A new rig...
I mentioned before that my feed truck had died due to a scored cylinder. It was towed back here to the farm last night, so that will make it easier to remove the feed body and associated parts.
Today a friend and I went to Des Moines to get the replacement truck. It's a 1999 International F4900 with a DT466E 250 hp engine, 9 spd tranny, tandem axles, and a 24' van body. I got it from Ryder; this truck, according to its history, moved paper products around Conneticut and New York, then later to Chicago. It came off lease in Millwaukee, and it came to Des Moines from there.
The van body is for sale on EBay if anyone is interested. If you're interested in the dead truck, let me know as well. bob (at) gunzenhauserfarms.com
I think I have a strategy to remove the body in pretty much one piece and set it on the ground. I'll have to add a PTO to the new truck, and I'm trying to get the old one off the dead truck to see if it will fit. The exhaust system may have to be moved a bit, and Lord knows what else I'll run into. But, it should be an interesting week coming up!
After driving the rig around tonight, I feel like it is stable enough to drive further distances to pick up and deliver feed. I might look into getting an apportioned license so I can LEGALLY drive in Missouri in order to serve a larger customer base. Anything to pay its way.
posted by bgunzy at 7/20/2007 07:41:00 PM
1 Comments:
Yeah you need to have your license in order. An old boy is in a world of a mess because of that down here. He got into a bad traffic accident while hauling grain. That normally wouldn't be a problem since as a farmer he has an ag exemption. Problem was that he was hauling grain for his neighbor. Now he is in a world of trouble. Now if he had simply did the legal slight of hand, and bought the grain, and sold it back to neighbor (which EVERYBODY does ALL THE TIME-CONSTANTLY) he'd have been fine. Since the grain he was hauling wasn't his, he needed an actual CDL and related hauling licenses didn't have any of them. The woman driving the car he hit was seriously hurt and they're apparently not only throwing the book at him but they're throwing the whole law library at him.
Message being sent to the unmanageable hillbillies in the hinterlands by the urbanites in government. Or so the the coffee shops and feed stores say.
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