Dump trucking questions

Pre emissions motor for this type of work in my opinion for sure. I like the Cummins N14 also had really good luck with 12.7 Detroit and c12 Cat not a big fan of c13
Enlist the help of the outfit your working with as far as what specs you need He will know exactly what you need if he is running 40 dumps. Those rates sound good. I also had $60000 in expenses first year really good business to be in if you have steady work best of luck to you.

 

From someone who runs dump trucks every week I can tell you they are money pits no matter how good of a truck you own. You will make “ok” money doing state rate highway work. But other than that it might as well be parked. Dump trucks take the most severe beating on the road and hold virtually no value after they are used.

 

Transmission (and rear-end ratio) is probably more important than engine on a vocational truck, although you want an engine with at least 400 hp IMO. From experience, I had a tri-axle with 20K front axle that was tagged at 68K in this state. Hauled a lot of asphalt with it. Transmission was 8LL which was the perfect dump truck transmission. Low range will crawl out of a hole or up a steep grade. Not as important hauling asphalt, but there will be dirt jobs you can pick up sometimes. The Cat C-12 was hundreds of pounds lighter than the C-15, but at 425 hp IIRC, mighta been 435, anyway, it would haul the mail in a hurry.
And, as Cam stated, you gotta work on it at night and on the weekends yourself. So buy a brand that the local dealership is open 24/7 for parts.
The clutch in a 8LL truck should last years and years, just make sure that if you hire a driver that they are not former over-the-road 10 speed drivers, because I can tell you that every one of them is too lazy to properly use the low gears for starting under load.

 

And let’s be honest how many loads under 10 miles a week are you going to get?

 

No need to use those low low gears with legal weight on you tri axle. I’m not the only one that will tell you they are only for extreme hill starts. And what do you consider a low gear

 

Legal weight, on hard ground or pavement, use low gear, maybe 2nd (some call that 1st gear) if you’re pointed downhill a little bit.Not low range. But soft ground, big load, uphill, etc, any of those conditions it’s handy to have the LL.

 

10-4 I would guess anyone who’s driving a 10 speed would still start in 1st or 2nd lol if they are thrown in an 8LL fully loaded. Not really much of a change from a 10 speed.

 

Here’s the deal: after years of driving a regular truck, it’s hard for them to break the habit and think “this is not a dry van with 22,000 pounds of Walmart freight pulling out of a flat concrete terminal, this is a fully loaded dump truck in soft, steep, severe conditions and it’s got a lot more rolling resistance, and I need to be easy on my employer’s clutch and drive line.” At least that’s been my experience with them. Experienced dump truck drivers and log truckers, no problem with them.

Sorry to get so far off the original poster’s questions; he’s gonna drive it and pay the bills himself so he’ll do it properly anyway.

 

I've had to learn this exact thing the hard way as of late. Boss has been extremely cool about it considering the circumstances and very gentle with me while the trucks been in the shop for 2 weeks god bless him