Cabover on a conventional chassis?

And serious depreciated resale value.


I remember that TX rig in '80 had extensive gold plaiting throughout.It was primarily metalic brown, and was built and shown by Sam N. Scottsboro,AL. or somthing like that and sold to ATS driving school in Dallas.

 

A problem you will have is lifting all the weight you are talking about without breaking the cab frame.

The jacks attach very close to the pivot point, and put a lot of stress in that area. The W series Ford COE's from the late 60's to late 70's were very bad for cracking the cab frame under the passenger floorboard.

My first truck, an old '66 7400 White, had a break in the cab frame under the passenger floor as well. I had to pull the cab back straight and bolt angle iron through the frame member to strenghten it.

The first truck I drove was a '67 Ford that the cab was broke on it. You had to use a cherry picker to lift up the passenger side of the cab while someone jacked it up at the same time. It was real fun if you needed to raise the cab on the side of the road. You either worked on it with the cab down, or called a wrecker.

The picture of that Pete sure brings back a lot of memories. Mine wasn't that big, but I drove a '72 for a while that I realy loved. Everybody should have the chance to drive that style of Pete, from the steering wheel that lays almost flat, to the "brakeman" trailer valve mounted on the dog house. And don't forget the "wrap around shifter" that always wore a hole in the dog house vinyl.

Now I'm getting all nostalgic.

 

COEs suck in cold weather. I've had some less-than-enjoyable experiences in them in the frozen north. Very hard to get the cab warm, and I had a steering box freeze on the highway while hauling a Super-B of frac fluid.

 

We had good heat after installing auxillary heaters in the drivers sidebox and air duct coming out near drivers feet. Battery heated hunting socks did not seem to work any?

It was tough.

I saw a driver running a transtar II southbound a couple days ago,and he was all hunched-up,and looked like one of those guys running a bobcat skid-steer.

 

I put some time in one of those Peterbilt coe's, mine had three wipers on it that went every which way. You really sat up high in those trucks. I like the look of some of those old coe's, but i'll never miss crawling over the doghouse.

 

A guy down the road from me has a mid 70's(?) White/freightshaker that I have been trying to get him to sell me. Everytime that I think I've got him talked into it, he'll look at it again and say"You don't want that thing" and then he walks us away from it. Mind you the truck hasn't been run in close to 10 years, so I know it'll need some work, but man, I love the look and idea of an old coe!

 

the easiest way would be find a old coe with a drom box and convert it all sizes and shapes.

 

Like others have said, with a one piece design you are looking at some huge bucks. Will probably have to go with 2 or 3 lift points plus a lot of steel under the cab to keep it a solid piece.