Forest Service Crew Buggy Body

[shortbus4x4]

Drug this home yesterday. Plan on doing a camper conversion with it and sticking it on an International Loadstar from the 1970s.

 

[shortbus4x4]

I've been eyeballing this for the last few years every time I drove through Colfax WA for work. Finally about a month ago I stopped on my way back from a job and looked at it. It looked clean so I asked my outside sales guy who sells parts to the business that owned it who I should talk too about making it mine. I finally called on it a week ago from yesterday and talked to the guy in charge. I took a nice Saturday drive to Walla Walla a week ago and stopped and measured it and looked it over closely with my teenage daughter. Some pictures I took that day.

 

[shortbus4x4]

I called the beginning of this last week and made him an offer on it which he accepted. I didn't schedule any work for yesterday, partly because it was Memorial Day weekend but also I was going to try to go get this. I ended up working most of Thursday night into Friday morning on emergency callouts and got home about 10 in the morning. I quickly threw some ratchet straps in my truck, trailer was already hooked up and truck was fueled, and got my teenage daughter rousted out of bed and hit the road. Stopped at my work to air up my air bags and get a load of pallets. Got to Colfax WA and we loaded it up, the first forklift wasn't big enough so out came the bigger one which had long enough forks to pick it up. We ran the forks in from the front so the body frame was what we were lifting on. Got it loaded and I started to strap it down, decided it was a little too far back so I had my daughter step on the brakes while we used the little forklift and a pallet as a spacer to push the body ahead on my trailer. Here's a picture of it loaded up and strapped down and ready to head for home.

 

[shortbus4x4]

Boy was I glad I pushed the body ahead on the trailer. It actually could have gone ahead another foot and would've been better. I didn't go over 60 on the way home as this is a heavy body that was a tad too far back on my trailer, I've hauled worse but I was wishing for more tongue weight. I took back roads across eastern WA and northern ID back home as I didn't want to be on I90 through Spokane on a Friday afternoon of a three day weekend. Made it home safely about 530 with no excitement, took 2 hours to go 80 miles. Stopped a few times to check the load and tighten straps. This sucker is heavy, has to be 6k lbs at least.

 

[shortbus4x4]

I happen to know exactly where this body came from too. You can see the "SRF" sticker residue on the back of the body. This stands for Six Rivers Forest. As I was strapping this down I happened to see Salyer on the side if I looked at it just right. That is Salyer CA which is about 20 miles east of where I grew up on highway 299. I asked the guy I bought it from if he knew the history on it. He got it at an auction in Eureka CA for the truck chassis, he said it was about a 2001 truck. I worked at a shop in Eureka from 2003-2009 where I worked on a fair bit of Six Rivers equipment, crew buggies, engines, and light duty vehicles so there is a chance I actually worked on this very unit when it was in Forest Service service. I also know the Salyer area well as I spent a few hot summers there in the late 80s setting chokers behind a Cat D8 for my dad's logging business, I was cheap labor for him while in high school.

Before I unload it to start converting it I'm going to:
1) Pull the pass through boot and get a glass shop to put glass in. I'm not sure if I'll put the pass through back but the glass will keep the elements and critters out while I convert it.
2) Take it to the locksmith and get keys made for all the locks.
3) Take it across the Cat scales and then unload it so I have an idea what it weighs when I start.
I'll document my conversion here as I can't find much online for doing this, most of what I do find is on this website. It won't be quick but hopefully in a couple years it will be on a chassis out camping.

 

[Ozrockrat]

Great find and a cool project. If you get the numbers off the locks you can get tumblers and keys fairly cheap from Austin Hardware. Also I recommend opening up the pass through to a walkthrough before starting anything else And design around that. It’s a PITA to do it later. Even if you put a dummy panel in for now.

 

[OverlandFT]

This should be a fun project! It looks like you have the same truck body manufacturer as mine, Phenix Truck bodies. I think this is the model you picked up...

 

[chris_the_wrench]

Very cool. What are the dimensions? And where’s the truck its going on??

-Chris