5 Ton 4x4 Conversion

I was wondering, if a person was going to build a 5 Ton 4x4 from a 923 what would people like to see for bed length and wheel base, this has been on my mind for a while. The 5 ton has so much load capacity, seems a shame to use a 105 trailer box on it when we could have a longer body with maybe a good hoist to make the truck really useful? Just asking, JT

I have been thinking of building a bobbed 900 series truck from a 931 with a cut down deuce bed.

What if you got rid of the spare tire and wimpy gantry and exhaust pipe and used a 12 foot deuce bed? The troop racks and cargo cover would still work and I think it would look good overall. rear axle centered in rear third of deuce bed. balanced appearance, great load capacity , shorter turn radius than a 923. More opinions? JT

Good topic! I recently got a chance to get hands on a 923 and i think im hooked. Now my thoughts have turned toward a crewcab 939 series. Possibly a tractor variant, 109 box, duece bed, or even just a 105.

I think ur onto something here

jatonka said:

What if you got rid of the spare tire and wimpy gantry and exhaust pipe and used a 12 foot deuce bed? The troop racks and cargo cover would still work and I think it would look good overall. rear axle centered in rear third of deuce bed. balanced appearance, great load capacity , shorter turn radius than a 923. More opinions? JT

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I personally don't want to bob my truck...But I do see the appeal and sometimes leagality in certain areas to do it... anyway... I've thought the same exact thing. Why bob the rear axle off to make it a shorter truck? I think they look goofy like that. Why not bob the front (rear) axle off and lengthen the driveshaft. Four wheel truck that still big and bad. But this idea above is a good comprimise. Bob one axle off, but not so short it looks goofy short. Almost as big, but not quite.

We've seen examples of 2.5 tons that used the oem bed and a single rear axle. Thats not a bad idea either. If you could unlock the front hubs without having a to take out a second mortgage, that would surely decrease the turn radius also but that friends, is wishful thinking.

Welder Sam said:

We've seen examples of 2.5 tons that used the oem bed and a single rear axle. Thats not a bad idea either. If you could unlock the front hubs without having a to take out a second mortgage, that would surely decrease the turn radius also but that friends, is wishful thinking.

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Could always drop the front drive shaft until you know you'll be needing the extra traction. Of course, it's a bit time consuming and inconvenient... but it's free.

Very true.

My M925 and M35 have same payload capacity stock.

Personally I'd like a M932 with a contact maintenance body.

I built my frankendeuce/5 ton with a 12 foot (edit: I mistakenly typed "ton" here earlier) bed, with the rear axle just aft of bed centerline. It works great for my purposes and I would almost call the turning radius tight. From memory, the axle spread front to rear is about 155", with the front axle biased not quite as far forward as the stock 5 ton, so I think with a 160" spread, you'd have my same results.

As a note on rear axle spacing, I wouldn't have hesitated to move the rear axle as much as a foot farther to the rear, but I was somewhat space limited with regards to suspension mounting brackets.

Best,
Bob

You mean one of these?

Not sure who did the mods, but looks like a Deuce bed and spare tire moved.

I want one bad!

There's someone on here who owns the one and only prototype 4x4 M939 series truck, it came out in the late 70s and they only made one. That pic might be it, but not sure...

I've thought about bobbing the M931A2 tractor...but really only for legality sake.

jatonka said:

What if you got rid of the spare tire and wimpy gantry and exhaust pipe and used a 12 foot deuce bed? The troop racks and cargo cover would still work and I think it would look good overall. rear axle centered in rear third of deuce bed. balanced appearance, great load capacity , shorter turn radius than a 923. More opinions? JT

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When I was still considering how to shorten my m923 enough for it to fit in my driveway, this is exactly what I was going to do. I think it would look great.

Would work great with a hoist, and another option would be to shorten the m923 bed enough to fit deuce cargo cover, and keep a nice drop side bed. There are lots of spare deuce beds around though.

Mikew, the picture you posted is just what I'm talking about

Well if you do "bob" your truck - I'm looking for the bobbed frame pieces for my 5 ton project... 'Bob to the minus one', or 'un-bob'... I guess stretching needs a name too..
Thanks in advance.
Howard

John,
Cool idea. You thinking of using that truck up on Route 12 as the donor truck? If you are, I would be interested in the dropside bed. I think that 923 with the Duece bed looks pretty cool. Talk to you soon at the Sussex Show.

John

Geez, 25thID, that truck is too good to get hacked up, but, I do have a nice 14 foot dropside available for you, see you at Sussex, JT.


I really liked the picture of that truck on a previous post, it was exactly what I have been planning, now I know it's like being a copy cat, but heck hundreds of people have copied my original JATonka 4x4 XM381 haven't they? I can't be the original on everything.

Mine started as a m932 and took a drop side deuce bed and shortened it 3 feet.
I'm very happy with it.

rrrr - that is one heck of a hunk. Quite the Prime Mover.
Can anyone say modern Mack NO.


as I said earlier, do you still have the 3' off cuts from the frame?

Howard