grain bed hoist

I came across a truck that was going to be scrapped that has a nice johnson twin cylinder hoist that I would like to use to replace the single cylinder hoist on my 76 Ford cabover as the hoist I have struggles to lift the bed unless carefully loaded. Any ideas what a good twin cylinder hoist with tight seals/good hoses and pump ready to mount would be worth?

I really don't think it would be worth the work to take the hoist off the old truck and mount it to yours. It seems like a lot of work for very little gain.

Have you been in the back of a truck in the elevator with a scoop shovel with trucks behind you recently?

I know a new one with pump and pto would be worth more than your whole truck is. If you could get it for less than $1000 you better grab it.

About a year ago I was quoted about $7,000. for a new hoist to go under a 20-ft. grain box. They're not cheap, although the prices down there are likely quite a bit better than up here. Nothing worse than a hoist that can't get the job done, be a worthwhile changeover if price is right.

Erik, I know what you mean. The harvest crew used to have an International cabover with a 24 foot box and if it was filled wrong we'd be in there scooping. You have to scoop a LOT of grain before the box will raise. Either that or back up fast and slam on the brakes. Slamming on the brakes on a fully loaded 60,000 pound truck going backwards is scary! Jim

Gonna play devil's advocate here. Wait til its at
the scrap yard and buy it for scrap price?

Our local scrap guy has a real good thing about selling out scrap. You pay twice per lb. that he paid getting it in. Right now that means about thirty cents a lb. Not bad if it is something you need. Bought an IH disk the other day weighed out $475.00 took it to a Saturday auction and almost doubled my money.

Eric if you had been with me this fall you would say that its priceless. Dad and i bought a 76 F600 for $400. After replacing a broke ring in #4 cyl, a carb rebuild, rebuilding the wheel cylinders,and some mouse in the wiring harness issues we were pretty proud of it, considering what we had in it. Our frame of mind changed drastically when we pulled in the feed mill with our first load of corn. The bed that dumped a half load of gravel a week earlier wouldnt even attempt to dump 350bu of corn. You ever shovel about 300bu off by yourself? The guy with the load of distillers grain waiting on me was thoroughly PO'd. Ive got a good hoist, and pump in the shop waiting for me, when I shovel the last load off tomorrow. I got mine in exchange for a small dozer job, worth about $500.

If you load the back more full than the front, the hoist will work. I have done that for 30 years on the Chevy truck. Our IH has no problem. It has a bigger cylinder on the hoist, and the hinge point is closer to the middle.

Do what you want, I don't think its worth the time and expense. My opinion.

id check out the pump on your ford, some have adjustments for pressure output and it sounds like yours is not putting out enough, i had a kenworth that did that many years ago, found out that by making the adjustment the cylinder would go up too fast, i had to adjust it back down a little, as for a twin cylinder hoist after 35+ years in the dump truck business you couldn't give me one, there flat out dangerous,

I can relate the old single cyl. hoist on our 68 chevy leaves a lot to be desired. As for the two cyl. hoist being dangerous, what is so dangerous about them? I have never seen anything more dangerous about a twin cyl. that doesn't apply to any other truck hoist. The multi-stage single cyl. on a dump truck is a whole different animal than a single cyl. scissor hoist on a grain bed. Most are upsized wagon hoists from a design standpoint. I would take a Harsh or Scott twin cyl. hoist under a grain bed over a single cyl. scissor hoist any day.

How much of your grain box hangs behind the pivot hinges? If your grain box is in good condition, could you move the pivot hinges forward to better balance the box for the hoist? You might have to shorten the truck frame and also be careful that the rear of the box does not contact the ground. Hoist manufactures probably have some guidelines or installation instructions for you to follow.

The hydraulic pump pressure would be the easiest thing to fix first.

I paid $750 for the twin cyl hoist for my topkick about 8 years
ago. Bought from a junkyard. Was the best I could do at the
time. New was over $3500.

I bought the twin cyl scissor hoist last winter out of my local
scrapyard. They cut it out for me. Paid around $220. Had no
use for it at the time, but seemed to nice to melt. Have a truck
for it now, but still need a bed.

here the dangerous part, and this is from personal experience, a single hoist is mounted in the center of the bed as well as the truck frame weather its a front hoist or a scissors lift, a twin cylinder hoist has the cylinders mounted outside the trucks frame on each side, fairly stable, until a hose breaks, and they will break, eventually, when that happens the cylinder with the broken hose collapses, if the load is still partially on the bed at this time this will pull the truck over on its side, 100% of the time, the first time i saw this a man standing 10 feet from the truck was killed, when the truck landed on him, the second time i saw this the truck driver lost his arm which was thrown out the cab window and crushed under the truck cab when it landed on its side, ive heard of many other twin cylinder mishaps, but these 2 i saw, [ the truck was repairable in 1 of these], by comparison a single cylinder hoist is a little less stable but only requires a driver with some common sense to dump the truck on level ground, in case of a hose failure the cylinder collapses, straight down onto the truck, if its still loaded it may or may not bend the truck frame, and it will make the driver and anybody standing in the area need to change his pants, but they will still be alive, and the truck may still be fixable,, after all my years around dump trucks i would never have a twin cylinder setup,

I went to look at the truck this morning, I bought the whole truck. I put in a new battery and 5 gallons of fresh gas and had it running in 5 minutes. The owner's dad bought the truck and then sold it to his son when he retired. The son retired about 5 years ago and he did not put the truck on his sale, it's been shedded and is in pretty good shape. It needs some brake work but that's par for the course.

My triaxle dump had a single cylinder. It lifted 28 tons no problem. Must be a different kind.

Erik when you go to dump your truck raise the bed up until the grain is ready to run over the top of the back board then open the grain door
Just watch that you don't raise it too far and it flips on over
this works due to the weight of the grain behind the hinge pin helping to lift the bed. if you empty all the grain out first that will run out then you don't have as much leverage on the front side of the hinges.
good luck whatever you do

Ericlb in these parts I have never seen a twin cyl hoist with the cylinders mounted outside the frame. Those I am familiar with also are mounted closer together inside the frame, and if you lost a hose it would affect both cylinders anyway. The single cylinder setups on grain beds are also finnicky about dumping on unlevel surfaces, the twin setups less so. After using a couple trucks with the hinge point as much as 4 feet in from the back of the bed I personally would only hinge as close to the rear as possible. That balance point can be hard to stop at if the hoist is any good at all and can make a mess (don't ask me how I know this). If you aren't careful how you load it they also are rather exciting to drive. I personally think a truck with a 15' bed that only has enough frame for a 12' should never pass inspection, but there are a few in our area. We had a truck with a 13' bed and about 9'6" of frame and if you put over a half a load on it you couldn't steer or stop it reliably. I was never happier to see that truck leave here.