after about 2 years of shopping and changing my mind i finally bought a dump truck. i ended up with a '78 chevy C65. it has the 366 gas engine with 5 speed and split rear end. for its age it is in great shape and runs and stops great. it is at the welders getting a receiver hitch put on and i wil post pics next week when i pick it up. the decision process has been crazy trying to nit pick between a bunch of diffrent ways to go. new makes sense as well as used. gas verses diesel was another one. in the end i am hoping if the truck doesn't do very well at least it won't be as expensive a mistake. with the economy as it is i also decided a paid for truck may be better than one with payments. no doubt it will drink the gas but at least it's cheaper than diesel now. we'll see how it goes. thanks for the info being passed on in this threads.
Our first dump truck many years ago was a 1973 or 1974 GMC C65 if I remember right. It was a old Forest Service truck and had the 478 V-6 and was very well equipped as most government vehicles are. It was a single axle 5 yard dump, had air brakes, 4 or 5 spd with 2 speed axle, air hitch. We bought it I think in 1979 or 1980 and sold it probably 5 or 6 years later when we bought a 1976 Peterbilt tandem axle dump truck with a 8V92 and 13 spd. And the funny thing is that old GMC is still running around, I saw it a few months ago running down the road. We also owned a 1976 Chevrolet C65 single axle 20' flatbed that we bought new, and just sold it a few years ago. It had the 366 with 5 spd and 2 spd axle.