The cheapest and most expensive Ford 600 of them all.

[softdown]

Found a strong candidate while hiking a currently closed (to motor vehicle traffic) National Forest road today. This 600 comes equipped with a diesel engine and dump bed. Now for the really bad and truly ugly:
Abandoned in 2002 according to the license plates.
Has 18" of leaves and ~5 pounds of rodent droppings in the passenger compartment.
Belonged to a gutter company according to the door signage.
Guessing it was built in the 80's.
I'd be surprised if most things still worked.

The good? I think our National Forests allow the removal of long abandoned vehicles. It has some scrap metal value if one has a large enough trailer to hold it.

**This is mostly conjecture.

 

[softdown]

Having turned in a few vehicles for scrap metal value - a 600 with a dump bed would be a "prize". But the tires are oversize compared to normal truck tires. Would a 600 fit on a typical car hauler type trailer? Mine is a landscape trailer with ~16" raised sides but works well as a car hauler.

This unit is likely leaking oil and fuel into our ecosystem. Or will in the near future. It is only about 100 yards into the forest road.

My other question is why do people drive vehicles to remote spots and dump them? I find abandoned vehicles all too often in my hikes. They often take months to disappear. Only thing that makes sense is the vehicle broke down there.

 

[catbuster]

I’ve found some where roads were cut off and never rebuilt after slides, etc. There’s a lot of iron in SE Alaska, Vancouver Island & coastal BC, and other remote places where the iron is run into the ground and after the work is done it’s left because it’s not profitable (“economically viable”) to bring it back. Lots of old Hitachi UH181s and Pacific or Hayes trucks on Vancouver Island that should be in a museum instead of just rotting away. Plenty of other stuff is left where it breaks down. Ecologically it’s sad.

I wouldn’t expect that size dump truck to fit on a car hauler, and it may be more than a tandem landscape trailer wants weight-wise. They’re pretty heavy & solid. You might also need a CDL by the time you hook up to the truck/trailer and your truck. Most of them are plated at 26,000 for solely that dump truck.

 

[softdown]

Good points - I'd guess the weight at 12,000 pounds after thinking more about it. Much more than my trailer axles are rated at.

Best bet may be to pull it. Need a driver with a strong leg to operate the brakes manually. The adventure is half the enticement. Sucker for adventure - lucky to still be kickin'.

 

[Woodchuck71]

My farm truck is a F600,70 something,#9500 empty weight.
Use it on the farm and a couple of times a year to haul rock for my roads and lime.

 

[softdown]

My farm truck is a F600,70 something,#9500 empty weight.
Use it on the farm and a couple of times a year to haul rock for my roads and lime.

Wonder how much the dump bed and hydraulic ram weighs. Could also have a larger axle to accommodate the loads.

Or perhaps yours also has a dump bed considering your usage. I would have guessed the weight to be more in that case. My forklift weighs a lot more than that. But the heavier duty trailer is also narrower.

 

[Woodchuck71]

10' dump bed,holds around 7/7.5 tons of road rock.
Usually gross out around 23000/24000.
Licensed for 24000.
It's amazing how handy that little thing is

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Probably a Detriot 8.2L if diesel. Or a B series Cummins if a bit newer.

You are getting money for scrap?

Last I checked here, they were charging, or at best taking it for free.

Probably forgotten about or someone's headache that wasn't worth dealing with.
I've seen expensive machines left out in the woods and never really understood it. Sometimes parked for something fairly minor.
Would seem most of the time hauling it out to auction or even selling as-is/where-is would be better than letting it rot.

 

[softdown]

Probably a Detriot 8.2L if diesel. Or a B series Cummins if a bit newer.

You are getting money for scrap?

Last I checked here, they were charging, or at best taking it for free.

Probably forgotten about or someone's headache that wasn't worth dealing with.
I've seen expensive machines left out in the woods and never really understood it. Sometimes parked for something fairly minor.
Would seem most of the time hauling it out to auction or even selling as-is/where-is would be better than letting it rot.

Thought they always gave money for scrap. Best course of action would be to pull it here and find out what is wrong mechanically. I can store it indefinitely with 5 acres. Could even work out - my brother was a mechanic and is moving in next month for a while.

Someone drove it to that spot. There is that. I have towed several cars home and fixed them. Good way to save money if mechanically inclined. But I have zero experience with diesel mechanics.

Drivers side door does not work. That would irritate a user. It was "rode hard and put up wet" by appearances. But it is free and is currently an eyesore on a public forest road.