Trucks & Equipment | Nicholas Fluhart

August 25, 2011

Retreiving More Old Iron: F-700 Winch Truck

Filed under: Day to Day,Trucks & Equipment — Nicholas Fluhart @ 6:40 pm
Tags: F-600, F-600 4x4, F-700, F600, F600 4x4, F700, Oil Field Bed, Winch Bed, Winch Truck

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….

July 31, 2011

Another Addition: Ditch Witch 2300

Filed under: Day to Day,Trucks & Equipment — Nicholas Fluhart @ 8:11 pm

So I ran across a deal on an old Ditch Witch the other day. I was looking at an Allis-Chalmers AD4 motor grader when this little unit caught my eye. This is one piece of equipment I never thought I’d own, but they are handy when you need one. The coolest thing about it, to me, is the four-way push blade on the front. Even if I rarely have need for a trencher, I could always use a compact machine with a blade for driveway maintenance, etc. The owner told me it ran the last time they used it, but it had been setting up for a year. They tried to tell me it would still run, but I knew better than to take someone’s word for item condition. I took a close look for myself, and I’m glad I did. Upon closer inspection, I noticed the top of the muffler had a hole from rust. I then pulled the dip stick, and sure enough, the engine had water in it and was stuck. The price became right (it was actually a steal) so I scooped it up.

Winched onto the trailer.

Without running, it is difficult to get the implements up which makes it a challenge to load and unload. We used a winch and some planks to skid it up on the trailer. When I got it home, I used my Allis lift to drag it off the trailer and set it down.

Getting it Home

Unloading with Forklift

Once I got it unloaded, I pulled the spark plugs and filled the cylinders with transmission fluid and let them soak for three weeks. Then I pulled the starter and used a pry-bar on the flywheel ring gear, and after much leveraging, I got the engine to turn over. I flushed the engine with diesel and then tried to get it running. Unfortunately, the rings took a beating from all the rain water and it no longer had enough compression to run. So, the plan is to pull the cylinders and ring the old gal and hopefully she’ll live. The rest of the machine appears to be in good enough condition to justify fixing the engine, so maybe one day soon you’ll see the project posted. Until then…

July 22, 2011

Recent Purchase: Clark Forklift

Filed under: Day to Day,Trucks & Equipment — Nicholas Fluhart @ 10:33 pm

I found myself needing a small, versatile forklift for my business. Often there are items or machines stored behind my building that we need to retrieve and bring around front. The back yard is grass and relatively soft, so my Allis lift has no chance as it is extremely heavy and would sink in short order. Thus the need for some type of smaller, lighter, all-terrain unit.

A friend had this nice little 1971 Clark for sale, and the moment I saw it, I knew I had to have it. $1500 later, it was delivered to my shop.

It’s a compact machine powered by a 4-cylinder Red Seal engine. It has pneumatic tires, a 3-stage mast, and 2,000 lbs lift capacity. It does great in grass as seen below:

With the amount of back-tilt it has, I can easily lift and carry ATVs from the side, as seen above, or from an end, as seen below…

…and if I need to place it on the roof, I can do that too…LOL…thanks to the 3-stage mast:

I love forklifts!

Before long, we’ll pull it up in the shop and slick it up with a new paint job. I’ll post the results as well as more detailed specs, and I’ll put together some pro’s and con’s after I’ve used it a bit more.

Until next time…

Comments (2)

February 11, 2010

Project: John Deere Model M

Filed under: Project: John Deere M,Trucks & Equipment — Nicholas Fluhart @ 10:47 pm

Here’s a fun project I completed a while back. I like to buy, fix up, and sell a variety of machines, so when I heard a friend had this old John Deere M for sale I was quick to check it out. He called and indicated he had inherited the old tractor from a relative and no longer needed it because he bought a new Kubota 4×4 with a front-end loader. He wanted $1000 for the tractor, but there was one problem: it didn’t run…

Before

After

So I grabbed one of my mechanics, some tools, hooked up to a trailer and drove up to Fordyce, Arkansas. When I arrived, it was a sad sight. The tires were flat and it was clear that the tractor had not run in years. There was no point in trying to get it running on site, but one thing was certain: I was not going to give $1000 for it. In fact, I opted for half that. I figured at $500 if the tractor didn’t pan out as would be the worst case scenario, I could part it out or sell it as a project/parts tractor for $600 and relatively break even. Or, best case scenario it wouldn’t take much to fix and I could sell it for a big profit. Either way, it would be an enjoyable project. …Oh, and he took the $500.

The first thing we had to do was get it loaded and get it back to the shop. We used the owner’s new Kubota to push it up on the trailer and then we headed south to El Dorado.

Once at the shop, I had one of my guys check it out. I wanted to check the fire, compression, and carburetor to see what it may take to get it running. The points were corroded but salvageable. We cleaned the ignition components and found that we had good spark. However, the carburetor was a disaster and one cylinder was low on compression. We pulled the valve cover for further inspection…

We found that the cylinder with low compression had a sticky valve, which is good news because we were able to use some penetrating oil and free up the valve. Had it been a damaged piston or rings it would have made for much bigger problems. The carburetor had four rusted and broken bolts that had to be extracted and replaced. After we got it all back together the moment of truth arrived. Did it run? Well, check out the video below and see…

Alright, now that we’ve got it lined out mechanically it’s on to the cosmetic restoration. Sadly, I don’t think I have any pictures of the knitty-gritty but I’ll explain what took place. I took my pressure washer and did my best to wash the dirt and old grease off of it. I got most of the dirt, but I wasn’t able to get all the grease off the belly of the tractor. The grease was old and like concrete, so all I could do was scrape and chisel it off the best I could. I hammered as many dings out of the sheet metal as I could and then sanded it. Then I went over the axles, transmission, etc. with a cup brush on my angle grinder. Note, I was not going for a show-quality paint job here. That would have taken much longer and cost far more than would have been feasible for my purposes. I simply wanted a decent, good looking paint job that would enhance the cosmetic appeal of the tractor….oh, and I may have painted over some of the grease on the bottom of the tractor, but don’t tell anyone. LOL OK, so I primed the bare surfaces and then painted the tractor John Deere Green with yellow wheels and new decals. Now check out the next video clip and see if you can tell a difference…

And here are some pictures of the finished product.

And that pretty much does it. Oh wait, how about the cost breakdown? OK, well I paid $500 for the tractor, and I estimate the cost of transport, shop labor (not including my personal labor), and supplies at about $300 which puts me at about $800 on the total. The entire process took about three weeks and it was ready to sell. The tractor sold within 7 days and it brought $1,850.00. It cost me about $50 to sell it on eBay so my overall estimated profit is $1000.00.

All in all it was a fun learning experience and I walked away with an extra thousand bucks in my pocket.

On to the next one…

Comments (2)

December 8, 2009

Catchup at the Complex

Filed under: Day to Day,Project: AC Forklift,Trucks & Equipment — Nicholas Fluhart @ 10:20 pm

In business there are sometimes periods where things are a bit relaxed or less urgent whether it be because you are caught up and ahead or perhaps because things are slow. So what do I do during those periods? Take a vacation? Well, not exactly. I try to use those periods to get caught up on the small things like inventory work, facility cleanup or organization, and equipment maintenance.

There’s been some things I’ve wanted to do to my forklift and a few weeks back I was able to do some of that. It is typically parked outside and gets junk on it from the rain and trees so I washed it good and then applied touch-up paint to all the chips and scratches it has accumulated since I painted it a couple of years ago.