One opinion was that it was so ugly it was attractive. The front fenders were diamond-plate steel and were painted the same matte silver as the rest of the truck. Beneath the hood there was a Cummins NH220 six-cylinder engine. Still up for discussion is the engineering train of thought as to how the engine was shoehorned into the sheet metal of the truck that was better than a foot too short for the engine. The hood was extended forward, as was the radiator and grill. The front axle remained in the original position in relation to the cab of the truck. It had squared-off diamond-plate fenders and then close to 2 feet of “snout” sticking out in front of the fenders.
This mechanical marvel left the factory of the International Harvester Company as the robust foundation for a ready-mix concrete unit. I have no idea who took the “new” off of the truck, but it ended up on a farm unit near Grandview, Idaho. The idea was to use the retired concrete mixer truck to mix and deliver concrete for concrete ditches.
The area was being taken out of sagebrush and made into farmland. The soil was a sandy loam, heavy on the sand. That sand was fine, as in easily blown thither and yon by even a modest breeze. Unlined ditches basically melted when water entered them and simply headed downhill.
This was the era when sprinkler irrigation was starting to make headway versus the rill, or corrugated surface irrigation. Irrigation circles, with a line on wheels rotating like the hands of a clock from a center pivot, were still a future fantasy.
As is the usual case for a cement mixer truck, the drum gave way before the truck chassis beneath it did. It was parked for future use or parts. Then, a young farmer needed a hay truck to deliver his alfalfa hay to dairies. Dean Merrick talked the owner out of the truck. He removed the mixer unit and its associated hardware, adjusted the wheelbase and proceeded to make it into probably the most unconventional conventional hay truck around.
Dean didn’t just make it serviceable – he customized it, mainly inside the cab. He used a flat sheet of aluminum for the instrument cluster. He machine turned it, then cut precision holes for the instruments. The seats were replaced with state-of-the-art air ride seats. The door panels and ceiling were upholstered to match the color of the seats. The array of light switches were now chrome or sparkly plastic toggle switches. Most of the wiring in the cab was replaced.
Dean wanted to haul a couple of loads of hay with us to the dairies in the area of Portland, Oregon. This was going to be a challenge with the good old 220 still powering the rig, as a 350-horsepower engine was seen as a minimum in that era. No, he couldn’t keep up with us, but he was never as far behind as we expected. I highly suspected that Dean had made some “home improvements” to the fueling system on his pride and joy.
While refurbishing the truck, he had the cylinder heads rebuilt by the Cummins shop in Boise, Idaho. The six-cylinder Cummins engines had three cylinder heads – one for each pair of cylinders. Inside the heads were passages for coolant, motor oil and diesel fuel. Glorified rubber O-rings around the injectors usually keep these three fluids separate. On either the first or second trip, they did not. Dean found a safe haven for the loaded truck near Pendleton, Oregon.
We went on and unloaded, and I think it was Leo Ritthaler who stopped and picked up Dean and the three cylinder heads from his truck on the way home. Yes, Dean Merrick was a bright boy and carried with him ample tools to remove those cylinder heads. Back at the Cummins store, Dean said when his “freshly rebuilt” heads were inspected, there were raised voices and attitude adjustments in the shop. He had his heads back, now correctly done, the next day.
He drove to Pendleton in his pickup, put the truck back together, delivered his load of hay, then stopped in Pendleton and loaded his pickup and came home. Dean decided that the 220 and Portland deliveries were not compatible.
He shared a conversation he and his wife, aka “my free helper,” had concerning delivering his hay closer to home. His wife was the bookkeeper, bill payer and money collector. One customer had been less than ideal to do business with, and Mrs. Merrick strongly suggested to Dean that they “Just don’t take that party any hay next year.” Dean mumbled something about it being easier to find another place to deliver hay to than to find another wife comparable to the one who didn’t mind being his “free help.”
Sadly, the world lost Dean Merrick in a farm accident a couple of decades ago.
