The good older tractors redlined at 2300. One was a two stroke detriot and we got 3000 out of it. Now why it did not explode at 3000 I dont know. But there were 6 of us Macks at 95 mph on the DC beltway racing for the pentagon silos together at that speed. So all of us had our engines turned over at the bottom of our tachs in top gear.
Company raised holy hell. Fire and brimstone. They told me that they will automatically fire me the next time they saw the truck break 65 on the old circular trip cards that went inside the clocks on the dash board back in the day. (Recorders)
The speed limit of 65 cost me about a load a day. At about 60 dollars a load times four loads daily instead of five I was losing about 300 plus dollars a week over what I made. Minus speeding tickets.
I know damn well some people not alive back then will jump on here and furiously call BS on my 3000 RPM claims and stories. But they can stuff it too. =) Been there done that.
If that was not bad enough, we had a couple of big block gasoline v8's a few times. They shifted at about 5500 RPM. Why they did not explode I dont know. Kicking like a old 460 to 5500 is really something. Scary. I was deathly afraid of some minor gasoline leak in the engine area somewhere and get cremated.