Inside That Vintage Mack Truck

'The heater don't work, and never did.'

Dashboard of Guy’s truck

It’s a glorious Sunday afternoon in central Nova Scotia. Guy, the owner of the vintage Mack that took part in the Freedom Convoy, is taking me for a spin. The engine growls, the cab vibrates. He pulls onto the side road.

Guy purchased this vehicle 12 years ago for a thousand dollars. Broken down, it was sitting forgotten in a yard. “I used to go up north and haul machinery on ice roads,” he remembers. “On my days off, I’d help my friend in Edmonton work on his trucks. Cuz I was a mechanic for years.”

Directly in front of the passenger seat

So I went to look at it. It started. It was skipping, but it started. Well I knew exactly what was wrong with it. It had a broken push rod. It's a tiny little part in the motor, right? It slides in, and there’s a little ball welded on the end of it. The ball fell out, and it was skipping on that cylinder. So I fixed it right in the yard.

A truck everyone had expected to be towed away, left under its own steam.

Macks, Guy explains, are workhorses. “They say the whole world was built on Mack trucks. You’ll notice all the cement trucks and dump trucks, they’re all Macks. Cuz they’re so indestructible.”

Nevertheless, this one isn’t optimized for Canadian winters:

This truck was from California, so there's a lot of stuff on it that's not made for our climate. Like there's no air dryer on it. Air dryers collect the moisture so it don't go through the air system and freeze up. But this doesn't even have one.

The heater don't work worth a shit, and never did. And there's a thermostat in the engine that regulates how hot the temperature gets.

Around here, 195 or 205 is normal. But that engine only gets to 155 degrees. On the hottest day, I can go up the mountain with a full load and it'll only go to 155. It will not heat up. It's always been like that, so I just dress for it.

I dress for it. In other words, Guy drove 1300 km (800 miles) to Ottawa in the dead of winter in the cab of a truck that can be chilly at the best of times.

This is a man who loves machines. Back in his yard, there’s a monster truck, some race cars, and some go-karts. Here in the cab of the Mack he reaches down between our two seats and fiddles with some cables. There’s a twinkle in his eye as he looks at me - and then I hear the horn.