Overkill is the best kind of kill. Go for it!
Overkill is the best kind of kill. Go for it!
Buying a medium duty truck is sort of like my personal dream of living in an old factory.
It seems cool on the outset, and 14,000 sqft under roof would be a nice amount of garage space.....
BUT (and there always is a but)
When you need a roof, its 14,000 square feet.
When you need heat, you are heating an old rattly building.
When you need electrical work, its 480 3 Phase.
Sewer issues? You are dealing with industrial fittings from 100 years ago, can't just cruise into a Menards and get the parts you need.
Just like a medium duty truck, a factory was built to make money and the care and feeding is inconsequential as long the long game is in the green. While it is making money, the owner can justify things like a new roof, a new set of tires, fixing the sewer lateral, or a whole front end rebuild. Once it stops making money, its a real task to try to justify someone who is just a dude using this item for a hobby putting a new roof on the place or redoing the whole front end of his worn out medium duty truck.
Get a new enough one to have good parts availability? Well those parts are priced at what a business will pay who is making money using the item every day, not what an average dude will pay just to run to the dump and tow a race car 6 times a year.
Get an old enough one to be cheap? Good luck on parts. There really isnt much in the junkyard for medium duty stuff once it reaches a certain age because once they stop making money they hit the shredder.
RonnieFnD said:What are these expensive repairs everyone is talking about?
I don't know exactly what was found and done, but it included 3 shops over numerous months, large scale parts bingo, an engine tear down and rebuild that I seem to recall including block repairs, oh and the big-rig sized towing bill and airfare to get home and back. As far as I can tell, there were multiple 5-figure bills involved. It sounds like the like the heavily depreciated modernish ones also have some significant parts availability issues, that they're basically just hoping won't need replacement as long as they own it.
Some of it depends on how DIY you are. There will definitely be a learning curve and tools required if new enough to have a medium duty diesel engine, air brakes, and air ride.
Fuel economy will probably be single digit mpg. Precautions need to be taken to manage growth and water in fuel if sitting for extended periods.
Oil changes are gallons not quarts.
Front ends are typically king pin style and can be DIY, it's just figuring out how to deal with the size/weight and the necessary tools.
Engines can typically be rebuilt in frame, since those sleeved cylinders. The tools and parts would probably be less than a paying someone else to rebuild a gas engine, but new skills and managing the weight of a cylinder head could be tough.
Brakes are no more challenging than hydraulic drums, but weight/size is a challenge.
Transmissions are more durable, but also heavier, clutches may require manual adjustments (including pressure plate, not just pedal).
You should expect to have to pull into weigh stations and DOT checks, even though it isn't required when registered as private vehicle, and just additional scrutiny in general.
A 401 CJ said:RonnieFnD said:What are these expensive repairs everyone is talking about? I have two of them. The chevy above that has a 427 gas engine (truck not vette unfortunately lol) and a four speed so maintenance for the driveline is just and big block chevy. Brakes and tires literally last forever. I also have a international that has a 6bt and a 9 speed, that 6bt is detuned more than a dodge pickup so they last longer and even if they dont....it's a 6bt so you would be looking at the same parts you would be buying for a pickup. That one has 22.5 tires so yea they are crazy expensive but will not exaggerating last 500,000 miles minimum. That one has air brakes which are super simple and cheap as long as you don't need drums. I guess if the clutch took a dump it would be expensive?
And you get to tell everyone you drive an old Chevy truck with a 427 and 4 spd.
When you put it like that it sounds cool lol. I have a 1980 chevy truck with a 427 and a 4 spd
Most of the DOT weigh station stuff is a non-issue. When they see an FL70 towing a 45' 5er, they know it's not a commercial vehicle and they don't even question it. Heck, even when I drove motor coaches, I never stopped except in D.C. Nowhere in the country do DOT inspectors care about how much my motorcoach weighed, even though it was a CDL, I was working commercially, and had passengers. Even in D.C., half the time they would just wave me through like I was inconveniencing them and clogging up the process. For that reason, I continued stopping at D.C. weigh stations in the hopes that I WOULD clog things up and let a few truckers off with a bypass.
The pretty standard, accepted practice for privately owned medium and heavy trucks is to put "Not for Hire" on the side. That's a straight up bypass every time. Just be sure you're not towing a fellow challenger's race car for $100. That's commercial, and could land you in big trouble.
Oh... and if you're not already familiar with air brake operation, please do the homework so no one (including yourself) dies because they don't understand how they work. When I got my CDL 30 years ago, you HAD to have a training course, AND the air brake endorsement to operate air brakes because of how they function. You need to know this because one of the failure modes is to lock ON while you're driving which has the potential to kill you and the 12 cars around you. DOT no longer requires a CDL for air brakes, and it kinda pisses me off.
I can teach you if you end up going the air brake route
Freightliner Sportchassis can be had with air or hydraulic brakes.
VA required an air brake endorsement when I got my CDL. Granted that's VA, not DOT. And that was 15+ years ago.
Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:Most of the DOT weigh station stuff is a non-issue. When they see an FL70 towing a 45' 5er, they know it's not a commercial vehicle and they don't even question it. Heck, even when I drove motor coaches, I never stopped except in D.C. Nowhere in the country do DOT inspectors care about how much my motorcoach weighed, even though it was a CDL, I was working commercially, and had passengers. Even in D.C., half the time they would just wave me through like I was inconveniencing them and clogging up the process. For that reason, I continued stopping at D.C. weigh stations in the hopes that I WOULD clog things up and let a few truckers off with a bypass.
The pretty standard, accepted practice for privately owned medium and heavy trucks is to put "Not for Hire" on the side. That's a straight up bypass every time. Just be sure you're not towing a fellow challenger's race car for $100. That's commercial, and could land you in big trouble.
Yeah, one of the questions you'll get asked if you're stopped is "who owns the vehicles in the trailer?" If it's not you - especially if you have a cool race team logo on the side of your trailer - you have a problem. From the FMSCA:
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has previously provided guidance regarding an exception to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (FMCSRs) for non-business related transportation of personal property, including the transportation of animals and vehicles to shows or other events. To qualify for this exception, there can be no compensation for the transportation, and the driver cannot be engaged in business related to the transportation (e.g., a professional racing operation transporting horses or cars to a race).
"NOT FOR HIRE" doesn't have any legal standing as far as I know. It's a common thing, but if someone thinks you're towing commercially they're going to stop you anyhow.
I got my CDL in 2009. By that time NY dropped the class C CDL so air brakes were a requirement. All you could get was an A or a B and both require air brakes. It was a section on the permit test and you had to demonstrate how to test them (and the air system) and check the slack adjusters on the pre trip. Different animals now with disk air brakes but all good stuff to know.
In reply to RonnieFnD :
The expensive ones I was thinking of are; clutch, injector pump, engine rebuilds (if buying old diesel), and general trams problems like sunrise that always seem to be borked on older international straight drives.
That wouldn't scare me off because low likelihood but still something to consider.
NY Nick said:In reply to RonnieFnD :
The expensive ones I was thinking of are; clutch, injector pump, engine rebuilds (if buying old diesel), and general trams problems like sunrise that always seem to be borked on older international straight drives.
That wouldn't scare me off because low likelihood but still something to consider.
Yea very true but as far as the engines are concerned if they get something with a 4bt or 6bt inframe rebuilds can be done cheap (relatively speaking). International make a metric E36 M3 ton of 466s that had 7.3 idi and turbos stuffed in them that can be had cheap and are pretty easy to get parts for.
In reply to RonnieFnD :
I always thought the 7.3 powerstroke was the 444 and the 466 was an inline 6, or was there a 466 model truck?
In reply to No Time :
Correct.
444E is the Powerstroke 7.3 and DT466 is the medium duty inline 6
I agree... I would lean towards something with a smaller diesel - ISB, Powerstroke, Dmax, etc. That makes parts a good bit more accessible. Just be aware that many of them have turbos that are sized accordingly with their low redline, so upping the fuel/timing to get more power out of them will likely require a larger turbo to prevent high EGTs.
The newer 6.7L ISBs have a bit more useable powerband in the medium duties, but they also come with a lot of requisite emissions equipment that kinda make the whole thing a bummer.
Once you get to the larger, industrial engines like are found in class 6 and up trucks, you have the benefit of 600k mile rebuild intervals, but you have the downside where an injector pump costs 4 times as much. In my experience, it's a wash as long as you don't get a lemon. You'll spend more for parts, but you'll have to replace them less frequently. You'll have to buy a 5 gallon bucket of oil for an oil change, but you only have to do it every 15k miles. (those numbers are all examples, not actual data)
Edit to add: If you want to up the reliability, go manual. Many of the medium duty trucks are equipped with SAE bellhousings so they can swallow monster transmissions. My box truck had an Eaton Road Ranger that looked like it probably weighed 800 lbs and the clutch friction material was about 1" thick. I didn't have many worries that it would ever fail. The larger Allison and Dana automatics are pretty bulletproof as well, but not perfect, and very un-cheap to fix.
dps214 said:All the downside of an extra long semi truck without any of the upsides other than the twoing capacity.
IDK how things work in canada but in the US I'm pretty sure towing with that is the recipe for every cop in existence being thoroughly convinced that it's a commercial vehicle and hassling you for paperwork and credentials that you don't have.
Reminds me of a story a rallyist on Specialstage told of getting pulled over in his box truck tow/service vehicle after he passed by a weigh station, and the state patrol who couldn't be convinced that it wasn't a commercial vehicle.
Drove all the way to Napa, California and back in the shops emissions deleted and tuned Freightliner.
Never stopped at any scales, never got pulled over.
Glad I didn't, inspectors probably would have had a fit.
buzzboy said:In reply to No Time :
Correct.
444E is the Powerstroke 7.3 and DT466 is the medium duty inline 6
Yes. And the 466 is A LOT more engine than 22 extra cubic inches would suggest. Probably close to 2X the weight
Pete. (l33t FS) said:Reminds me of a story a rallyist on Specialstage told of getting pulled over in his box truck tow/service vehicle after he passed by a weigh station, and the state patrol who couldn't be convinced that it wasn't a commercial vehicle.
Haha. This just popped up on my FB feed.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/276479732011479/
Truck and mega trailer for the price of a newer heavy duty pickup
In reply to randedge :
Definitely a case of go big or go home.
Im not sure about that price through...
Thank you everyone for the responses.
Just as I suspected, it is overkill and kind of dumb, unless you have magnificent resources at your disposal, and a near pro team level of assets to be hauling around.
Like so.
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1075463783691528
Tons of totally incorrect info on these responses. You can look up my 99 MD FL50 posts on here, to see a lot of info from owing it and towing all over the US with it, if you cared for the search button.
if you google "cabriolet sport liner" my post is usually the first suggestion, as well.
Curtis, with the life experience he has had, is usually spot on. And I agree with the responses to the day cab work trucks he refers to. But there are more solutions than being stuck with a truck that rides as bad as a 40s truck (owned them too, so...)
But my personal opinion is ether go all the way to a Class 8 and skip the MD stuff completely, or stick with a "passenger car" classed pick up (one ton and down)
Pretty much all the "reasons not to" that apply to a shortened, single axle semi, apply to the MD trucks. Without the better engine options
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