This is a project I've been planning to tackle ever since I bought my 1997 Ford F-Super-Duty flatbed pickup truck, and the time has arrived. It will finally realize its destiny to be a dump truck.
I live on an island, and I'm developing vacant land for a homestead build. After I had my first (and only) load of gravel delivered, I realized that the equipment necessary to haul my own stone was going to pay for itself and then some. The delivery costs to get trucks across the ferry were just too high.
The most apparent solution was a dump trailer, but my ferry charges by the foot, so that extra fare would have added up pretty quickly. So I set out looking for a small dump truck. I found there were two options: incredibly expensive, and clapped-out farm-trucks that can barely go 30 miles per hour. Since I'm cheap and my quarry requires some freeway driving, neither appealed to me.
With a little research I learned that hydraulic dump conversion kits could be had for less then two thousand dollars, so I bought a medium-duty flatbed (ironically badged F-Super-Duty) with the plan to convert it from the truck I could afford into the truck I wanted.
There are a number of videos so far on this channel documenting the various work I've done (shortening the bed, adding stake-sides, tailgate hinges, and general wrenching):
• Truck
But all of that has been leading up to this project. I bit the bullet, placed my order with PrimaryMover.com, and got to work.
Side-note: Primary Mover has been great. There are bigger brands out there for a lot more money, and I wasn't able to find a ton about these guys so I was a little apprehensive about the purchase. I figured I was getting a Chinese knock-off. But for the savings I was willing to risk it. What arrived seems well thought-out and well built, and is badged as "Made, assembled, and tested in the USA". What's more, some bits were lost in shipping, and their customer service was responsive, helpful, and promptly sent out replacements at no cost to me. I'm a happy customer.
(Do I have to say it? Not sponsored or affiliated. Seriously, look at my subscriber count. I don't get sponsors.)
Anyway, this was one of the biggest fabrication projects I've ever taken on, and I had a blast doing it. I removed the bed, fixed a lot of long-standing structural issues/damage, figured out the packaging and kinematics of the new lift, fabricated the brackets and gussets necessary to securely integrate it into the structure, mounted/wired/plumbed the hydraulic pump, and got everything working great.
It's been a few months now and I'm extremely happy with the result. I've hauled over a dozen of loads of stone (some dramatically over-weight) with no major issues and the conversion kit has more than paid itself off. I fully expect the entire truck to turn a profit in the next year.
What's more, I'm finding it incredibly useful just moving stuff around the property. Even if I'm only taking it 30 yards, moving dirt is way faster with the truck than the excavator. And I will often back the truck right up to a downed tree, limb it directly into the bed, then drive up and dump straight into the bonfire, which is an enormous time saver when you have as many trees to clean up as I do.
So this project has been a huge win. It has been a gigantic improvement to the utility of my truck, and, at least in my market, there was absolutely no cheaper way to get a freeway capable dump truck of any size.
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