What a story. How awful. I recall that you carry a lot of welding equipment in your truck... and acetylene cylinders act like unguided missles when engulfed in extreme heat. Very astute of you to keep checking your rear view mirror when driving, given that you had no sign of trouble in the cab.
I'm trying to think of a take away or a lesson to learn from your misfortune, but cannot come to any conclusion other than "..it happens", and perhaps to stay out of Arizona during the summer, which I already try to do.
Sounds like you've replaced your truck with a beast. I don't think any of the gear heads on this forum would object to you describing your replacement truck in a bit more detail... especially comparing the driving experience of a true medium duty chassis vs a light duty chassis. Now that so called "heavy duty" light duty chassis cabs and pickups are in the $70,000 range when new, the prospect of getting a true medium duty truck probably enters the minds of more prospective personal truck owners with heavy trailers than ever before.
But I have observed several members on RV forums over the years who "graduated" from a 250/2500 to a 350/3500 dually to a 450/550. However, when stepping up to the near equivalently rated, but larger bodied 4500/5500 Kodiak, or the higher rated International, Freightliner, Acterra, etc true medium duty trucks, these same buyers eventually yearn to return to the smaller, more pickup like style tow vehicles.
I drove an F-650 SuperCrewZer a few times, and while I had no doubt that it was a more capable truck than my F-550, there was something about the heft of the F-650 that simply felt like "too much" truck to live with and get around in without a trailer in tow. I think this sensation, whether it makes logical sense or not (the F-650 had a tighter turning radius than my F-550, for an example of illogical reasoning) is partly to blame for the 4500/5500 Kodiak/TopKick line being shuttered for lack of sales, even while it was arguably functionally superior to the more pickup like 450/550 chassis cabs of equivalent GVWRs.
Anyway, feel free to post more about living with your International 4800 4x4 CrewCab with the DT466. Everything about that chassis feels like an order of magnitude bigger than a crew cab 4x4 F450 of the same model year, yet I'll bet the 4800 turns tighter, and might not even be as long, even with the crew cab, depending on CA length.
