I searched through the forums and didnt find exactly what i was looking for so here goes. I am looking to get a early to mid 90's highway tractor, pull the sleeper off of it and put a dump box on there. The truck is probably going to have air and not rubberblock suspension, so I know I have to make sure it has lockers. What else should a guy look for? Do you guys think this would be hard to do? The whole reason I am doing this is because i can get a newer nicer truck and a brand new box, cheaper then buying a complete dump truck. So unless your going to sell me a dump for cheap, buying a complete dump truck might be out of the question for now lol.
Problem I see with doing that is axle gearing is to high on hiway trucks. I know of a couple log truckers that did that and had nothing but problems blowing rear ends.
Ok that is good to know. I wont be using it as a heavy duty dump truck anyways, just light hauling, and towing my backhoe around with.
Highway trucks with sleepers tend to be spec'd much lighter duty than dump chassis. Single frames, higher gear ratios, smaller drivetrains etc.. for running on pavement. Keep in mind that a dump will be operating on and off road and tends to be pushed to extremes. Good luck.
Look for heavy haulers (lowboys etc). They are usually heavy frames and geared ideal for dumps. A lot already have the wet kits. Few are air ride. With heavy construction slowing down, I see more and more of them at auctions and they aren't in high demand now, so they should go for a good price. Good luck.
My 378 SBA was a road tractor that I converted to dump truck ,I double framed it kept the original low air suspenssion change the gear ratio from 3.90 to 4.10 ,replaced the front axl with a 20k with springs and all an trew a new watson and chalin steerable 13k drop axl and that truck hauls 23 tons loads every day ,since it was converted we put 500k miles on it and still running strung.
I agree that most highway trucks are too light. Light frames, light axels, and geared too high - gearing will make or break a dump truck. One other thing to consider that while tough, what I hate about double frames is that the salt eventualy gets between the frames and rotts them from the inside out, better off with a heavy single frame if you have salt to deal with, imo. Air suspensions are not too bad on a dump, just have to be a little more carefull where you go with it, after all even the most ruggedly built dump truck is still built to drive on the road, the rough off road stuff is what they build articulated dumps, loaders, dozers, etc. Sure you can build up the frame, change gear ratios, axles, suspensions, but at some point you are better off just buing a truck that is speced right (or at least closer) to begin with. The biggest thing though is what you want it to do, if you can drive a few diffrent dumps you will quickly figure out what you want in a dump truck.
Thanks for all the advice on frames and whatnot. I have actually been checking out ebay, and i can get a dump for alot cheaper in the states, I might try to go that route too.
Check out the south east. The yards are full of dump trucks now. Since the building bust you hardly see any dumps on the roads anymore. They have to be somewhere and probably selling cheap.
Don't know if you have looked here or not. http://www.truckpaper.com/default.asp?guid=8C1820F821C344DC83582E2DA5EE1B39