One ton opinions

I have a friend that has literally spent over $10K on his 6.0 in the past couple of years in his work truck. He has not had to have a replacement engine. He's really regretted having one. Run far far away.
 
atothec said:
My new $7,500 baby: 98 Dodge Ram 3500 5.9 cummins 12v diesel, dually flatbed dump, 4x4. 148,000 miles, new trans with 10k on it. Only thing that sucks is its an auto.
I went back and forth between diesel van pulling a dump trailer, service bed truck with the mini in the bed, and what i really wanted - a flatbed dump. I kept searching local Facebook and craigslist markets until I found something I thought might be nice and I think I scored. The bed on this thing is huge! I plan to make some ramps work to load mini or stump grinder on the bed.
I guess my point is that I looked at a lot of crap, and was real close to settling on that crap, but I'm glad I held out until I found a preferable make/ model and talked them down below market value.
PS If I was JUST contract climbing I guess I'd want a sweet diesel van. The ability to haul trailers and equipment would no doubt add value and reduce difficulty for you if you could rent equipment and tow it to the site for extra contract cost. I won't hardly work without a mini now. I haul everything we cut so the versatility of the flatbed dump got me, and i have the bucket truck lock boxes with dump bed rod locks to keep my gear safe.
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Do you have enough room with those boxes to fit your tools when the bed is full?
 
burtonbc1400 said:
Do you have enough room with those boxes to fit your tools when the bed is full?
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We run a bucket truck with the forestry package, lots of boxes. The one ton pulls a 20ft enclosed trailer "mobile shop on wheels"
so, lots of storage.
Just bought a twin 95 cummins 3500 flatbed dump, manual trans. it'll pull the 20ft enclosed trailer and that auto truck will pull my upcoming vermeer sc552 stump grinder :)
 
I run both a 05 and 04 350 and 550 respectively. Both have the 6.0 both have been great trucks tow all day, haul chips and chipper no problem. All the stories I have heard about the 6.0 being terrible are usually involve a chip or some sort of mod to gain HP. Maybe I just got lucky, who knows?
 
In the last three years we’ve been selling our internationals 05 and newer are junk in my opinion we still have a 01 but last three years it’s cost 6-8k in repairs and the worst part that kind of $ your still in a old truck with no A/C so we have a 15 F550 dump 16 F650 dump with a chip box insert and a 18 F750 14’ Arbortech all have v10’s 650 and 750 are built 32k but are 26k gvw tagged so no cdl required 750 pulls a Morbark 18r that weighs just over 14k (cdl required) all of them get 5-6 mpg diesel option was 9k alone not to mention fuel,oil changes,def fluid adds up quick V10’s start in the cold no plugging it in all 3 trucks have never been back to the shop and the engines are good for 250-300k with good maintenance the 9k for a diesel will buy you a spare v10. emissions have ruined diesel’s hopefully next year will get another f550 to put a 83HD+ on the back and oh yeah with a v10
( we have a 06 7600 with a dt 570 big john 90’ spade v10 wouldn’t work for this)
 
atothec said:
My new $7,500 baby: 98 Dodge Ram 3500 5.9 cummins 12v diesel, dually flatbed dump, 4x4. 148,000 miles, new trans with 10k on it. Only thing that sucks is its an auto.
I went back and forth between diesel van pulling a dump trailer, service bed truck with the mini in the bed, and what i really wanted - a flatbed dump. I kept searching local Facebook and craigslist markets until I found something I thought might be nice and I think I scored. The bed on this thing is huge! I plan to make some ramps work to load mini or stump grinder on the bed.
I guess my point is that I looked at a lot of crap, and was real close to settling on that crap, but I'm glad I held out until I found a preferable make/ model and talked them down below market value.
PS If I was JUST contract climbing I guess I'd want a sweet diesel van. The ability to haul trailers and equipment would no doubt add value and reduce difficulty for you if you could rent equipment and tow it to the site for extra contract cost. I won't hardly work without a mini now. I haul everything we cut so the versatility of the flatbed dump got me, and i have the bucket truck lock boxes with dump bed rod locks to keep my gear safe.
Click to expand...
@atothec did you ever make the ramps for the mini? I’m looking for a flatbed dump truck now with that being one of its main duties, hauling my branch manager. If I could load it on the truck and leave the trailer at home that would be great. What type of mini do you have and what type of ramps?
 
rico said:
Ram 3500HD, Cummins 6.7, Aisian tranny, done.
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That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Know where I can find one? Don’t want new, this truck will be driven by employee and I have a hard time sharing new and shiny
 
Merle Nelson said:
@southsoundtree loads a mini in a bed with 10 foot ramps.
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I also went this route after reading a couple of guys using these 10 foot ramps from discountramps.com 20190125_161845.webp
I had originally went with some ATV ramps that were rated at 3,000 lbs (1500/ramp) and 7.5 feet long. They worked well for loading into a pickup but started to buckle after about 2 months of use. These new ramps are long enough that I can now load into the higher chip box and are rated for 10,000 lbs per axle.
 
If you go with a flatbed, or a barn style tailgate on a dump then the ramp brackets that I made would work well for you. 20190125_130537.webp
This isn't the best image, but it's just a 3/4" solid rod with it doubled up on the ends to give it a slot to lock into. I added a piece of channel under each side just to give it some vertical support.

20190125_121532.webp
Just as a side note, the ramps that I have are 16" wide, the brackets that I made are 16.5" wide, so I can just drop then in the bracket and not have to line the ramps up with the mini's wheels. When I'm done loading the ramps slide in the bed next to the mini
 
I have a similar setup to load my mini except I have steel ramps. I got them with a truck I bought. If I was going to do it much I'd buy a set of aluminum ramps. The steel ones are heavy. My friend bought some of the ramps pictured above. Be careful to inspect them for cracks. His started cracking after less than a week of use. Thankfully he noticed as it would have been terrible for the hook to fall off one side. Whoever welded them had their machine set to cold. I re welded them with my tig and they have been fine ever since. He's loading a bobcat MT55 into his truck or dump trailer with them so it's not like he was abusing them.

Here's my SK650 in the back of my F550. We normally transport it on a 16ft utility trailer but sometimes it's really nice to be able to do it this way. The bed on my F550 is big enough that I can pick the loader arms up all the way and spin around so that I can drive out going forwards.

2019-01-04_07-29-46 by Griffin93, on Flickr
 
burtonbc1400 said:
What's wrong with the 03-07 550's?
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Biggest flaw is the 6.0 motor I had several issues with mine kept dumping money into it until i finally found an awesome mechanic who tore it down and bullet proofed it. They was 2+ years ago haven’t had a single issue after and like it better then my new 6.7 trucks. And I had to replace the metal fuel tank with a plastic tank due to the metal tank delaminating and taking out injectors and filters.
 
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