Nicholas Fluhart

Shortly after purchasing the Ditch Witch, I ran across a deal on two old Ford trucks. One is a 1974 F-700 oil field winch truck. It has a Tulsa winch mounted behind the cab, and the traditional winch bed with the rolling tail board and provisions for a fifth wheel. The transmission is missing, but the engine, two-speed rear end, and PTO provisions are still there. The truck itself is too far gone for me to want to restore, but I bought it for the winch and bed. I’d like to transplant the bed onto an all-wheel-drive truck, such as a military 6×6 or perhaps an old Ford F-600 or F-700 4×4. Here’s a couple pics where I found it in the bushes:

The second truck in the lot is a 1979 F-600 which used to be a U-Haul truck, converted and extended to be used as an oil field pump truck. I got it as a cab and chassis, no bed. The engine, transmission, and PTO are in it. It also has a nice pipe bumper on the front. I have no use for it as is, but it will be a great parts truck.

Once purchased, I decided to haul the F-700 first for logistics reasons. They were stacked back in a corner and we needed to move the F-600 over a few feet to have room to load the 700 which was in the bushes ahead of the 600. Below you’ll see a video clip of us moving the 600. My friend came out with his 1979 F-600 4×4 with PTO winch and 25′ goose neck trailer to help me. The first order of business was to get the trucks moved out and lined up for loading. For this, we used the PTO winch on the front of the F-600 4×4.

Then it was time to drag out the 700. We backed the trailer up to it, tied on with a chain, and pulled it out in the open to level ground.

After resolving a slight debacle with the winch cable on the F-600 4×4, it began to get dark so I pulled my truck up to supply lights for the loading procedure. We used a 10,000 lb electric winch on the neck of the trailer to winch the F-700 up the dove tail and onto the bed.

We got it back to the in-town yard that night and decided to reconvene the following morning to haul the truck out to the country where I will store it. The next morning… I took several pictures of it up on the trailer.

We set out to the country…

We found a nice shady place for it out of the way and fired up the Cat D3 dozer to unload and move it…

Below you see it in its final resting place, at least until it is robbed of all usable parts at which time it will likely be hauled for scrap….but that probably won’t be anytime soon. At least for a few years it will likely remain as a monument of industrial history to be enjoyed only by unusual people like me.

These aren’t the only trucks I’ve recently acquired. I’ve gotten bigger and better trucks, machines, and equipment to be posted soon. Until then….