What's the Best Farm Truck to Haul my Tractor and Cattle with?

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

It’s amazing how much people don’t take care of stuff lol

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

I got this truck with brake issues, a clutch issue, going down the road it was making crazy noises, had a few lighting issues and it broke down coming home.

I put a new serpentine belt, upper and lower radiator hoses, new oil cap, new radiator cap, two new knobs in the cab (lights and windshield wipers), new LED reverse and break/ turn lights, cleaned up wiring and redid a bunch of connectors, made my own bushing out of copper for the clutch peddle which solved all that prob, found a inner hub seal leaking on the axle, changed that out, got all the bleeders loose without breaking one off and bled the breaks and a master cylinder will be next weekend which will solve the break issue.

All this cost me like $250 and the truck will be mechanically sound. And I’ll be $1200 in a 2wd F350 flatbed with 148k miles, has the 10.25 sterling full floating 4.11 rear, 5 speed that runs like a top. Heck I’ll get more than that for the truck it’s replacing, my 81 F150. If the guy kept up on the small stuff he could have gotten a lot more money for the truck.

Truck has been super easy to work on so far, all the shoes and pads look new, rotors are in great shape, truck is mechanically in good shape just a bunch of small stuff that made it look worse than it was so the guy sold the truck.

 

[bspeedy]

Incredible, isn't it? All that stuff is BASIC MAINTENANCE and ROUTINE REPAIRS.

Anyone could do it. Just fix it when it goes wrong. Put it right and have a good truck.

I don't understand it, either. I do know that keeping up with these things makes your life much happier and your equipment much more valuable.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

Went from way overloaded at 4 bales to hauling 11 bales and staying legal lol.

But turns out another truck drove itself to my house to replace the orange one

1995 F350 dully, 460 v8 with the 10.25 sterling with working limited slip rear, truck gets around SO much nicer than the orange truck, it won’t spin rear wheels for nothing.

 

[Farmer495]

View attachment 530498

Went from way overloaded at 4 bales to hauling 11 bales and staying legal lol.

But turns out another truck drove itself to my house to replace the orange one View attachment 530499View attachment 530500

1995 F350 dully, 460 v8 with the 10.25 sterling with working limited slip rear, truck gets around SO much nicer than the orange truck, it won’t spin rear wheels for nothing. View attachment 530501

Nice, 5-speed or auto?

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

Nice, 5-speed or auto?

Orange truck is a 5 speed with no parking brake lol.

Blue truck is automatic with working AC and the hottest heater I have ever felt in a truck lol. It was a city truck, has a hour meter on the truck also.

I have a hill in my back yard, my orange truck spins a wheel all the way up it no matter how hard you try not to, the blue truck didn’t even spin a wheel, it does a good job.

I’m into the orange truck $1400 as it sits, it’s now mechanically sound. I bought the blue truck for $1800, it’s got a few minor things but nothing to the extent of what I fixed on the orange truck. Hopefully I can sell the orange truck for around 2k or a little more.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

I sold the orange 1990 awhile back, I think I had $1400 in that truck, sold it for $2200. I contacted the owner about 6 months ago, asking him how that truck was doing, he said. it’s been a reliable truck, still haul with it, haven’t had to put any money in it.

I still have the blue F350. Now I’m in need of another truck or beef up my truck.

My grandpa passed away this past year and I bought both his tractors. MF 98 and a 29 JD GP. The Massey is a 8500-9000lb tractor. So tractor and trailer will be around 14k. My blue truck isn’t supposed to haul more than 12k.

I would have to add a goose neck hitch, trailer brake controller, liven up the engine and install a much bigger trans cooler with a gauge for my 95 F350 dually to realistically haul close to 14k lbs. right now it does 8k lbs no problems. But jumping past 10k is another world of towing.

So my options are to upgrade my $1800 truck or sell it and buy another.

I want cheap and reliable, nothing to brake the bank because it sits around most of the time anyway.

6.2 GM diesel (super cheap, can easily bolt on 6.5 turbo). 6.9 or 7.3 IDI or IDIT (much cheaper to repair compared to PSD and can put out same power), 8.1 vortec with Allison trans (cheaper than diesel, lots of power, more modern truck). Something with a 5.9 12v Cummings in it (easy to modify for lots of power, reliable engine). 6.6 LBZ (reliable but expensive to fix). Kinda sorta consider a v10 Ford Super Duty.

I would like to be around 5k if I bought a truck. Would be willing to bump it up to 10k if I found a really “good deal”.

Trucks seem to be hyper inflated right now.

What would you all suggest?

 

[farm boy00]

I would recommend keeping the blue truck with the 460.

Add a trans cooler to keep tranny temps down and a temp gauge. Some 7.3l people recommend a 6.0 tranny cool and seems to be about 40° cooler.

Ad aftermarket exhaust headers, and there's a mod to the air breather hose to get better air flow, but dont remember it fully, so google.

Another option for weight is getting rid of the huge flatbed and going back to a standard truck box. Would gain a few hundred pounds of weight capacity I bet.

 

[atsah]

K&N air filters put oil to the MAF sensor, check engine lights come on and you have to clean it, PITA IMO.. There are better dry air intakes out there..

 

[Grumpycat]

K&N air filters put oil to the MAF sensor, check engine lights come on and you have to clean it, PITA IMO.. There are better dry air intakes out there..

Look at the surface area on a K&N vs a pleated paper filter. Paper filter will have about 10x more area (just count the pleats). For a K&N to deliver its much touted "lower restriction" it has to have more hole area in its smaller surface area than the much larger paper filter.

Years ago I worried about the oily layer on the "clean" side of my airbox using a K&N air filter. Not only oily but felt gritty. Wiped it clean and then added a smear of grease. Wasn't too happy with the grit I felt in that grease smear a week later. Cleaned it up, installed paper filter and new grease smear, no grit a week or even month later. No more K&N for me.

Another thing to consider with gasoline ignition engines with throttles: You control how much air to deliver, the ECU adds appropriate fuel. The amount of air you deliver is the sum of intake and air filter restriction plus the restriction added by the throttle plate. Intake and air filter restriction doesn't limit you until the throttle is 100% open. Any reduction in air filter restriction is compensated by the operator closing the throttle so as to deliver exactly the same quantity of air as before.

 

[Tractorable]

I did a search on Autotrader and got 35 results of 2011-2012 Ford Super Duty’s with the 6.2L motor in the $5-10K range. They’d be much newer and plenty capable of doing what you want to do. The 6.2L is a very good long lasting motor.

 

[farm boy00]

I would check on the axle ratio and see what you have now. That might give you the biggest single improvement toward upping your GCWR.
Without check the specs to verify things, I'm not sure the GM 8.1 came with an Allison.




K&N. Not a lot to be gained, especially dealing with Ford computers and hardware.

Was not talking about k&n. There is an actual mod to help open up the air flow in the breather tubes. O dont remember what it was fully, so Google is the best bet

 

[gary49]

Looking to buy a truck, I'm thinking 3/4 ton or 1 ton.

Truck needs to be dependable, easy to work on and maintain (by myself) and cheap to work on.

Basically a good old farm truck, I need it to haul 7500-10k safely.

I had my eye on a 92 4x4 flatbed F250 with 7.3 IDI with 118k miles

View attachment 494120

My current truck is a 81 F150 with 4.9 strait 6 with 128k miles, it's been a super dependable truck, starts right up and most I pulled was 5200lbs on the bumper a few times hauling round bales on a tandem 18ft 10k trailer which it handled like a champ accelerating lol i wasn't stopping in a hurry. I don't plan to go more with it but my tractor and trailer combo is around 7900lbs plus gear and attachments.

View attachment 494126

I also will like to note I own an 85 F350 4x4 dully dump truck which I have been going back and forth about setting up to pull with, it's got a 460 v8 and is manual but the cab has been changed to a 93 XLT and the previous owner didn't hook the emergency break up, half the lights don't work and gas tank leaks. Also no hitch.

View attachment 494128

I bought it as a project/ to make money on and so far got it running good, new calipers, shoes and rubber break lines on the front and will be tackling a rear steel break line leak and gas tank next (when the weather breaks). It has unknown miles prob close to 275-300k (which is a concern) and was used to push snow so it's had a hard life (another big concern for safely pulling). I was gonna haul gravel for my driveway with it and send it down the road being I don't need a dump truck often. I have part concrete drive and wanted to use a 1 ton so I wouldn't bust up my driveway or I would have a big truck haul gravel for me, instead of a bunch of small trips.

View attachment 494121

I also thought about upgrading my 81 F150 with a class 4 (7500lb) or 5 (10k) hitch, break controller and trailer hook ups since currently it has non of that, no trailer light hook ups at all, but I can do all that for less than $300 but at the end of the day I can't haul my tractor, I can haul more on the trailer though being it had breaks on both axles, the 4.9 had no probs pulling 5200lbs, stopping was the main concern. My next concern will be burning up the automatic tranny in the truck.

View attachment 494125

Note: pulling on mainly flat ground 1-50 miles one way mostly.

So if you guys or gals have a old truck you beat up everyday and it keeps asking for more, let me know. I'm trying to expand my cattle endeavor and am quickly out growing my current equipment.

Luckily I bought as big of a tractor I did, trucks are much cheaper to upgrade lol.

And doesn't have to be Ford, I have just owned a lot of them and had good luck with them. When a good deal comes along, usually it's a Ford for me anyway lol

You could look for an old medium duty truck. My brother has a 1986 International S 1600 which has a steel gooseneck equipped body, 6.9 IDI diesel, 5 speed with a 2 speed rear end and air brakes and that would haul your trailer just fine, maybe not real fast, but it would stop it a lot better than a pickup. I think he paid $4000 for it.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

You could look for an old medium duty truck. My brother has a 1986 International S 1600 which has a steel gooseneck equipped body, 6.9 IDI diesel, 5 speed with a 2 speed rear end and air brakes and that would haul your trailer just fine, maybe not real fast, but it would stop it a lot better than a pickup. I think he paid $4000 for it.

I have thought about going that route. My issue is that 14k load will only be a few times a year. Prob with going medium duty is, for regular chores, not as convenient.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

I did a search on Autotrader and got 35 results of 2011-2012 Ford Super Duty’s with the 6.2L motor in the $5-10K range. They’d be much newer and plenty capable of doing what you want to do. The 6.2L is a very good long lasting motor.

It looks like now the consensus is to build up my F350. I have $1800 in the truck, I can throw a grand in the engine, grand in trans and $500 for gooseneck and have a mean pulling truck for under $5000. Prob will be under $4000 but who knows.

Biggest thing is upgrading the E4OD, bigger cooler, deep pan, temp gauge, possibly punisher valve body (what SVT lightning guys use) for better shifts. Etc.

Engine maybe headers and exhaust, better intake, cooler plugs, bigger wires etc. MAYBE towing cam, but prob won’t take it that far.

 

[sd455dan]

It looks like now the consensus is to build up my F350. I have $1800 in the truck, I can throw a grand in the engine, grand in trans and $500 for gooseneck and have a mean pulling truck for under $5000. Prob will be under $4000 but who knows.

Biggest thing is upgrading the E4OD, bigger cooler, deep pan, temp gauge, possibly punisher valve body (what SVT lightning guys use) for better shifts. Etc.

Engine maybe headers and exhaust, better intake, cooler plugs, bigger wires etc. MAYBE towing cam, but prob won稚 take it that far.

I like your plan to build the 460...

A caveat for some about the Ford 6.2 gas engine is when hauling heavy on long hills.

The engines are not stump pullers with much low end torque like your 460 Ford.

Not uncommon to have to have 6.2 pinned at ~4500 RPM the whole way up a hill to keep the engine near torque peak. Very different (feeling) than pulling a hill with a 454,455,460 or a diesel making peak torque at a much lower RPM.

A stock 460 made its HP peak at about the 6.2's torque peak.

A few mods and that 460 will make a great trailer puller No replacement for displacement:thumbsup:

 

[crashz]

Ditto. I think you can make the 95 work. If I were you I'd invest the most money in the trans and leave the rest pretty much stock. That generation is a strong truck except for that EOD. Also a lot will depend on your trailer choice. A nice new gooseneck trailer with new brakes will tow great.