Hello all. I just joined. My primary reason is my plan to purchase an F600 type of vehicle.

Back in the 60's while I was in school I went to work for a lumber yard and was introduced to truck and forklift driving. Great fun for a 16 yo. Over the years I had various pieces of equipment and currently own a Case 580L backhoe for fun around my hobby farms.

Recently I acquired a Grady White Marlin 300 30 foot boat (sitting in the weeds with dead motors) and it was cheap and on a bumper pull triple axle aluminum frame trailer (10'7" wide and 45 or so feet overall). I am guessing weight all up at 10-11,000 lbs with no fuel (another 2000#). I had it delivered by a boat moving company. I am almost finished rebuilding and mounting different motors on it and while they were off I tried towing about 10 miles (got the oversize load permit and the sign) with my 2000 F250 superduty V10 auto. It does it (trailer has surge brakes) but that's a lot of boat back there. I have a 30 mile trip each way to make to the marina and I figure I will do it twice to 3 times a year. Now I have always wanted an excuse to by another bigger truck again and I think I have one. Research on what a "bigger" truck might look like led me back to the F600 type I drove in my youth instead of owning another hobby semi. I remember really liking driving that series in all it's flavors. We even had an old COE (1954?) that got used occasionally. It would overheat on me going uphills with a load and I remember the gauge I had to watch in the speedometer housing. The trucks had rollers and aprons on the back for more load dumping fun!



I will be looking probably in the 60-70's and 1000 to 1500 range (maybe more for an exceptional one but country wide I have seen many in this price range that would be acceptable from outward appearances), Puget sound region of Washington State, pretty much any version although a flatbed or bare chassis probably would be best. In my perfect world it would be a crew cab with a pickup box or short flatbed and a nice hitch receiver :-) We now return to the real world.

I have plenty of projects and not much time so I will be wanting to really look this purchase over from the standpoint of engine, brakes, transmission and rear end being in decent shape. I am an accomplished mechanic but of course no experience with these. I did change over a standard rear end to an air locking differential in a air brake International S2200 I used to have and do all my own work on the various vehicles I own including complete engine dis-assembly and rebuild. I have standard hobby shop tooling and experience: milling machine, several metal lathes, large vehicle air tools etc. BUT I don't want anything major on this if I can help it.

I have a saw mill and can make a bed. I also liked a cheap build I saw on here that took a dump truck model and sawed the sides off to make a dumping flatbed. Pretty cool to me.

So if I was surveying a 1966 say 100,000 mile F600 what should I watch out for?

I already have "vacuum assisted brakes" on the short list but any way to tell condition?

Best engines? etc.

Thanks in advance

 

Welcome,
I don't know much about the F600 and bigger series, I'm learning myself but the guys here are very knowledgeable. Sounds like you have a good plan.
Geoff

 

Consider a C Series Tilt Cab (column left, 4th entry, body style 91 C-CT series), same body style 1957/86.

There are many of these still extant, but the only one I know of in WA was parked in a field south of Twisp and this was in May 2010.

East of the Cascades is where I'd look, because it's dry, unlike the Puget Sound areas that is rainy.

Join FTE's WA Chapter, the more people you know, the easier it is to find stuff.

If you want a real challenge, in Brewster...there's an AC Mack 'Bulldog' parked in a shed, north side of the main drag...headin' east.

 

Thank you to both of you for replying. The F600's were what I drove but actually the C series cab over would probably be better because it would be shorter.

I have seen on here that the brakes, vacuum assist and certain wheels are the death knell for these. There is one type wheel that is never to be used? It splits in the middle of the rim instead of the edge? I wonder what year they stopped using those?

Anyway if I actually find one I'll probably need a lot of advice

 

Read thru the C series threads in this forum. One member (fakesnake) just converted a '58 C series fire truck to a car hauler. It's shown with a 1960 Ford Starliner on its ramp.

 

I definitely would be interested in a C series but I won't be doing any extensive modifications to this truck other than adding a hitch or perhaps shortening the frame. I had found that thread on the fire truck conversion while searching through here and it and many others are things of beauty. In my younger years I would have (did want to) modify a semi for hauling my wife's horse trailer. I got it going good but she could never get the hang of the road ranger or the air brakes. Strangely enough when I sold it a few years ago it wound up in a large boat transport role!

My search my will be focused mainly on condition of drive components, not cosmetics. The budget for this purchase is small and really the only reason I am considering this is looking over past sales it "appears" these are way undervalued at this point in their lives. An F350 with less capability for my mission is at least 5 times the cost from what I am seeing. The F600 series appears more plentiful in the Puget Sound region.