Saw a nice old work rig on the road a few minutes ago. Of course I thought of CC immediately and grabbed my back-up Canon. A fortuitous intuition; guess who’s at the wheel?
My guess is he’s coming home from a(nother) trip to Jerry’s Home Improvement. This was the second time in four days I followed Paul down this same road with a load of lumber, I just didn’t have my camera around the first time. And it was all I could do to even catch him after the stop sign on 8th; I had to wring the ol’ Tercel pretty hard.
So if I see one more complaint here about “Where’s the X?” or “Why haven’t you covered Y yet?”, I’m going postal. I will catch you, eventually.
Smile! You’re on CC Camera!
Hey! Where is Ashton Kutcher when you need him (to say “You’ve been Punk’d!”)?
Busted! Get this picture off the net; I was breaking the law! Those 1x4s are 16 feet long, which is several feet more than one is allowed to have sticking out past the tailgate.
This is a mighty small load you caught me with; I needed a few sticks to finish a little shed in our back yard; a Memorial Day weekend project, thankfully finished yesterday. Now back to my other job….writing a new CC for tomorrow.
Around here you’re fine with that flag at the end of the longest board.
There’s a whole formula, depending on the length of the bed and overhang (percentage). A 14 footer is the max legal for a regular full-sized bed pickup here. But I’ve exceeded that quite a few times, and not likely to get busted (it would be by the Weigh-master, not likely a city cop).
Guys our age tend to get a fair bit of slack in my experience….
That’s why I made a headache rack for my S10 out of landscape timbers and fence board. Can’t carry really tall stuff but can’t think of any I want to carry. My little trailer works for that. Sometimes ugly just works but old trucks aren’t for pretty anyway.
Fourteen feet is the rule; but I’ve never seen anyone get anal with a tape measure. Flag on the rear; and you’re clear.
OTOH…boards sliding out the back…Uncle LEO tends to frown upon that. Often I’d see guys put their rear gates up and set their long planks on the top of the gate. To make them more sturdy, strapping them together works.
In WA it’s 15′ past the last axle’s center line and if that is more than 3′ past the bumper then you need that red flag. So Paul’s load would be totally legal here. The load also cannot extend more that 3′ past the front axle’s center line or front bumper if so equipped, with an exemption for front loading refuse trucks when on route and actually collecting refuse and operated at speeds less than 20 mph.
Now, that is one cool truck.
I am now a member of the “ol Ford truck” club, last week I bought a 78 F100 with a 300 six and a 3 on the tree, 60K miles, it was a steal, I have never had an pick up, which is something that’s really handy when you have a bunch of old cars. She needs tires in the worst way, but its a pretty clean long bed Florida truck
Welcome to the club. That’s a great combo; the 300 is a torque monster.
I bought mine in 1987 for $500 strictly for the occasional dump run and such. 14 houses and 26 years later, I still haven’t been able to kill it.
$1500 for mine, not bad considering, the right hand wiper is MIA for some reason. She’s really clean, with a/c, which may or may not cool, I’ll throw a charge on it in the next couple of weeks to see what happens, the 3 on the column is a trip, I’ve always wanted something with 3 on the tree.
Congrats, at ~$19/yr I’d say you have gotten your moneys worth from this truck.
Congratulations, Carmine, you now have one of the coolest trucks ever made! I am jealous!
Carmine bought a Ford truck? Take cover, everyone, the world must be ending! 🙂
Sounds like you found a nice one. I drove one back when they were fairly new with the same drivetrain. That one had manual steering, and was quite an exercise program to park. Come to think of it, so was my ’63 F100.
I’ve owned a Ford before, a 76 Colony Park, I’ve even had a Chrysler. This was a crime of opportunity, I made a low ball offer that I didn’t think the owner would take.
I certainly understand “cars of opportunity”. That is how I spent all that time in my GM B/C bodies. Being “multi lingual” is never a bad thing.
Good find! The big Ford six is worthy of a CC. Wasn’t it based on a diesel or something? Explaining the long stroke and strong bottom end?
That first picture makes it seem that Paul is moonlighting on the set of “Mad Men”, or is it “Mad Curbside Men”?
Before, Paul complained about the increased loading height in modern pickups (not a problem for lumber of course). I have to wonder if this is a common beef nowadays, or do few owners actually load heavy stuff into their trucks anymore? But then, what about contractors? Minivans, being unibodies, have nice low liftover, yet ironically, they aren’t designed for this sort of thing. Neither was our ’94 Camry wagon, which we abused once by hauling concrete benches in it.
BTW this just in, the F-150 is posting big sales gains for Ford. Motley Fool says pickups are very profitable for automakers.
It seems that a majority of small contractors use trailers for much of their hauling, and use their trucks for their tools and as a tow rig. Not a lot of beds see gravel and dirt anymore. Of course, a dumping trailer is a real boon.
Yeah, I see that here. Ironically, they sometimes use old pickup aft-ends as trailers.
I notice this all the time, too, these pimped-out trucks are so incapable of carrying anything their up-to-their-eyeballs-in-payments owners must then borrow even more for the trailer. Then they complain that taxes have made them broke.
Yeah, right….
A friend of mine had a half a Mitsubishi Mighty Max as a spare trailer, it was rusty and it ended getting written off when we put a 326 in the bed and we watched it fall right through to the floor. We laughed for about a half and hour and then we he had to figure out what to do……
For about 6 months I volunteered at a local food bank loading bags of groceries into other volunteers’ vehicles, for home delivery. The delivery vehicles ranged from Honda CRX (yes, CRX, not CRV, though we loaded those too) to large pickups. The newer 2WD pickups, especially Fords, were very difficult to load. The difference was amazing … when you’re loading 1300 bags of groceries in 90 minutes. In my current volunteer work, I also load and unload quite a few vehicles, and the trucks are usually 4WD (why do contractors drive 4WD trucks in coastal California?) and of course even taller. Loaded a 1st gen 2WD Dakota the other day and it seemed tiny in all axes compared to a current 4WD Tacoma.
You would think with OSHA rules (which my employer nags incessantly about, lest they get nagged themselves by regulators), low liftover would be a priority for light truck design. It also implies a lower roll-center, which would please NHTSA & Consumer Reports. But irrepressible consumers have other priorities, keeping the High Ground in traffic being among them, apparently.
I would love to find a pickup from this era as a workhorse, but around these parts, the only trucks of this vintage left are hot rods or show trucks.
I am amazed at how less useful the new trucks are every time I rent one for my job. Four doors, short bed and 4WD is great for hauling the family and trailers I suppose, but I can’t figure out what the bed is for. You can’t put lumber in it, can’t put PVC pipe in it, and at 5-9, I can’t reach it anyhow… Depending on what I need it for, I often have to go to an SUV or minivan to fit my gear inside.
The modern crew cab extremely short bed pickups are just the replacement for a full size car. Despite what every one says many American consumers prefer a V8, strapped to a real frame, driving (primarily) the rear wheels as the family hauler.
Yup, I agree with you.
That said, the full size SUV is seemingly more useful to me, as you can put more in it, still have the full frame, 4WD, V8 and towing capacity, and I can reach inside it without a step ladder.
Well the modern full size truck wagon sits pretty high compared to those of yesteryear, though still low compared to many modern pickups.
What you have…is function following form.
When form follows function – you get a Dodge Power Wagon. Or a 1960s pickup (excluding the Exner Dodge trucks). Inexpensive; useful; and except in rust resistance, durable.
When a model or class is bought as much or more to model or preen or make a statement…you wind up with sky-high pick-em-ups with crew-cabs and useless microbeds; and four-wheel-drive that’s useless to most users as well.
Their money; their choice; but know what you’re buying. It’s just a tamed-down variation on the H2 concept.
I actually kept following. His next stop was the porn shop, and he exited carrying a blow-up doll, a box of whip-its, and a leather mask. I went home then.
You stood me up 🙁
If you’re referring to the porn shop on the corner of Polk and 6th (or 7th?), I had a funny experience there once (in the parking lot). As I drove by, I saw a ratty ’81 Imperial coupe, the first and only one of its kind I’d seen in town. I parked to shoot it, when I realized I’d forgotten to bring my camera. Drat! Just then the owner came out the back door, and I explained my interest in his car. He was a rather odd fellow, but I managed to get his phone number, and he promised he’d call the next time he was in town (he lived in Salem). Well, you can guess how that ended…
This comment thread reminded me of the saying that you know you’re a yuppie if the seat of your SUV is higher off the ground than the seat of your plumber’s pickup.