Gravity box on a truck

I've been kicking tires on grain trucks. I'm learning real fast to get any quality, they're expensive for a little 150 acre wanna be farmer. I did come across an early 70's Ford 8000 with a 350 bushel gravity box on the back very reasonable. Anyone have experience with one? Wondering if they get a good lean going when full. Truck itself looks very nice for its age. I know a tandem straight truck is ideal, but not in the funds right now and I'm getting tired of people about running me off the road on the way to the elevator with gravity boxes. Main highway and the shoulder is rough, about 8 miles each way in the dark a lot. Hoping to get by with this then upgrade at some point.

I think it will be fine. The weight on those boxes is pretty evenly distributed. My brother hauled one on s flatbed trailer several years..

Here is a picture of my old '73 L8000. You will like the "Louisville" cab, good control layout and visibility out, much better than the Brigadier. That 391 gas really liked fuel though.

There was one in the neighborhood here for a while. When the first owner had his auction,another local guy bought it. He shelled my corn for me one year. I drove it to the elevator several times. It was quite a light old mid 60s Ford. Seemed stable enough for no bigger truck than it was.

I've been driving trucks since right after I graduated High School, all kinds of single axle trucks, tandem axle trucks, single axle semi-tractors and trailers, drove 18-wheeler for 4-5 years too.

NO SUCH thing as a cheap truck, especially a farm truck. The cost to legally license and insure it puts them right into the Expensive category right away for the few weeks of use most of them get in a year.

With farmers being the way they are, I bet less than 25% of the ones that own trucks can tell you what the axle weight ratings are for their trucks and how heavy they are licensed for. Or what the maximum weight allowed on the different axles is, IE steering axle, single drive axle, tandem drive axle, and single or tandem trailer axles. So farmers feel a truck is loaded when the box is full, regardless what the truck can actually carry or it's licensed for.

A gravity box on a single axle cab/chassis is the cheapest way to haul corn, beans, oats, wheat, etc. No hoist or pto to mess with. Unloading will be different, but probably easier than a conventional farm truck with a rear dumping box/hoist.

Most smaller farm trucks with hydraulic or Juice brakes, it's getting harder and harder to keep the brakes working good. I'd suggest a truck with air brakes. Even the single axle trucks I drove for the township we had brake troubles on them after they were 4-5 years old, C-65 and F-750 trucks rated 32,000 gross. The local repair shop was two blocks away from the township building in a town of 100 people! The Chevy dealer was 4-5 miles away depending which way you drove to the next little town. 4 miles if you went on township roads, 5 miles on County blacktop roads.

I've never heard of anyone using a gravity box to haul crushed rock, sand, dirt, it would be for grain or ground feed only.

Spend a little more on the truck up front or it will be a MONEY PIT.

Thanks for the tips. There are some truck scales right around the corner from me, and I plan on using them to see what's legal on whatever I end up with. Theres 3 good sized elevators somewhat close together and trucks get watched like hawks. I've been pulled over before driving other people's trucks, and even if completely legal, is a big pain in the rear at the least.

350 bu is a little much for a 26,000 truck. If you go above that, you typically have much more DOT inspection issues.

Would be a little high and a little off center on a single axle.

Unloading is often odd, as the grain pours onto the wheels or axle and splatters, messy.

250-300 bu would probably be a better match. And a center dump would be terrific, better weight distribution and easy to dump in town.

You can say you will only fill it to 275, but then it?s getting late and rain tomorrow and..... then you are putting boards on the side next year to hold more.

It works but there are trade offs. I haven?t owned one but talked to some that have.

My single axle 2600# truck regular hoist box holds about 290bu gross legal and 340 physically, boy is there a difference in handling and braking and all in those extra 50 bu as they get added up high. Gravity boxes tend to put the most weight up high, 350 would make me pause.....

Paul

If I'm not mistaken, the L800 had the gasoline engine. The L8000 is a diesel. Otherwise the same truck.

(reply to post at 12:18:44 09/02/18)

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70's Ford 8000 probably has a 3208 Cat, not over powered but a decent engine, I have a 93 F-8000.
Personally not a be fun of a gravity box, put the bulk of the weight up higher, I have to get in the bed and kick out the last of the grain that won't slid out, trucks limited to grain hauling and not much else.
I prefer a dump bed, makes the truck more versatile.
I'm looking for dump wagon beds to replace my gravity wagons.

Here is a cheap one. Not mine, usual disclaimers.
Ford Grain truck

A friend mounted a 350 bu side dump on a new Chev Diesel single axle. He put a new roll tarp on it to cover his load. It worked good for his small operation for allot of years. He sold it a couple a years ago and was surprised at the amount of money he got for it. He out grew it and runs a semi now, he needed more capacity.

Was up to Minnesota many years back to visit a friend. he was custom combining for a neighbor. When I stopped in they had a string of gravity wagons full, and rain on the way. Farmer only wanted to pull two at a time to town, but with rain coming, was debating pulling all four at once. Since I was in a 1 ton duelly, I offered to drag the other two back to town for him and leave them at the elevator. I dropped them, then when he got to town, he emptied his two then hooked those two and headed for the scale. As soon as the weight popped up on the outside display, a State Trooper drove up and demanded to know who drove the truck that had pulled the wagons to town. The Trooper had not gotten my license plate number as the tag was very dirty, but the farmer couldn't remember my name to save his life.

There are a lot of them around me, made just like your looking at. The static load is uniform. Just watch driving in the field if you have hills. The chute on the down hill side will lean you over. LOL If the gravity box is a newer one with steeper sides they will 100% unload without getting in them. The guys usually make a longer chute for filling bins with augers. At the elevator just dump with the chute up and deflect the grain towards the middle with it. One of these trucks will handle the load better than a tractor with a 400 bushel wagon and no wagon brakes. A 350 bushel wagon loaded, including the box, is just a little over 10 ton. IF you have a heavy enough front axle and tires you could go to the 34000 and be totally legal. Rear axle 20000 and the front at 14,000. Gross vehicle weight of 34,000. This would be if your truck would weight under 14K empty which would be real close with a single axle and gravity box.

Thanks for all the info guys. You never disappoint.

nEIGHBOR i WORKED FOR had one on a 49Ford. I don't remember how many bushels. It was one of those Minnesota boxes that the grain doesn't run out of. What a pain. 250 bushel I think. It went down the road real nice though.

A few of them on f600 and a couple on c65 Chevy's around here. Small farmers, ya you got a extra motor to keep up and farm license to buy, but if you get a good truck that shouldn't be a big problem.

Brakes are a real pain to try find parts for if the truck has the electric over hydraulic Lucas brakes. I have an F800 with these brakes, real hard to find parts.

I have a 300 bushel gravity box on a 1993 Ford F-600 with air brakes, rolls the same loaded or empty, when I go after corn gluten pellets I pull a 120 bushel auger wagon behind it and load both, no problems.

Back when they farmed with smaller trucks there were several of them in this area. Haven't seen one recently, though. But it definitely can be done.

You sure that had a 391 because for the L 8000 series they never listed a 391. They started with a 401 and went up to a 534 in gas engines. We ran 371 V4 in the L800s and they had a short life span(100,000 miles if lucky). All our L800's were latter repowered with Chevy 427s.

3208 if used every day is a short life engine. We had about 8 of them in fleet and in order to get any life out of them you had to drop pan
at a little over 80,000 miles and replace bottom end bearings. The 3208 could be had in a L800.

When the L series was introduced the -00 indicated it had a gas powered engine, -000 indicated in was diesel powered.

The local mill I worked for has a older LT800 with a 391 4V and later model with a 429 4v, most of the ones I've seen with 370's were L700's
Most of the models I saw with 477-534 gas engines were L900 series.
I've seen 3208's in L7000's and L8000's, many later L7000's had 5.9 Cummins, we have a 94 L8000 with a 8.3 Cummins.

3208 was a short life engine compared to other diesels but I've seen several with over 200,000 miles them before needing rebuilt.

The company I worked for had 6 L 800 in the mid 70's and they all were powered with the 370-v4. They rebuilt the 370's once and the second
time they canned the 370 and put in 427 chevy engine. The boss bought 1 truck new with the 429-v4 and in the first year it gave them so much
trouble that they replaced with a Chevy 427. All these trucks were used by a commercial carrier.

I had a 65 ford that we switched between a flat bed and a gravity box twice a year for twenty years. We used a center bottom dump Kilbros box. Worked great. Then moved over to 80 louisevlle that was real nice. Finally bought a new running gear to put the box on, never did get to use it because somebody stole it from in front of my shop before I even got it chained down. Sure hope they used it but I bet they scrapped it out. Darn meth heads.

We were second owner, and guy who sold it to Dad said they'd never touched it. The guy I sold it to still has it, I can ask him to double check, but I'm 99% certain it was 391 4V with governor.

(quoted from post at 09:49:02 09/03/18) The company I worked for had 6 L 800 in the mid 70's and they all were powered with the 370-v4. They rebuilt the 370's once and the second
time they canned the 370 and put in 427 chevy engine. The boss bought 1 truck new with the 429-v4 and in the first year it gave them so much
trouble that they replaced with a Chevy 427. All these trucks were used by a commercial carrier.

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They would have had to be late 70's models, Ford didn't start putting 370/429 engines in trucks until the end of the FE/FT engine production in 1976.
Far as I'm concerned the 370 was a POS from the beginning, we had one in a F-700 that couldn't get out of it's own way. Our county road dept ran several F series with 429's, most of them had well over 200k miles when they were replaced. Drivers said they ran pretty good for gas burners.