I paid $3500 for a new aluminum flat bed for over of my trucks. Other than owning box trucks, it was one of my worst purchases. Aluminum wallows out where you run bolts through, gets brittle, transfers vibrations.
You don’t like box trucks?
Heck of an engine in that thing, bet it will out torque a modern v8
Couldn’t agree more, the longer you use it the bigger the washers get lol.
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You know about how much weight you saved Alum over steel?
Part of reason is I’m not sure what I want. I kind of like the Isuzu -Hino because you can get lower bed on them, turning radius, etc but I don’t like not having something in front of me. So another extended cab 3500 dually would be good if I could get a long enough bed for it. Most are 8 or 9.5’ long that I’ve seen so far. I want to keep it so I don’t have to mess with CDL and DOT crap.
While doing a house yesterday, the gutter guy showed up to replace a section and he had a new 2500 WT 4dr extened cab w/ power windows and door locks with new 8’ service body on it. New out the door he had $43k in it. With all the compartments and storage on it, could probably make that work.
So I’m all over the place. I love my truck build, but just no storage other than back seat to speak of.
I’d kind of like to do a flatbed build, just cause I’ve have enough room to get everything on there and still have some storage. Of course the most economical thing would to just get a new trailer and move stuff to it, but that doesn’t solve my problem of getting into garages or congested areas in town.
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they have held up very well, one was a f250 w/service body had 112k when I got it sold it at 300k never touched engine or transmission it loved gas . Another was a transit connect put 100k did have to replace transmission found out latter it was a common issue them. These both came from Marietta Truck Sales very pleased with them .
By chassis on those, is that wheel to wheel or length of body behind cab, or overall length?
I don’t. I know that the aluminum bed was picked up from the saw benches and put on the truck by me and one other guy. I couldn’t have done that with steel
No, and I’ve owned a half dozen
Which I’m surprised since you’ll are on the road so much that security wise they would have worked for you.
What’s your biggest complaints?
This is the 20’ truck it would have a 17’ flat bed. They also sell the 17’ and 14’ trucks with the boxes
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They are great for security, and setting a heater inside of when it’s cold at night. They were a necessary evil until I got a shop big enough to park all the trucks in. Biggest problem it’s heat build up. I had the exhaust ran out side, rv gull wing doors, pusher fans etc but in the summer it would be over a 150 degrees inside sometimes. Machines didn’t want to stay running. Also, no where to carry extension ladders except way up on top of hanging of the side. Hanging of the side is a recipe for disaster.
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The extension ladder on top is a head scratcher lol. I don’t want to spend a fortune on a ladder rack but this thing is awesome
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The functionality of a cabover truck is hard to beat. But I think the majority of them are oversized (lengthwise) for our industry. Unless you’ve got a big crew with multiple machines and need a lot of space.
My fantasy build would be based off a Toyota Dyna. Super impractical from a maintenance & repair perspective, since all the parts would need to be imported. And due to import restrictions, you’d be using a 25+ year old truck. (Right hand drive might be tough to get used to, as well). But they check all my boxes: diesel, 4x4, PTO on most of them, and shorter wheelbases available.
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Duplicate post
@Racer that makes a lot of sense. This thread has been very helpful to me in deciding what I want though. I think I’ll stick to a 16 ft flatbed as I want to put some bigger machines and my window cleaning stuff on there. Currently between my van my rig is about 26 ft long I think, but a 16 ft flatbed is only 22 ft with the overcab. I can see how downtown Greenville would be an issue!! I some similar issues here with neighborhoods here that were designed a long time ago for one car per house. Now everyone parks their cars on both sides of a narrow street sometimes.
43k is a good deal more than what I want to drop on a truck, but I know that is really good out the door new. I’ve seen some older ones for around 6-9k around here that I would take at first glance.
Do you have to get a cdl for a 16 ft flatbed? I was under the impression you don’t.
@Innocentbystander made some good points about the downsides of aluminum I hadn’t thought of, thought I should have for some of them. Saved me a chunk of money don’t having to deal with those issues!
Size doesn’t really have anything to do with needing a CDL or not. It’s all about what it’s GVWR is listed at. Anything under 26,000 pounds and you should be fine as long as you’re staying local. Go crossing state lines and you’ll need a CDL, IFTA tags, etc.
I’ve always thought it was funny that you don’t need any sort of training or licensing to drive a big diesel pusher RV anywhere you want but if you want to drive a one ton dually across state lines for business purposes you do.
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There’s also the issue of galvanic corrosion when you have different metals touching each other. Aluminum no likey steel bolts. Stainless steel not so bad I figure. So attach everything with SS bolts, washers and nuts and you should mitigate most of that.
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