M882 Loaded heavy W/brick and mortar bags for chimney repair

[Carter]

Posted this recently on SS and thought you might be intrested also. Pix on Photobucket of loaded truck and on Webshots of completed work. Thanks for looking.

I am rebuilding my fireplace chimney and needed to pickup brick and mortar at a Baltimore brickyard. Loaded a ton and a quarter of brick + 7 bags of mortar= 490 lbs. and 4 bags of non-shrink grout = 200 lbs. Total load weight 3190 lbs. The springs still had some arch although not much but the load was such that the axle snubbers were not in contact with the axle housing. The truck handled well with no rear end sway and the load didn't bottom out on rough road. All in all a pleasant but hot (cab temp. around 95F) trip of about 80 miles, these trucks are great. Yesterday I hauled the sand, about 20 miles, also with no problems. To have both loads delivered would have cost $125 and I used less than a tank of gas for both trips. Carter

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n62/ ... G_0758.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n62/ ... G_0759.jpg
http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n62/ ... G_0760.jpg
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http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/alb ... 4980fuaRNG

[Lifer]

Nice to have a truck that can do the job, isn't it?

Oh...looking at the pics, it seems you're about "7 bricks short of a load!" That's how many holes I saw in the stack, anyway.

[Carter]

"Nice to have a truck that can do the job, isn't it?"

Yes it really is, the 882 was a MDNG truck that I got for $1500 about 6 yrs. ago and at that time it only had 22,000 orig. miles and has been my landfill and mulch hauler which now has 26,000 on the clock. It's sprung so stiff it'll jar your back teeth when it's empty but rides great with a full load although the engine, a 318 with a Carter BBD 2 barrel, really has to work getting it up to speed after a stop, esp. pulling a hill from a stop, getting only 8MPG loaded

"7 bricks short of a load!" I've been accused of that my entire adult life Charlie ---- OH, now I get it, you mean me AND the skid of brick, I'm just a little slow . Actually about 25 brick were left out for forks of the lift to fit in to load trucks.

[Lifer]

Aha! You got it! I'm glad to see that "there ain't no bugs on you!"

[rixm37]

Great to see your old Dogde out and working. Last year I filled my M37 with a load of pavers that would have killed my Ford. These old rigs can still earn their keep, and are fun to boot.

[Carter]

Great to see your old Dogde out and working. Last year I filled my M37 with a load of pavers that would have killed my Ford. These old rigs can still earn their keep, and are fun to boot.

I keep this one around for just such a purpose. It costs about $78 a yr. for ins, tags are about the same I think, have to ck. but it's cheap to keep but not feed. I use it a couple of times a month but it's worth just having and ready to work for the little it costs. Doesn't smoke and doesn't drip oil. Carter

[rixm37]

Doesn't smoke or drip oil what more could you ask for?
Great old truck

[Carter]

Doesn't smoke or drip oil what more could you ask for?
Great old truck

It would have been nice if the army had spec'd insulation and sound deadening material, it's hot in the summer and noisy all year. Power steering would have also been nice also but I've already added that to mine Carter

[pfrederi]

I had the displeasure of having 5 of the ambulance versions M886 in my unit. I cannot begin to describe what a nightmare they were maintenance wise. They hated damp weather...you could hear the distinctive whine of a Chrysler product starter all over the motor pool as the cranked and cranked and cranked...sometimes you got lucky and they would start. They used ballast resistors on a weekly basis. They had been retrofitted with black out lights which rarely worked. Water seemed to be attracted to the wiring harness connector on the firewall. The electronic control unit couldn't maintain a ground...The civilian tires they came with had worse tractive ability than NDTs (and the side walls suffered from rocks and sharp objects. If they didn't break down in the field they got stuck. Oh and the ambulance versions were a bit top heavy twice my guys laid one its side....

This all happened 25 years ago and it is still a painful memory i will never buy a Chrysler product as long as I live (M37 excluded

[Lifer]

The only "modern" Dodge vehicles I drove in the service were M880 pickups, and I absolutely hated them! If ever a truck needed power steering, that was it, and the guvmint figured it was an unnecessary expense. They were such a pain to drive that we'd use a deuce to go across base to supply and pick up a case of toilet paper rather than hassle an M880 through traffic on the base. The way I figure it, there was probably a 5 year interval between the recommended oil changes every 3,000 miles. Nobody wanted to drive them.

[Carter]

Paul,
My M882 has suffered from all of those problems except laying it on it's side. I've replaced ballast resisters, plug wires, sealed the firewall electrical connectors and replaced the starter which I burned out trying to get the damn thing started. I have also replaced the inline fuel filter with a CUNO type from a M35 REO gaser which solved the problem of getting water in the gas. It turned out was getting into the tank because the gas cap was bent and I also got a tank of bad gas, cap now also replaced tank drained and cleaned. That said, now it is finaly a dependable truck, might have been easier to replace the owner