Has anyone been running older dump trucks for ore hauling? I would like to get an idea of the average burn rates. I have a '98 Kenworth T800, with a 17' dump bed. I have been offered a nickle ore hauling contract; short distance, min 2 miles, max 4 miles from loading to off-loading; I have been looking for estimations of fuel burn rates for owners with trucks running similar operations. Thanks!
It really depends on elevation change and how fast you get loaded and unloaded. My T800 with an N14-500 has a worst of 65 gallons a day (70 mile round trip, pulling it's guts out loaded and on the jake all the way back) and a best of about 10 gallons doing site work being loaded by a hoe digging to grade with the dump area a hundred yards away. That's a range of 8 gallons per hour down to a little over 1 gallon an hour. Over the course of a day it always works out to about 5.5 mpg.