I bought a F650 with a 360 big block gas engine and 4 speed manual transmission that can haul five yards without sideboards and six with boards. It's been great at moving dirt around my place, but it was never meant for constant off road usage, and as a result, I sanded my engine. Basically the factory stock air filter system is not good enough to keep out the constant dust created by going over the same dirt road over and over again. After rebuilding the engine, a friend gave me a much better air filter system that has an inner and outer filter like used on ag tractors. I mounted it to the side of the radiator and made it so it gets air from the grill as far forward as possible. The difference is night and day.
My bed lifts from a PTO off of my transmission. I have to be stopped. Then I put it into the PTO gear and rev the engine to power the hydrualic pump that lifts the bed. Higher the engine revs, the faster it lifts the bed. This all works fairly well once you get used to it.
My bed lifts from a hydraulic cylinder that works a scissor kind of set of steel arms. If you look at a few different dump trucks, you'll see what I'm talking about. It was fairly common awhile ago, but I don't think so anymore. With all those moving parts, you have to keep it greased, and you have to be careful not to twist when dumping a load. Sounds simple, but when filling an area, it's kind of hard not to get into weird positions. Eventually, the steel will bend and twist to the point of failure. That was a lot of fun. I had to remove all of it and take it to a welding/machine shop to fix it and make sure it was perfectly aligned.
If I ever buy another dump truck, it will not have any type of linkage to lift the bed. Just a hydraulic cylinder attached to the bed that does it all. This is how all the construction dump beds work.
The other issue is dirt sticking to the bed. If there is any moisture in the dirt, it will start to compact in the corners. Once this starts, it just gets bigger with every load. I found that I would have to stop after ten loads and clean out the bed with a shovel. This takes about an hour. I've welded on a new floor to the bottom of my bed to make it perfectly smooth, and that has helped, but not solved the problem. I painted the bed with a special paint that was supposed to stop dirt from sticking to it, and that worked for awhile, but then the dirt wore it away. It was expensive paint. I think $100 for a gallon that lasted a few days, so that's not something that I'm going to do again. For now, I don't need to move any dirt, so it's not a concern. I'll deal with it the next time I need to use it.
