diesel pickups

[Dargo]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( The Dodge pulled it ok but I don't think it will last long pulling that heavy of a load up and down the road every week. )</font>

I'm obviously a Cummins fan and have the best available automatic transmission setup for my juiced Cummins, but I'd have to agree with you wholeheartedly. I pretty well top out weight wise loaded where you are unloaded.

I think you made a great choice on truck, engine, and transmission. I think I mentioned that a family friend who builds custom homes was really big into his daughter's horse show competitions. He destroyed two of the GM Duramax engines (I mentioned that earlier), and more recently killed the transmission, then the 6.0 in his Ford F-450. His trailer is a very nice Featherlite model but, like yours, is so big that it's pretty heavy. I know it doesn't sound right, but he swears that he is running 4000 pounds of tongue weight on his 5th wheel. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif I think he would be much more suited with the F-650 like you ordered. But, his daugher just got married and now he is getting out of the horse show competition business. Good luck!

 

[cowboydoc]

<font color="red">Did you have to get the new truck now that your daughter is a rodeo star? </font>

No I had to get a bigger trailer to save my SANITY!!! It's no wonder people retire and go on the road for a year and get sick of it. Actually Featherlite gave Mesa a sponsorship and gave us this trailer for a year to use with a buyout if they don't continue the sponsorship. I thought the Dodge would be ok pulling it but I'm not real comfortable with it. I need another truck anyway because half the time I'm going one way with the one girl and my wife is going the other way with the other girl.

 

[RedRocker]

I really like that truck, you just can't have too much truck.

 

[Moon]

NICE truck! I like the looks of it, but I wonder if it will fit thru a drive thru? I have a older F350 dually that cannot go thru some drive thrus, so I think of this kind stuff ... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

 

[johnday]

Richard; Very nice truck!!! A baby Sterling!!!! Whats the weight rating on it? Did you have any choices of transmissions? And which Cummins is in it, HP, torque and such? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Ahh, RED I hope? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[stevenf]

TimberXX, I'll have to admit after reading all the post to your thread that I own an 99F350 4X4 3.73 locking diffs with a V10 that I bought new I have had no troubles whatsoever with the vehicle it gets 11.3 avg miles per gallon and I commute to the ranch and back everyday not quite 80 miles round trip. On its best day I've gotten 12mpg straight highway miles and on its worst pulling 20 thousand pounds around 8mpg. I also am in the camp of although I get miserable gas mileage owning a small gas engine vehicle is more costly as a second vehicle. I now wish that I had a diesel based on my towing needs but I don't think I'd be money ahead by owning one so with 160,000 miles and no trouble I'll stick with it until it drops. I do run with a camper shell and 1000+ lbs of custom bumpers, grill guard and tools which certainly doesn't help my fuel economy but if its broke I can fix it is my motto so the tools are always there, problem is its never mine thats broke its my honey's or one of my buddy's in their other than ford vehicles.
To tell the whole truth I was bought out of a brand new Chevrolet crewcab equipped exactly the same that I owned from day one except it had the 6.5 turbo diesel I owned it for 380 days and of that it was in a service department 280 of those days I had $40,000 invested and the GM rep gave me a check for $26,000 and told me that if I wanted to do better than that to sue Chevrolet. I'm not the sue happy kind although I did speak with an attorney that assured me that I'd win since Chevrolet locked up my vehicle and insisted I meet with the rep as it was unsafe to drive (the transfer case would slip into neutral under stress like backing heavy loads uphill and they could never fix it). I didn't sue them but I will relate this story until I'm dead and never buy another GM product.
Steve

 

[cowboydoc]

John,

Weight rating of 35k. I could have gotten stick but chose the automatic because of my wife. It has the 5.9l cummins in it. I will email you the order sheet if you'd like to see it.

 

[milkman]

</font><font color="blueclass=small">( John,

Weight rating of 35k. )</font>

Doesn't that mean you'll have to have a CDL to operate, and hit all the scales and weigh stations?

 

[johnday]

Richard; Please do!! I'm kicking around playing truck driver, hopefully next May if I retire then. I've been looking at hauling cars around. My BIL is a broker, and I've been trying to get info from him when he's in town. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[johnday]

Hurschell; I think it depends on what you're doing with it. Those 5th wheel toters you see running around are rated at 32K about. Notice they have a stiker on it that says for RV use only. That makes a difference. Cowboydoc may be able to do the same, although I suspect he's been sitting on a CDL for awhile. Each state is different as far as I know, but why am I answering? Let Richard tell us. /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Bob_Skurka]

<font color="green">
Doesn't that mean you'll have to have a CDL to operate, and hit all the scales and weigh stations? </font>


We run a fleet of trucks, for commercial operations, any vehicle with a GVW (or combined GVW) that exceeds 25,999 is required to be operated by a driver with a CDL. Again that is for commercial use. For non-commercial applications, I believe the laws are different.

At one time, there was also an exemption for company owners who used trucks for their personal use off duty, I don't know if that still exists. But it allowed me to take a big truck home on the weekend despite the fact that I don't have a CDL. Now I just use a smaller truck when I need one (we have a dozen that are rated at 25,995 GVW).

 

[cowboydoc]

Do any of you guys know how to edit a PDF file? I was going to post this from the dealer but it's in PDF and I can't edit out my personal information. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Dargo]

If you have the full version of Adobe, it includes "distiller", which you can use to edit .pdf files. The "free" version doesn't allow you to do that.

 

[tomnky]

I think maybe, You can copy the document by selecting all, copy and then past it into wordpad, making it a text document, then edit out what You want.

It's worth a try .
I have done this with text portions of .pdf files. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[johnday]

Richard; No luck yet? I'd try to walk you thru it, but I don't know how either. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif Where's Gatorboy when you need him? /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Tom_H]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( I used to have..an 81 VW Pickup!...never got the 55 mpg...)</font>

In Sept. 1980 bought a used '80 VW diesel Rabbit pickup with 12k mi. for $7500. On hwy. sometimes got 53 mpg. & 635 mi. range on 12 gal. fuel tank. Always warmed her up 10 min. before driving but went through 4 blown head gaskets and 2 cracked blocks. Gaskets and heads always cracked or blew at exact same spot: where head bolt goes into block on corner of engine on front right as you look into engine compartment. The engine was a converted gas engine. The block was cast iron and the head aluminum. The two metals expanded and contracted at different rates. VW tried replacing the head bolts with a special alloy, but it did little good. A possible reason for my pu having so many problems here was that it would experience as cold as -15 deg. in the winter in the mountains, and as hot as 118 deg. in the Mojave desert in summer.

Crossed the Mojave once on asphalt Interstate with 8 y.o. Michelins which still had good tread, but were so old the heat made bubbles on sidewalls & blew out all 4 at one time in middle of nowhere. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Had a little shell on the back with rear glass out. Put a slightly elevated deck in back with storage underneath. The wife and I spent many nights camping in very cramped quarters in that shell.

When I got married in '82, wife & I went to Disney World in it. While crossing from Fl back into GA at midnight one night, we passed the inspection station. The sign said for trucks to stop, but didn't say vans or pickups. Turns out full sized vans weren't required to stop, but all pickups were. Now this thing was like a Ford Ranchero: it had a 1 piece body; the pu bed was not separate from the cab. The back of this thing was so tiny that it seemed not much larger than the inside of a refrigerator. Anyway, the law came zooming up behind us, lights blazing in the middle of the night so they could search our "truck" for drugs being smuggled in from the Caribbean via Fla. Strongest thing they could find was Bayer. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

The poor truck got rear ended about 4 times. Water leaked through the radio antenna mount hole several times and gave the electrical system irreparable problems. Finally sold her to salvage yard in '94 with 166k mi. for $150. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[Jagmandave]

Mine lasted over 300k miles, with out having any engine teardowns! I lived in sunny San Diego, so the weather was easy on it. But, it also spent quite a bit of time down south over the border, running on Pemex or whatever I could find, and it was plenty hot in the desert. One time in San Felipe, the only place I could find open on a Sunday to fuel up was the local commercial fisherman's dock. Had to drive down the rickety dock, and had to use a funnel, as the hose was about twice the size of the filler opening. Used it several times as a support vehicle for long over the road bicycle races (Tecate - Ensenda, Mexicali-San Felipe etc). I also had a small shell on the back, really helped when you needed to get out of the sun, but weighed about 300lbs, so it slowed me down a bit in the mountains!
It had one odd quirk, it would only start if you parked with the nose downhill, didn't have to be steep, just ever so slightly downhill would do. If you didn't, it would not start by cranking - period. Sometimes I could get it to start by rolling down a long enough hill and popping the clutch...........if it was nose down, it would start on the first crank every time, never did figure out what was wrong with it (neither did the guy I sold it to, who was a VW diesel mechanic, he just resigned himself to parking it downhill too!)
It was a fun little truck, but I replaced it with a gas engined version, it got over 30 mpg and had WAY more power! I drove the second one for close to 300k without a teardown too! They were great trucks, perfectly suited for what I used 'em for............