STALKING THE USED PICKUP

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The walls of a narrow bed go inside the truck's wheelwells, making the bed a straight-sided, rectangular box. Grain, sand, feed and other scoop-it-out-with-a-shovel materials are much easier to unload from one of these beds since there's no wheelwells sticking into the box to work around.

For hauling anything other than loose loads, though, you'll usually come out ahead with the wide bed. It has considerably more room and is almost wide enough to let you lie down in it crosswise. The wide bed also offers a lot more storage space "back in" if you ever mount a camper on such a pickup.

Another seemingly unimportant (at least at first glance) element of truck design is the position of the spare tire. If the tire is mounted on the inside of your pickup's box it can take up a lot of valuable hauling space. If located on the outside of a narrow bed, the tire may encourage a ripoff artist to lean against the vehicle's side, work off the lugs and steal the wheel in broad daylight.

Many of the newer trucks mount the spare under the bed. This is a good place for it . . . unless you'll be working your pickup in really rough country. Many times I've had to use my spare tire as a base for the jack in order to get the truck out of mud. If the extra wheel had been up under the bed, I'd have been in a bad fix.

The ideal place for the spare, if you have a choice, is over the front bumper. There, it will offer some protection in case of collision and it'll be completely out of the way when you aren't using it, completely accessible when you are. One caution, however: on some trucks it's necessary to mount the extra wheel off center so it won't cause the vehicle to overheat by unnecessarily blocking air flow to the machine's radiator.

A very important factor that buyers often overlook while shopping for a truck is fuel capacity. This can be of prime importance in the back country. Fuel tanks capable of holding upward of 60 gallons are available as options on many newer trucks and they're a good buy. They'll get you into town in an emergency and—in the city—they can carry you from gas war to gas war.

Matter of fact, the whole subject of fuel itself cannot be overlooked by anyone shopping for a pickup. In some back areas of this country (and certainly in rural Mexico) the best petroleum available is little more than high-grade kerosene. Needless to say, high compression engines don't function well on such a brew so steer clear of high compression equipment on your homestead vehicle. Even with severely retarded timing, many of today's Detroit mills will ping and perform poorly on less than the highest-octane gasoline.

If you'll be operating your truck in a milder climate, you might even consider converting it to butane. I've heard that, this fuel doesn't perform well in colder regions but it's a beautiful way to power all your machinery in more temperate areas. . . clean, safe, economical, efficient and easy to store.

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