How common is my 65 1/2 ton truck?

[gfatula]

6 lug with 7.50 x 16 tires. I will share pics as soon as I can borrow a camera. (I lost mine overboard recently! Ugh!) This truck was a Government truck I used when I worked at the Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge back in the late 70s. It came to the end of its service life (11 years) working on the refuge and appeared on the annual GSA bid list as a 65 1/2 ton. I bought it for $600.00 and used it as a farm truck for 20 years. I added a Fisher hydraulic plow and kept the driveway cleared. It has less than 50K on the high torq 283. It runs like a top. I am retired now and want to restore it to use to carry a camper and my canoe. Being able to carry a camper that will be comfortable looks like it needs to be rated in the 3/4 ton range. Can I modify it to handle a larger than 1/2 ton rated camper?

G

[OrrieG]

Here is mine when it was 2wd, stock 1/2 ton axles. Camper was a slide in that weighed about 500#. We would put in about #300 camping gear, water, etc. I used air shocks to keep it level. I sure had big mirrors on it then!