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I started with a six wheeler, which does have 12,500 chassis downrated to 10,000 GVW available. That's how I got a 176" wheelbase, which is not available as a four wheeler either. I saw I could get both in a six wheeler so I changed the hubs and made it a four wheeler (and went to 1" wider...

It is amazing how many "little" details have to be taken care of before the skin goes on, because once the skin goes on everything becomes so much more difficult, or impossible. So now we have the box back on for the (hopefully) final time. The front sheeting had to be attached, and then the...

The box had to come off this week to enable us to properly hang the front sheet aluminum. While we had it off, I undercoated the joints in the chassis, welded in an additional floor brace, and installed the wheelwells. I forgot to take the pic of the front aluminum sheet installed. Tomorrow.

Just about every one of them list their capacity to be at least 4,500 lbs. up to 6,500 lbs. I can see them on the load boards when we are parked near them. I see the size of the box and the "capacity". These lawbreakers are trying to sneak under the radar, often listing "UNDER 10,000 GVW on...

The box is mounted very solidly to the cab, and the entire box/cab assembly is rubber mounted to the frame. A partial bunkhead will go here during the final trim of the interior.

The floor is made of 2" x 3" aluminum shape, welded with crossbraces at each mounting point. The bottom pans are on most of the frame, the only exception had to be made near the axle because of a up-bump in the frame to allow axle travel. Although there will be no insulation ubove the axle...

That's probably a good idea. The chassis itself is very, very strong but I can see that the top rear frame could be strengthened more for insurance, especially at this point when its easier to do. I'll run it by the welder guy.

I should mention that she weighs 5,480 now, so with the addition of the skin, door, and power deck, we may exceed or 6,000 lb. empty goal by 100+ lbs. which I can live with.

With a total of 16 mounts and the rear axle width @ 80", I feel comfortable with the limited movement these rubber mounts will allow. However, the entire body can be removed easily just by removing the floor plywood to access the mounts, so we can change them if we have to. I think they will...

The front view shows how we kept the wind resistance to a minimum, by staying as close as we could to the cab profile. A slick fairing is in the works now. We even gave bottom of the box a return angle that mimics the cab angle to help manage the wind under and around the bottom of the box.

The cab came from Ford mounted on rubber mounts, with 8 rubber mounts for the box. We added length to the frame and added 8 more rubber mounts to handle the entire box properly. The box is now completely rubber mounted, unlike most box truck which have solid u-bolt mounts.

The Ford gas tank has an auxillary fuel port, which we are hooking up to our on-board generator. This will allow the generator to use gas right out of the tank, down to 1/4 full. NO MORE CARRYING GAS CANS!!!

The only steel we added was at the rear of the truck, to extend the truck frame & now for a combination step, fork lift stop, and anti-submarine bar (the later mandated by the feds to prevent a car from sliding under the truck & getting to our fuel tank. It also serves as a skid bar when we...

We are done with the box frame, and concentrating on details now before we skin her. I'll describe many of those details in the next few posts. Here is the completed frame for now . . . Before you ask, I decided to raise the cargo rails 3" higher to allow for a "Power Deck" cargo transfer...

After another day of work, the entire box is framed is, minus filling in the angles at the rear. The cargo lashing rails are going on Monday.

This was our very first quote withour goals listed. The reference to "6,000 lbs on the tail" was addressing concerns expressed that the bed was too long . . . extending too far past the rear wheels. So 4,000 lbs cargo has always been the goal, which seems like it will be easy to achieve...

We finally got back to the project! My welder guy is healed up and we were having a slow week so we started framing the box and finished the step/fork lift stop/anti-submarine steel assembly at the extreme lower rear of the vehicle.

Sorry about the delay on updates! The truck's progress was postponed while my welder guy had surgery and healed. He's ready to get back to work now and we may even be able to get home to oversee it. Updates within a couple of weeks!

Happy Birthday!!! Just please don't let them put candles on your cake . . . the resulting fire could the a problem!

We were victims . . .