47-59 59 pu cab vs larger truck size differances if any.

[Richard Jensen]

Dsraven, The old 454BB that's in the 83 only has about 50K on it and runs great! 4 speed manual, that I'd love to change over to a NV4500. I'll have to see about the hydro boost when I do the body fitment. This truck was an old Heston service truck. Currently it has a Knapheide, steel flatbed on it that is all rusted out with a set of toolboxes on each side, but it's not a "utility" bed. The Autocrane is a old one that only used an electric wench and the turning, raising of the boom, and the extending of the boom is all manual, although I've got plans to change some of that. It is mounted on the rear, drivers side inboard of the tool box. One improvement will be an outrigger of some kind. Some of my ideas about a bed is to retain the toolboxes, move the crane to the end of the toolbox on the drivers side (necessitating an outrigger or a retractable "foot"). The 83 has dual tanks already, but I've thought of stretching the frame about 2 foot to accommodate a toolbox between the cab and bed to hold stuff like another fuel tank, spare tire, and jack, along with other tools like chains, shovels fire extinguisher, ect. Other gear would be a wench and folding gin poles and lots of work lights. The old scrapper/iron collector in me says to add a tag axle using a second dually axle with the ring and pinion removed, to add to the max GVW and braking ability, but that leads to 4 more tires to buy and issues with registration and insurance, and since I've gotten out of hauling scrap and messing with Hit-n-Miss farm engines, that'd be a lot of hassle I don't need. It'll most likely look like a service truck when I'm done. I'm also planning to make the fuel filler necks to be common to the drivers side for all tanks and enclosed in a small enclosure to keep them secured. Also lots of tie downs.

Thanks!
Richard