leaf truck boxes

[helodude]

I was in my dealer's place today. Looking at buying canvas for a new box's top. They were busy, so picked up some literature from trac-vac and they make a complete set-up for LWB pick-ups. It's made out of metal and looks like you could use it year round. Was anyone purchased this type of set-up? I hate to be the test on it, but I'm getting tired of makeing something for one season out of wood and canvas.
http://www.trac-vac.com look under truck loaders.

[Edited by helodude on 10-28-2000 at 11:55 PM]

 

[CCLC]

I had looked at the trac-vac enclosure and the HI-Way enclosure. They just are not cost effective for the month and a half that we would use them here in Michigan. We just build an 8' high box on our flat bed and hooked the leaf loader up to it. So far it works just as good as a metal enclosure but we made if for a couple of hundred dollars. We'll pull it off as soon as snow flies and will probably get two or three years out of it.

 

I agree with CCLC, we only use ours for 8 weeks tops or until the first snow fall, so a full factory made set up would not be cost effictive. We build ours out of plywood and made with a frame of angle iron, so that when the wood rots or is no good all we have to do is unbolt the sides and put a new piece on. We have two on our 1 ton dumps, they are made out of two pieces of plywood stood straight up and bolted together, so that the 8' end is up in the air and they seem to hold up fine, we usually end up rebuilding ours every three or four years. Just my two cents.

 

[helodude]

I see both of your points on the wood and steel set-ups. I still will be using that type of set-up on the one-tons and International's. But for the F-250's I want maybe a dual-function item. When it snows I mount the small electrical spreaders onto the F-250's and general run with a camper shell. To cover the bag materials and person dumping the chemicals. So I was trying to kill two birds wiht one stone.
I don't like running Hendrikson spreaders on 3/4 ton trucks, tranny's too damn expensive. But what I was thinking is-it looks pretty good, you could put your name right at eye level-and it only costs retail 600.00 and maybe I can run it all year.