Just got in from a test drive: 1989 Ford F 350 Dump Truck

Wife and I have decided our landscaping company needs a dump truck. Yesterday we test drove a 1989 F 350 with 460 V8, five-speed manual. 5'2" wife needs to put blocks on her feet as the seat wouldn't go forward far enough but she drove it. I think it'll work fine for us and we go back to complete the deal in two days.

Anyone here own a dump truck?

Imagine a 1-ton Tundra dually dump truck!

*Edit: see new post at bottom.*

 

I have a 1971 4wd ford F250 highboy flatbed that i installed a hydro dump bed into it. The truck used to have a Mercury FE 410 engine, NP435 tranny, Ranger Overdrive torque splitter aux tranny, NP205 R case. It’s currently under the knife with a 12 valve cummins swap, NV4500, NP241 case. It’s been the most awesome work truck i’ve ever had…x10. It’s hauled countless loads of gravel, dirt, chunks of concrete, scrap metal, firewood. Having a dump truck is insanely handy to have!

 

We test drove (I drove but wife went along) a 1973 F 350 but it has some serious problems. Essentially no brakes, no working dash lights, some signals, fan settings, and horn out. Black rings around dump bed rod (no scoring though) and lock ring type rims.

The brake issue was serious enough I would not chance driving it home so did not make an offer on it. Just in case we did buy it, I spoke with a local heavy truck repair shop about them hauling it into their shop and if necessary, replacing every inch of the entire brake system since we don't know what's wrong with it. That means we'd literally buy a truck we can't even take with us at least until spring.

Personally I am in love with '73 as the cab looks pristine although it's clearly been repainted at some point but done very well. Wife though does not like the older truck and has basically refused to drive it assuming we could get the seller down to an acceptable price considering it's not safe to drive at all right now. (They want nearly $12K for it right now).

The 1989 is being listed for $3,500 dollars less and it is safe to drive plus currently registered.

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Your story is motivating! Thanks for sharing. We plan to haul whatever dirt and gravel delivery orders we can get but mainly the truck will be used in leaf removal. Later, after we save up enough, we hope to get a large wood chipper and use the dump truck as a chip truck as we currently remove all brush with a 6x12 trailer we manually load and unload. Being able to chip that stuff and dump it would greatly speed up our time making weeks' long jobs a day or so.

 

Any pictures?

 

I was waiting for the: emoji.

Wife took a bunch plus a couple of videos, I'll see what she can get up.

Dump trailers have the advantage of easy loading as they are so low and of course, it's just a trailer, not the maintenance nor expenses of a separate vehicle but my desire is to shorten the overall length. Backing up that trailer and finding room to park it at the client's house can be a real challenge. Plus a dump trailer runs its battery down quickly if you have to do several loads a day then charge the battery all night? Nah.

 

May not have a pic of the '73. Here's the '89 we test drove yesterday.

 

The only problem with a 2wd dually dump bed (or any dually for that matter) is that they get stuck super easy. Even on dry grass. My buddy used to have around a 1994 f350 cab chassis dump bed and it would get stuck all the time.

 

No doubt the bed on a dump trailer is waaaaay lower to the ground. The dump bed on my 71 ford is at least 48” off the ground. It feels like i’m doing some sort of strong man competition whenever i’m trying to lift 200lb rounds of firewood in the bed.

 

Mine has spent some time as a chip truck.

 

Wow! What year is that Ford?

I've heard a 2wd dually can get stuck easily. For us though, we won't be on grass. Paved roads. The landfill is paved except down at the brush dump area and we won't go down there on wet days (we almost never do that now with a 4x4).

Can you tell me about that wood chipper? Size, capacity, price new?

 

The ford is a 1971. I got it from a friend of a friend back around 2000…so i haven’t had it for too terribly long. Of course the truck doesn’t look very much like it did when i first bought it (for $200). It did come with a flatbed already on it, but i did install the hydraulic dump kit underneath it. 1 ton axles (Detroit No-Spin lockers both front and rear), power steering conversion, power brake conversion, Painless wire harness, warn 8274 with a 250’ “long drum” modification, ect, ect, ect. And all of this was before the current Cummings swap that i’m still working on.

I don’t own a chipper, so i rent one when needed. That one on the back of the truck is a 6” chipper. It works really well. I’m not in the chipping business, so time isn’t necessary money to me. So if a tree branch is 6” and up, i will usually buck it up into rounds and take it home as firewood.

 

**BIG EDIT**

Could you provide me a "before" pic of a wood chipping job and follow with how far you got on chipping that material until you bed was full?

What was the scale weight of you load you have in your pic there when you dumped? (Assuming it was weighed).

I'm trying to get an idea of how much material my truck can handle chipped.

 

So the root problem is that the rear tires loose tread quickly?

Is that caused by routine overloading the bed?

 

There's no way I could own a woodchipper and not have a big sticker on the side that stated "Criminal Disposal Unit"

 

My dad was trying to get me interested in drilling wells back in my early 20’s. I know how muddy it can be, and i had absolutely zero desire to get all that equipment stuck.

 

How many yards is the bed of the truck you're looking at? That will give a good idea. It's hard to give estimates of how quickly it will fill, that depends on variables like what kind of tree, how much it's leafed out, how the knives on the chipper are adjusted. I'm trying to think of how quickly we fill trucks at work. We run bigger chippers and most of our trucks hold 15-20 yds. Trucks are cdl class weight, 26k and up. On a bigger removal (36-40"+) we might fill a truck and a half, or two, in a day. We're also hauling the big wood away there. By comparison, if we are doing smaller removals (10-14" or less), we can fit maybe 10 trees in a truck. If we are just pruning and chipping brush, we might only generate a couple yards and can go three or four days before dumping.

Two other things:

1. Where we are, you are required to cover loads of materials like woodchips, as they will blow away going down the road if not. Don't know if this is the case where you are, but a rollover tarp could probably solve that.

2. I don't know your familiarity with running chippers, but they are super dangerous. I read of at least one or two people killed every month in the industry publication. And that's just deaths. They whip branches around and up and down and they can break your arms and jaw and smash the hell out of your fingers. Brush will grab your pockets and pull you in. The older ones (more affordable) have less safety features (rudimentary on the newer ones anyway) as well.

I certainly don't say this to dissuade, just to say be careful, and maybe watch some safety videos if you aren't familiar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbLTPIFh1Ks

 

The term "yards" was used....do you mean "cubic yards?"

Truck bed is 10 ft X 7 ft and I think I'll make the sides 6 feet tall, so 420 cubic feet = 16 cubic yards? My math sound about right?

Job I have in mind consists of small trees (but a lot of them) along a small creek. I'm guessing some trunks to be up to 5 inches in diameter at their widest points. No leaves as we'll do this job first thing in the spring when it's stopped snowing for good. I was planning on making the biggest pieces into firewood as well or at least cutting those up and tossing those into the dump bed for a separate haul.

This particular removal job is only about 5 miles from a landfill, where all of it will go.

I'm in WV which probably doesn't require loads to be covered but we'd do it anyway just to make sure nothing blows out. I'll probably build the top of the box out of 2x4 boards but at least a tarp.

Thanks for the warning! I love advice, any time I can get it! I've seen some videos but I'll watch a few more for sure. I do know of the dangers of a rope getting into one (saw a vid on that). Branch can whip around and break a jaw? Can you recommend a helmet with face shield? We take our safety seriously----I think we are the only mowing crew out there with religious use of safety glasses and ear plugs.

I work alongside my wife.....that's it, just us, so I'll be the one operating the chain saw and chipper.

Thanks for that vid! It's a version of the "rope warning" I saw some time ago.

 

Nice......I might just do that.

This particular chipping job I've described is in a very bad area.....lots of crackheads and methbillies, so many even though the wife and I routinely open carry, you just can't work and look around at the same time. After a rather persistent crackhead bum just wouldn't get the message, I asked the owner to come and provide armed security whenever we were down there working. "CRIMINAL DISPOSAL UNIT" on the side of a chip truck would be NICE.

 

Sorry I don't get on here enough to post timely replies. But yeah, cubic yards. That sounds about right if you're putting sides on it, and 16yds is a pretty good sized load of chips.

A good entry level helmet with at least a partial shield and lots of safety features would be a KASK plasma or maybe a Petzl (can't recall their current model name). But maybe too much $$$. Husqvarna and Stihl make them too. Check out Wespur, Treestuff, Bartlettman for tree gear. They will have helmets too. The jaw breaking is just that when the feed wheels on the chipper grab a piece, they swing it all sorts of ways, often up and then a hard slam back onto the chute. Some call the older style chippers chuck and duck for that reason.

Anyway, 5" seems like you could get away with something the size of what @whodatschrome posted for sure. I'd definitely rent if you can before you buy. Maybe rent a couple different brands? Vermeer, Bandit, Morbark are all good brands. We run only Bandit but I've used Vermeer too.

Good luck!

 

Thanks man.

After looking into the prices of a new (large) chipper I have decided to rent also! LOL A local place rents a 6 inch chipper for around $150 a day and one could get it all weekend only paying for Friday or Saturday (depending on which rental place one goes to). I've done that before: rent on Friday, return on Monday morning for the price of just Friday.

My biggest dilemma has been which dump truck to buy!

I'll be sure to get a couple of good helmets before spring. Thanks a ton!

 

So the guy called just now----he's gonna keep it. "Had it so long we've decided to keep it."

I was going to send him, at my own suggestion, a pretty hefty deposit ($3K) today and had called this week to check his address. I figure someone's offered him more.

Thanks for the advice.....we'll give dump trucks a break for a while and focus on getting the Tundra fully operational and getting that longer trailer we need for spring. I'm a little bummed.