Payhauler 350. Good or bad?

[buckfever]

I have a question for all the big dirt movers. What do you think of the 350 haul trucks? My dad and I where talking about what our next move should be for a haul truck and we were talking about the 35 and 40 ton artics. Then we started thinking about those 350 Payhaulers. 50 ton payload, all-wheel drive, and can be picked up for close to the same price we will pay for an artic. How well do these trucks hold up? Does the all-wheel drive realy make a difference on a 170,000 lbs. truck? I've found them as new as 1999 but no newer do they still make these trucks and how is parts avalabilty. Any operating tips would be great also.

 

[JTL]

The company I work for has over 30 Payhaulers. From the late 60's to the newest being a 99 or so.
They are kindof a maintance nightmare. The leaf springs seem to be the biggest issue on them. The parts are getting a little harder to come by for them these days. I don't know when they quit building them for sure, but Terex owned the name for along time, and was buildling them as late as 2004.
The 4 wheel drive only works in 1st and reverse, but is amazing in how it works. You get in soft sand and or mud and an artic cant keep up. Plus you can turn one around faster in a tighter are than an artic.
The aren't very operator friendly. They are powershift transmissions, not automatic. The cabs are pretty small and they ride like a buckboard wagon. They are kinof hard to see out of as well.
They are a good truck, just not great. As with anything with moving parts its gonna have issues! They can be picked up realitivity cheap and rebuilt realitivity cheap. The Cummins powerd ones use less fuel than the Detriot's, and seem to have more power.

 

[John C.]

JTL pretty well has them nailed. Just to add a little, I used to see plenty of drive axle and final drive problems in them when they had to use all wheel drive for extended periods of time. Tires way back when I worked on them were easier to come by and they were duals on all four corners and smaller than the 35" tires used in the standard fifty ton units. That may not be the case any longer. They came with either a 16V71 Detroit back then or a VT1710 Cummins. The ones I got stuck on had the Detroit motor and as usual were sensitive to water in the fuel. They could be a time consuming issue rerunning all those racks if you blew the tips off a couple or three nozzles. I hadn't heard of the same kinds of problems with the Cummins.

The units always ran hot and the engines all cooked the gaskets and leaked oil all the time. The wiring was done old school with bundles taped together. If you changed a motor you better tag the wires to get them back in the proper places. All the ones I worked on ran the exhaust through the boxes which helped reduce the carry back, but it also seemed to thin the metal from the inside of the sections and the boxes would get thin and crack. Check your hinge points on the box real careful. Anything that old will have plenty of welding there. I don't remember doing springs in these trucks but then again the units I worked on were near new in 1980.

The trucks were dinosaurs back then but did a job that nothing else could do for the same amount of money. Today if you gave me a choice between a 350 Payhauler and a Cat 550B artic, I'd take the 350 every time.

 

[truckboy1]

looks excellent the engine is a detroit if your going for a used look you should create some oil slober on the prevent there like any excellent dog they create there identify its just how they are you cant keep them from dripping the dust is a awesome function excellent work.

 

[buckfever]

I like the idea of having a machine built around the same principal as a hammer. Simple and effective if not a little crude. Where the detroits more maintanance then the cummins? I know just enought about fixing equipment to be dangerouse. We normaly call a expert to repair anything outside expertise(expensive). So I would think the cummins would be more the truck to look for. Also how much road maintanance is required to run these truck efficently? Most of our work will be less then 100,000 qy so having a dedicated road grader is out of the question.

How ugly can the terrain get before you have to stop running. I don't expect these trucks to go like a artic but I would think they would keep going long after most other strait frame trucks stop.

 

[JTL]

Like John C said, we have also had issues with the finals, axels and the transfer cases, but mosty on the longer, high speed hauls. Like I said, they ride like they have square wheels, and the leaf springs like to break, so the smoother the haul road the better. But I've been on plenty of jobs where we didn't have a blade or B-G, with short hauls and they hold up pretty good. It's usally on the next project that all the demons come flying out on!
We've kept running even in mud axel deep on them. They will claw right along, as long as there is somewhat of a bottom to it. Steep ramps going down into newley pioneered fills aren't a problem, and neither is pulling away from the hoe on steep ramps when staring a new cut. We do alot of landfill closeures, and backing them up 3:1 slopes isn't a problem at all, even with a little rain. The fact that they pretty much balance the load 50/50 front and rear makes all the differance in the world, and the 4 wheel drive just makes them shine that much more over a standard truck. They loose all that shine when it comes to speed and comfort though!
This blow sand will stop a conventional truck right in its tracks. We used the Payhaulers and a couple billion gallons of water to start the new cuts on this job, then would get the Komatsu's using the ramp after it got compacted.

 

[buckfever]

Thanks alot for the advice fellas. Will defenetly take this under advisement.

 

[oldtom]

new one's350PH as 2004 60se D?D more power than the 180/350old 12v71 in the earlier ones narrow cab