I got a dump truck! How does it work?

[Gord Baker]

Well Done Sir.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Spent half the day yesterday changing tires. Had a flat on one of the drive tires. Called a service truck and they wanted $600 for three service call and 1 tire, ouch. My neighbor found 8 of them mounted on rims already for $100 each. I bought 4 of them. I don't have tools large enough for it so he brought a big jack and a 3/4" ratchet and breaker bar and helped me. He's a good guy. It took us probably 3 hours to change the 4 rears. I stripped the threads out of 2 nuts, replaced 2 more nuts on top of that and 4 studs. Now it's got new...er matching tires on the rear!

They are 10.00-20 on Dayton split rims. Apparently those are hard to come by and dangerous. The star hub stays on the truck and the rim is held on with wedges like an old tractor.

There was a little whethering on the old ones...

 

[Willie B]

Those are dangerous in more ways than one. The Dayton wheels are getting less common as older trucks cease to be on the road. It is critically important to keep them at correct torque. Buy a torque wrench, use it often. I had a triaxle trailer with Dayton wheels. It was a nightmare keeping tires on it, & I failed one trip to check torque, Lost a wheel less than a mile from home.

These being mounted, you must check runout on the tire. Experts use a hammer to correct run out before final torque.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Those knobs you mentioned probably control the cables that work for the bed.

They do. I've already moved probably 200 loads with it.

 

[NUTTERDW]

The wide spread of opinions on this is amazing!
From my experience my guess is you want the 2 knobs under the dash on the left side. 1 is your cable to engage the pto to power the dump. You must depress the trucks clutch before you pull on the right knob.
The other knob is your control valve and usually you pull to raise and push to lower.
The knobs on the floor to the left of the seat are controls for a sander. Disregard these.
Only operate the pro for dumping, engaging and disengaging for each dump.
Only raise the dump on close to level ground (doesn't need to be perfectly level)
Dumping downhill is helpful for a tired hydraulic system or overloading.
I could be completely wrong if this is an old municipal plow truck. Many of these have a direct drive to the pump and no operator input is required, but this is my guess and I'm sticking to it.

I had one that looks like that one and one knob on the dash was for the PTO then I had a floor lever to raise and lower the bed, but I don't see a floor lever in the picture

 

[RayIN]

Ok. I just made a discovery. This thing has a big hydro reservoir and it is full. But, and that's a big but, it's plumbed into the spreader circut not the dump circut. The dump circut is closed. I just gotta figure out how to get oil into that circut and i think it will work.

Many of the older dump trucks had the hyd oil reservoir behind the driver-side fuel tank. It could be accessed when the bed was fully-up.
Do not forget to block up the bed.

 

[kenhar]

Those spit rims can be deadly. A friend of mines dad was fixing a flat and the ring came off. Hit him just above the ear. Took off half of the top of his head. An on looker that was watching too close got a broken jaw and lost about half of his teeth. A safety cage was on site but because he had fixed or mounted tires a "thousand times", it wasn't being used. This happened in the 60s but just as dangerous today. Alot of tire shops today won't touch a spit rim.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Many of the older dump trucks had the hyd oil reservoir behind the driver-side fuel tank. It could be accessed when the bed was fully-up.
Do not forget to block up the bed.

On the one the dump cylinder is also the reservoir. Earlier in the thread I posted a picture of when I lifted the bed with the excavator to get to it to add oil.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Those spit rims can be deadly. A friend of mines dad was fixing a flat and the ring came off. Hit him just above the ear. Took off half of the top of his head. An on looker that was watching too close got a broken jaw and lost about half of his teeth. A safety cage was on site but because he had fixed or mounted tires a "thousand times", it wasn't being used. This happened in the 60s but just as dangerous today. Alot of tire shops today won't touch a spit rim.

I was lucky that I was able to find tires that were already mounted on rims. I just pulled off the old rims and put on the new...er ones with the better tires. I was quoted $300 for one tire to be changed on site and I ended up spending $100 each for a set of 4 already mounted for the rear.

 

[Renze]

Alot of tire shops today won't touch a spit rim.

We had an old farm wagon with those. I pull a ratchet strap around it, when the locking ring doesnt properly seat unless the tire pushes the bead ring into place.