Seeking advice and help...

Heavy haul...

Minimum 550 HP (the bigger the engine, the better the fuel economy), big 18 speed (RTLO 20918B), 3:90-4:30 gears 46k rears (2spd rears would be ideal, but $$$$$).

It’s going to take quite some time to find the right truck with the right drivetrain and the sleeper you want, and when you see it, you have to be ready to pull the trigger. Are you heavyhaul now? You may have to find the sleeper and build your own truck. The guy you need to find and talk to is in the HeavyHaul section of the flatbed forum. Look for @superhauler. He doesn’t venture out of the HH forum often.

 

You might want to get in in touch with Joe Donovan, he’s on you tube. Hauls for Landstar, heavy haul and oversize only. I think he has a small fleet. Seems like a very good mentor. Knows how to spec a truck, especially trailers. Seems to get good profitable loads. None of his trucks have an RV sleeper. With oversized loads, overall length is critical. I don’t know how to get in touch with him, other than by leaving a comment on his videos. Could be just the guy you need for good honest advice.
Here’s a YouTube


Good luck!

 

Once upon a time I examined the costs of adding a apartment back there on a long frame tractor.

It's simply would be a expense worth 4 new tractors at that time back then.

Never mind the 1920's era buildings were getting into with those then new big condos at that time. A couple had weaker front ends that required constant attention after much overwork getting into and out of those docks.

What some truckers do after a time when they have either retired or run the miles out of a tractor which is just too good to throw away, they will convert it into a RV situation. They might elect to keep the 5th wheel or not depending.

To me it's not real common. It tells me either Trade Shows, Industries related to Movie making, very special freighting that is regular but requires a little more accommodating between moves for a living.

To tell you the truth, the FLD 120 was great. Perfect for me inside of it. But the Century turned out to be a better truck with two of us, a human toilet equipment and the necessary supplies to sustain it properly and even one for the cat with a charcoal filter and extra litter for it.

The problem that we worked around constantly was at that time FFE accepted that we were about 1000 to 1200 over for the two of us, our stuff, our food, water etc against the ability to stuff weight into that 53 foot great dane reefer box with the transicold I think they called them. We could just leave 30 gallons in the 100 gallon tank and be light about another 120 gallons in the tractor to stay under 80000 gross to cross a nazi scale house. Once past it and free and clear we fueled up. It will be gone within 24 to 30 hours anyway. Long before we hit the next one.

As we consumed our supplies into about a 6 week period we CAT the truck and transmit our empty to dispatch so they know how much we could stuff into that box. It's a dynamic communication.

However.

If there is one thing I will not do again is extreme long wheel base tractors. I had been given one by a Concrete company in Little Rock to run to hope and back on nothing but springs and eventually the bad pavement tore the entire floor right out of the bottom of the entire cab at 70 mph including me from the hammering on those plates.

When your space between steer axle and drives are enough with airride close enough to accomodate one or two plates on our older roads pre-reconstruction it's not bad. But that tractor would keep a plate between and run across all three creating a wave pattern of bad viberation. Arkansas was building replacement interstate along 30 and it got better in sections when they learned to cut plates out a certain way. But it's something that I don't have a use for myself. It's just me.

To this day I don't know why they put up with something so stupid on a road like that. More importantly considering the inflicted medically evident shake damage on parts of my skeleton and related systems I may have been the worst stupid one for staying in that thing longer than one trip.

 

We do HH work and not one of the trucks has an apartment on wheels type sleeper, mainly because of the added weight to the truck. Some of those trucks are heavy enough, so you want to keep the weight down.

 

Husband had a 2005 Volvo Condo years ago, I could fit half the house in it. The bottom bed was like the table/cushion setup that would be in a Winnebago, it could be made up or left down. There was enough room for a smaller dorm refrig to sit underneath all the time. The upper bunk was regular twin bed size, had enough room to sit on bottom bed without hitting your head like some of the setups now. The Coleman cooler had to sit in the floor, but there was enough room to get around it. There was a lot of cabinet space. Had a shelf he had braced on the end of the bed shelf in order for the microwave to sit on it. I don't know if they are this big now or not. It also had the sunroof and was a lot taller truck than most now. It was a longer wheelbase and was a pain getting into tight, small places. He has a Pete now, it is only half the truck.