Advice on truck to mount crane on

One more thing, you’ll probably want spring ride. Air ride is great, but can get awfully squirly with heavy high C of G loads on a straight truck.

 

Something tough as nails being driven locally less than 10k a year. An old R model mack with camelback. Parts are still easy to come by

 

In my neck of the woods parts are pretty easy to come by and a decent price. The E7 series is more pricy to work on but they're bullet proof also (1991-1997)

 

I think you may be looking at this a bit wrong, your concern should be with the chassis/drive train, the packaging of it is really a matter of personal preference.

The chassis/drivetrain are what matters.

 

Unloaded me in some WV mountains yesterday....

I think I heard someone say it was 600k new in 2017.

He gets 300 per hour and I'm like man I would charge 1k per hour with a 8 hour minimum!

 

Crane business is a tough business. Sure, they charge a lot per hr, but you’ve got to work a bunch of hrs to pay for the thing, and you think truck insurance is expensive.

In the Nashville area, a crane that size would be $200 per hr, 3 hr minimum.

 

Older Mack parts aren’t that hard to come by, the dealer just may have to order it and not have it sitting on the shelf. You can still get parts for B models, and they haven’t been made since the 1960s.

Personally, I’d want a R model. I think they quit making them sometime in the mid-1990s. I know that’s a old truck, but you can still find some nice ones, and it’s not like you are putting a bunch of miles on it.