We had a small but happy milestone last friday. My truck moved more railing in one load than ever before. The stuff is very light, but this is about 400 feet of railing and there will be more to come. Nice to be able to use the truck and trailer to the limits (in terms of volume) like this once in a while.

The load shown here is about 100 miles away being powdercoated as I type.




I know Dave Sponaugle works with his truck but who else is there out there?

 

good job just wait till i get mile back on the raod agin

 

Mine Does 1000kg on the back and 2000kg trailer fairly regularly. Thats the whole reason I bought it. My mates said i was a psycho to buy an import for a work truck with s#$T part availability and high prices. They shut up quick when they see what it can haul (including their bogged landcruisers and hilux's on more than one occasion).
Dave what is the railing for and do you manufacture it?

 

This particular job is for our local city hall. Its an older building that they are upgrading with among other things, a green roof and increased insulation to reduce climate control costs. They also want to open it up as a semi-public area for special occasions, so for that you need to have railings up there since there is a 25' drop of in some places. The entire perimeter takes rails as well as a sunken court yard in the middle of the building.

Yes, we manufacture them from raw extrusions right in our own shop. This load is 100% our own design with a custom hand rail extrusion we had made up a few years ago. Only thing we can't do is the powder coating.

So far, the new railing system has been a big hit.

Its funny you mention the reaction you got when your mates saw your truck. I sometimes hear about sentiments like that from oz and even in europe where full size trucks like ours simply do not exist. AFAIK, you have the ford ranger 3.0 diesel (great truck for what it is), and then you go strait up to the 5 ton lorries. Nothing in between. There seems to be the assumption that these pickups are too big to be economical, and too small to work as hard as a HD truck.

I see it the other way around. They combine the capabilities of both. Fuel economy isn't really that bad either. With the right gearing they do just fine. Much more comfortable than a 5 ton truck too.

 

i love my truck good eco and lots of power

 

I do work mine, for sure. I sure miss having a trailer though, but soon enough I'll get another one. I'd like to find a gooseneck with just enough length to keep me under that legal length limit, and a gvwr of about 17000. Last heavy stuff I hauled was wet dirt, then gravel. 2 cubic yards of each, obviously in two separate loads. That was before the turbo rebuilt though, and it still did good.

 

plowing 2 whole towns under a foot of snow i would say is earning its keep and pulling out countless dodges haha.. never had to pull out a ford

 

use mine for haulin the race car every weekend and if the price ever goes back up haulin scrap

 

No pictures? C'mon guys!

 

ill have to take some the next time i load er up

 

I haul dirt, horse manure, wood chips, and other landscaping materials.
I plan on making this truck a daily work truck with a hook-lift, which is a detachable body system similar to a roll-off.
For the $17k price tag of a Hook-Lift, i plan to build my own roll-off over the winter.

Another reason these trucks are great for folks like us-
-Can haul a lot of weight and be under CDL.
-We (at least in Mass.) don't have any DOT inspections to pass, just regular vehicle inspections.
-Our insurance is fairly cheap. I have commercial insurance for my truck, and when I was 17 i paid $970 a year. This year at age 19 I'm paying $650 a year. They said if I don't have any accidents/tickets then i'll be paying $400 a year when I'm 21. For the $2k/year my friends pay, I can have about 5 trucks on the road (all IDI's!)
-Fuel mileage is decent with the correct gearing.
-Parts are cheap and plentiful
-Service is simple
-We don't have a monthly truck payment
-A fully rebuilt IDI powered truck can be rebuilt for less than a new truck-and you'll gain the knowledge of EVERY part on the truck...ever have to fix something broke down at 1am? Yeah...if you know what you're working on-it's a lot easier!

 

And some rain soaked firewood

Why I was hauling dirt

 

Testing out posting garage photos.




Check with towing a trailer or running B plates (commercial), you may have to have a DOT number.

I have 20,000 pound plates and a DOT number for my truck.

Thats around 9000 pounds on that load, around 17,000 gross.

 

The heaviest load I've hauled was 700 Christmas trees of about $8000.00 of payload. N/A but still out pulled the others that went with us. I got some pics of when we got there unloaded. If we sell trees again this year I'll be sure to take pics of the load.

 

Dave, what are your tires rated at?