tire (I got the tow truck guy to pull it out for me.)

They're probably better in this kind of thing than a conventional with a fiberglass hood. I also backed into one of our other trucks one night, because I wasn't paying attention, and the other guy had parked in the wrong place. I called the boss, and instead of screaming at me or firing me, he made me help him fix the damage in the shop. That was a Freightshaker cabover, and I had caved in one corner pretty badly with my trailer. A couple hours of pounding, a little Bondo, and some spray paint, and the truck ran for many more years. If that had been a hood, I would have busted the fiberglass all to pieces, and we would have had a lot more work to do to get the truck back on the road.

This is :dung: . Our fleet average MPG used to be 6.5, and I was bringing it down the worst with my old mechanical engine with the old-fashioned hopped up fuel pump. The newer cabovers with modern electronic engines were getting better than 7 mph.

Under the hood, or under the cab, the engines and other components are the same on a cabover as anything else. The only major difference is the transmission is far behind you, so you have to shift through a long linkage back to the shift tower.

More :dung: . I've driven lots of cabovers with air ride. I won't disagree that the ride is worse than a conventional though. The short wheelbase, and sitting directly on top of the steers (or in front of them in some cases) does make for a bumpy ride. Especially with an ultra short wheelbase single-axle cabover like mine used to be. (110" wheelbase if I remember.)

Can't agree with this either. It's true that bouncing around is a problem, but you need the seatbelt to keep from bouncing all the way out of the seat, and losing control. Especially if you have leather seats, and a short doghouse.

I used to use a clip from a child's car seat to keep the lap portion of my belt locked in, so it was more effective at holding me in the seat. I only hit my head on the ceiling a few hundred thousand times over the years, which could have been much worse.

That stretch of I-81 up in PA around exit 2 we used to call the washboard was the worst. That's all been fixed now, I hear, but the road use to undulate, and you'd hit your head on the ceiling 60 times a minute or something, it felt like. I hated that road.

In practice, the view up front isn't that different from a conventional. The first time I ran my old route with a hood, I felt huge in those parking lots. However, I quickly realized that in most circumstances, I had been keeping a far larger gap at the front with that cabover than was actually needed, due to the difficulty of judging how close I was on something in front of me, with that huge blind spot. When I got a hood, the hood fit into the space I was already leaving 80% or more of the time. Although it was possible in the cabover to get right up on the dash and look over, in order to get closer on something at the front than would be possible in a conventional.

I'd say the blind spot in the front of a cabover is comparable to a long, square hood like a W900, but I've never been behind the wheel of one. It seems visibility to the front is much better with a slope hood aero truck, and you're much less likely to run over somebody pulling out of the fuel island than in a cabover. I never did that, but one of our other drivers at that place did.
Especially in the winter, when the grab bars have iced up. Reach, grab, ZIIIIIIP!!!
:dung: :dung: :dung: Although sitting right on top of the engine, even the best air conditioner doesn't get very cold in high summer. Also, if your A/C gets busted, and you're trying to sleep in that coffin sleeper when it's only like 60 out, it takes hours for things to cool down enough that you aren't sweltering. Some of the most miserable nights of my life were spend in that tin can with the windows and vents open, feeling the heat radiate off the engine underneath me.
Coffee on the dash is much less of a problem than having all the crap in your sleeper fall 5' and smash out the windshields. You have to tie everything down, zip down the curtains, and put the seatbelt on. Even with all that, one time I picked my truck up at the shop, and there were pictures of titties plastered all over my windshield from where my stash crashed through the gap in the bottom of the curtains. ops:

The hood vs. flip cab angle really has different sides to it though. The advantage of a cabover is you can jack everything out of the way, and get access to all the guts from stem to stern, whereas with a conventional, especially a short nose, many things are buried up under something else. Replacing the exhaust, the brake foot valve, and many other things is a monumental pain in the ass on a conventional, in comparison. On the other side, having to jack up the cab to get at a blown heater hose or whatever is also a monumental pain in the ass. Store all that crap, get out your jug of hydraulic fluid to refill the leaking $500 jack they're too cheap to replace, take the crank handle off your trailer, because the last guy who worked on your truck stole your handle. Jack for what feels like an hour until it's finally far enough over to engage the locks.

But anyway, my final word, what would I recommend for the OP? I hate cabovers for one reason above all. They look like ass. I'm really glad I left that era behind me. Not to mention the vastly superior visibility on the right side. Vastly superior. And hey, I didn't even get into the comfort aspects. The old doghouse style cabovers were miserable inside. I've never been in one of the new flat floors. I wouldn't even think about anything else. Flat floor or forget it. No matter how bad they might be, they still have to be better than the doghouse variety. But best of all just to buy a conventional. You'll be happier, and look much cooler going down the road too!

 

The first truck I ever drove was an old GMC Astro cab-over, spring ride, no power steering, no A/C, heat never worked well, those were the days,

I wouldn't recomend buying one now, they served there purpose back in those days due to the length restrictions but they are obsolete now, you won't ever get good fuel milage with a cab over.

 

I believe those old 367 Peterbilts got pretty decent fuel mileage. They were cabovers. I spoke to one company who did well with them and would buy more if they could get drivers in them.