Planning ahead

Hello everyone from Alaska!

I'm not even going to try and make this a short post...It has a few questions so I appreciate any and all advice.

I am trying to plan ahead for my military retirement in two years. Plan is to go OTR after retirement to get a year experience...but that is in the future. Here are my questions:

1) To prepare (and for fun) I want to buy a class 8 dump truck and have a side business until I retire. This will serve two purposes. First is to get experience driving and maintaining a truck (neighbor is a diesel mechanic so he will help). Second reason is to maybe put some money in my pocket and maybe start saving for down payment on my own truck for OTR. There are lots of gravel pits where I live and should be able to get some work on my off days during the summer. Winter I might be able to get some snow removal gig here and there. Thoughts?

2) There is an outfit in Texas that takes retired day cab trucks and removes the 5th wheel and adds a new dump bed and a 3rd pusher axle. The trucks I have looked at are FL Cascadia day cabs with DD13s. Mileage is anywhere from 400,000 to 700,000. Would these be good for part time work and learning to drive a 10 speed? Also, I would be driving this bad boy from Texas all the way to Alaska (yes, Alaska). I have figured the fuel and costs...still cheaper and nicer than anything up here.

Final thought...if I don't like it or I don't do well I don't think I would have a problem selling it for more than I bought it for. Crap is stupid expensive up here for stuff like that.

Any thoughts are appreciated! Thanks in advance.

Oh...almost forgot. I don't care about which company does urine or hair follicle testing.

 

Hi Semi,
Thanks for the thoughts. I do plan on going to a school and doing a year as a company driver. I just want to have a little side business for a couple of years until I retire. This will help me learn to drive and maintain trucks. My neighbor is actually a big diesel mechanic as his main job and is excited to help me out and maybe even drive a few days here and there.

Thanks again.

 

Thanks. I have looked at them but I don't think my wife wants to stay in AK. So when I retire in two years we will be heading to the lower 48.

 

I'm confused. My neighbor can't make a living off me if I don't have to pay him. I won't be putting more than 20,000 miles a year on it and my neighbor will work on it.

With the way I am going to use it do you think it is going to fall apart on me? That wouldn't be good!

 

The going rate for dump trucks up here is $110 an hour. I hope that will help offset my expenses.