Rebuild old flatbed, or start from scratch?

You can check, but that's going to very tall. I don't know if that matters where you go or fill up. If not, and you want to use that truck and can build the tie downs, go for it.

With the current camper setup, I'll be approx. 3 feet shy of the legal height limit. I frequently drive trucks for work that measure at 13'4", so I am familiar with what comes with driving an exceptionally tall vehicle. For the places I typically go, I virtually never run into underpasses, and the few I might hit are pretty easy to get around. And honestly, I can't even remember the last time I ran into a gas station that didn't have a super high roof over the pumps.

I would not hesitate to load a TC as it is. I might put a sheet of something from the TC to the rear of the bed so I would not trip on the deck boards.

how you going to load it? swing out brackets on all 4 corners, or a fork lift to load the camper.

Too cool! I love old iron too, keep us up to date as it progresses! I'd love to see an old 12 valve Cummins in it, 5 speed and hopefully it has a two speed rear end, way cool!

towpro wrote:
how you going to load it? swing out brackets on all 4 corners, or a fork lift to load the camper.

Honestly...wasn't something I really thought about all that much. One of my neighbors has a forklift, though I haven't approached him for help yet. Ideally, I'd like to find a way to do it myself, just so I'm not dependent on someone else in case the need arises to remove/install again in the future.

The current camper was originally set up for a pair of tripod jacks to lift it at the center of gravity. I also built a 3rd tripod jack to help balance it out as it made me very uncomfortable to only be on a pair. Turned out it didn't matter much, as it was just as unstable on 3, lol. With one jack on the center on one side, it almost didn't matter where I put the jack on the other side..still went up pretty flat. Adding the 3rd really didn't stabilize it at all, other than to help prevent it from going over if it was pushed too hard.

I'm thinking raise it on a pair of jacks again, back up the truck enough to get the bed under the front part of the base, and lower it down onto a piece of pipe. Add a 4th jack if necessary, put a pair under the rear corners, lift up, and remove the center jacks. Back the truck again, place second pipe under base, and roll the camper all the way in adding/moving pipes as required to get it to the front of the flatbed (this is another reason I'm planning on just replacing the existed flatbed deck...pipes likely won't roll over the existing wood all that well).

While I think this would be OK with the current feather weight Six-Pac (heck, when I picked it up, I didn't place the jacks well, and only got it about halfway in the bed. We pushed it into place the rest of the way...and when I say "we", I mean myself, and the 60-something woman I bought it from). I'm not sure this would be a wise plan if I end up buying a much larger/heavier model camper in the future...but I suppose that would be a "I'll cross that bridge when I get there" kind of thing.

Vinsil wrote:
Too cool! I love old iron too, keep us up to date as it progresses! I'd love to see an old 12 valve Cummins in it, 5 speed and hopefully it has a two speed rear end, way cool!

Already has a 5 speed trans, and a 2 speed rear. I don't know what the current ratio is, but I'm pretty sure it's in 5.x/7.x range. While the large tires help to balance that out a bit, from what I understand, these old trucks gear out before they power out on the top end. So even going to a modern engine with much more power won't gain me much on the freeway ability end of things, unless I want to spin a big gas motor at 5K RPM all day long. I was thinking maybe I could shove something like one of the 13 speed Roadrangers in there at some point in the future. Looking at the gear ratio tables of the Eaton transmissions, I see some of the 13 speeds get into the area of around .65 OD ratios which would certainly help on the freeway cruising side of things.

The fantasy part of me really wants to drop a Detroit 2 stroke into the frame, as I think the sound of those motors working is pure ear candy...but then I've seen YouTube videos of guys driving those trucks, and I suspect I'd kick myself pretty quick after doing it.

More realistically, I think I'd be looking at something like the DT466, or maybe one of the bigger Cat motors. I know everyone and their brother loves the 7.3 and the Cummins 6BT, but I'm thinking I'd better off with a motor that was intended for a medium to heavy duty application even if I'm not moving that much weight right now. Part of the reason for going big with this truck, so to speak, was to future proof myself a bit in the event I do decide to go stupid big weight wise.

On the other hand, I really don't know much about the diesels, and part of me is really thinking of staying with a gas motor just out of familiarity with them despite knowing the fuel mileage will be in the toilet doing so.

Hi urbex - swapping in a diesel - your gearing will be out of whack due to the lower governed rpmof the diesel...

In the olden days gasoline trucks would normally be governed around 3500 rpm.

Depending what your truck's rpm is at what speed you want to cruise at now, you could be looking at a big gearing difference in order to cruise a small diesel around 2000 rpm...

Depending on how many miles a year you intend to travel you might want to apply Red Green's Principle of Leave'er...

06Fargo wrote:
Hi urbex - swapping in a diesel - your gearing will be out of whack due to the lower governed rpmof the diesel...

In the olden days gasoline trucks would normally be governed around 3500 rpm.

Depending what your truck's rpm is at what speed you want to cruise at now, you could be looking at a big gearing difference in order to cruise a small diesel around 2000 rpm...

Depending on how many miles a year you intend to travel you might want to apply Red Green's Principle of Leave'er...

The current motor in it comes with factory net power ratings of 130HP/236lb-ft...roughly the same power that my 1991 Chevy S10 V6 had...it's not that I want to hang with the modern F350 at 80mph, but I also don't want to be slowing down to a crawl at the mere sight of a hill either...

If I make the assumption of a 6.33 high range gear, that puts me at 2834rpm at 65mph with the current OD gear of .82. If I were to switch to a transmission with a .65 OD gear, that moves my RPMs down to 2247 at 65mph.

Then, with a more powerful motor, I could likely switch out the rear end for one with higher gearing, say something around a 5.5 gear..that moves me to 1952rpm at 65mph (still utilizing the trans with the .65 OD)

Of course, this is all hypothetical at the moment, as I've yet to drive this truck at all other than on and off the trailer. Nor have I taken a tape measure to the engine bay to even see what I might be able to squeeze in there. That said, the current 4.3L I6 seems like a tiny little Honda motor in there, so I suspect that it wouldn't be a big deal to get something like an 8L diesel in there if I so chose.

my last 5.9 cummins diesel ran at 2200 @ 65mph