Some of you may know that I climb trees for a living. Yesterday I bought a bucket truck to make my job a little easier. Yeah, it's the wrong brand truck. But the boom is what I am buying. 55' reach, it has a material handler (rope winch) on the end of the boom with 1500 lb capacity, and everything is in very good shape. I got an extremely good deal on this truck and will pick it up as soon as they add air conditioning and a couple other items.
https://www.f150online.com/galleries...w.cfm?num=9078

I'm thinking that in a couple years I should be able to buy a new (or almost new) Ford or IH. The new ones sell for about $100K, I got this one for $17.5K plus $3500 for the AC and other modifications I'm having done.

 

Cool new toy! It would look better with a lift and some 44"s though.

 

i need one of those

...zap!

 

Sweet man, that's just sweet. Hmmmmm, What fun can we come up with for that toy......

 

Nice,
that will make your job a little easier. Normally fleet trucks are taken care of so it should be in good shape

 

Nice Rocky.

What are ya gonna do when you start to miss climbing those trees?

 

I figure I'll still be climbing a couple times per week. I won't be able to get to every tree with it.
My biggest hurdle the last few years has been the heat. This will help me do more while expending less energy.

Oh, and this will be my first GM vehicle of any type. I just hope it isn't too bad. The truck actually runs quite well (8.2 Detroit Deisel) and only has a little oil seepage around the pan. The Altec bucket is top of the line though, and that's what I'm buying.

 

OMG it a moving deer stand , we just need some camo paint, a winch, and some mud tires

 

You show me an older Detroit that doesn't leak oil, and I will show you an older Detroit that doesn't have any oil in it.

You can't blow em up though

 

We had an IH bucket truck when I was a Cable- D-D-D-Dawg at Fort Huachuca...

That thing had a pole-setter on it and everything; to include an ether-injection started system.

It was a heavy-heavy-heavy POS; and even slower than a "deuce" but it beat the he** out of gaffing up a pole.

We had 2 of them in my days at:

11th SIG BDE, 40th SIG Bn; 69th Signal Company "The Zoo", Fort Huachuca, AZ.

Two whole companies full of cable-dags... (31L) 69th & 16th... 360+ crazy emmer-effers in the same barracks...

 

No I didnt know that...
Now the RJ Squirrel makes more since!
My partner at works', husband is a tree trimmer. I know him pretty well and can joke with him some. Any time we get together and I see a squirrel I say look! Is that your cousin! I get that glare cause he dosen't have a GREAT since of humor, but then he laughs!

BTW Nice toy!

 

Update on the truck purchase-
I closed on my home refinance last Friday, got the check yesterday. Spent today running around and writing checks getting everything ready so I can go up and buy the truck. I literally spent $10,000 today! GEEZ, it goes fast! Insurance ended up running me over $3700 and I paid another $1000 for a commercially zoned parking space for the next year. I'm worn out from spending money. The worst part was that I forgot I was out of cash until after the banks closed, ended up having to break into my change jar in order to go get something for dinner!

Looks like I'll be heading up to Atlanta to pick up the truck either Saturday or Monday.

 

ended up having to break into my change jar in order to go get something for dinner!


thats not a good thing

...zap!

 

Congrats on the bucket truck.

If anyone else needs a commercial vehicle, GET IN TOUCH WITH ME!
Its what I do.

 

LOL! That's exactly what I was thinking!