The truck is a 1975 F250 2wd Camper Special. The repower is in the garage, 460 performance build. The goal is a rolling workshop with a minimum of 50 amps continuous 110vac, 25 amps 220vac onboard with 120+ psi air@ no less than 30 cfm. A service truck, basically.

I have an underhood Iowa Tool air compressor already, and a couple decent-but-not-great ideas for receiver locations. It does have an "old equipment" look that goes with the truck. It is rebuilt and works like new, but has the classic look. It will also clutter the engine space.

The electrical is more of a real problem. A safe 10kw inverter system is spendy of course, with batteries that have a lifespan, and have to be replaced every two to three years. They have to be good batteries, taking a lot of space, and sealed to dodge an offgassing problem. There is also heat to contend with, from wiring, batteries and the inverter. Enough to consider air conditioning. My cab doesn't have A/C. Then there's the concern about a short. If ever, for any reason, DC power we're to short to body, there would be roughly 3200 amps of 24vdc running through anyone touching the truck. More than lethal. There are ways to be sure it never happened, but still..

So, PTO driven under deck systems came to my attention. They look really good, good like 70 cfm@ 175psi, 13kw with three phase kind of good. That's enough to run a jackhammer in the morning and hook up a boat with better shore power than Fishermans Terminal provides in the evening. RSW running and all, for small boats. Here's the rub, they're made for new SD diesels with a PTO gear on the auto tranny. I have a '75 gasser. The only tranny I have found for a 460 is the 4r100 than can have a PTO gear. With a stage 3 build it is available for what I was looking at in a C6 with a stage 2 shift kit as far as price goes.

Am I on to something here? Has anyone gone this route?

 

For the electricity, how about an engine driven setup? Lincoln and Miller make nice units. A 225 or 250 would get the electric power you want... and have enough auxiliary generator capacity to run a decent size air compressor.

Good functional used units can be found for about 30% of the new list price. A Lincoln link is pasted below. One could be mounted in the bed... but might package better on a trailer.


http://www.lincolnelectric.com/en-us...es/ranger.aspx

 

I have built a few service trucks in my time, and have worked out of them for a pretty good chunk of my life so I'm gonna throw in my 2 cents worth here. I like Blue and White's idea for power generation, that would also give you the ability to weld, which just gives you another weapon in your "arsenal" so to speak. Yes they do take up some bed space, but the size of them keeps getting smaller and therefore so does the weight. I personally have a Lincolin Ranger 250 on my own service truck. Excellent unit. For air, If you are sold on the PTO driven concept, Look into a Sullair compressor unit. They are compact, and can make a BUNCH of air. Then you could buy the correct PTO drive that is compatible with whatever trans you run and join the PTO and compressor with a driveshaft, that sort of configuration is used in the large truck world A LOT and is a proven way of doing things. I once worked out of a service truck (a '79 F700......LOL) that had a Sullair compressor on it, 100 CFM if I remember right. It had been an old city of Denver unit. It had a 14' Utility bed on it and under the floor of the bed they had mounted 2- 14' long by about 10" diameter air tanks that were tied into that Sullair. I could kick the compressor on for about 5 minutes to fill the tanks, then have enough air to run a 1/2" impact for half a day. After lunch, fire it back up for 5 minutes and have enough to finish the day. It was sweet. Plus they had it set up with 100' of 1" air hose on it so you COULD run a jack hammer off of it......which we did occasionally......Again......this is all just my 2 cents worth.......

 

Cool toys indeed.

The engine driven, while cool, won't work for me. I need as much of the bed for tools as I can. To this point, I had been resigned to lose space already for a truck box housing the battery bank and inverter. It's also far to heavy for a single person to lift, and wouldn't fit under a tonneau cover. Trailering is out as well for many reasons, mostly because the wife would never let me go to that length for basically a hobby.

I checked out the Sullair site. Good lead, thanks. I'm also looking at Vanair and RealPower, though I haven't had response yet from them about compatibility of their systems to my truck. I'm not yet sold on the PTO system. Technically I'm already sold on the underhood Iowa in my garage. Vanair and RealPower (and others I'm sure) offer combined genset and air packages. They are also not telling me what such a setup would cost. Not even ballparking. As I don't have a dire need for such a setup, there are limits to how much I can get away with on such a blatant over-engineering project. Buying old components and rebuilding them only gets eye-rolling from the wife, and she's happy I'm not on the couch.

 

Another option that Ive seen, although I'm sure they are pricey......Is hydraulic driven.....for both compressors and welder/generators.......They are run by a PTO driven hydraulic pump which would require some sort of reservoir. They would offer a bit more flexibility as far as mounting the generator or compressor portion since all you need to run to them to operate them is a hydraulic pressure and a return hose...........The PTO geaing and pump are a combined unit that would mount to the transmission.

 

Vanair offers hydraulic generators. I looked at it, and I'd probably have to give up my front fuel tank for a reservoir. Cooling can be an issue. All in all it seemed to add more complexity and things to go wrong.

I landed on MunciePower.com they have tons of good info, and PTOs for the 4r100. I did some searching around at various components for sale, new and used, and found enough to see that yes, this could work and for probably less than the inverter system with less consumable components. Like expensive batteries every few years. With a $5k ceiling, this route looks way better than inverters for the large amounts of power I'm looking for.

I love this forum!