Used Schwann trucks

There is a group selling used Schwann delivery trucks.

I know a guy who bought one, but It was very important to get one that was identified as being a good one. 

I worked on Schwann's equipment in a past job, they are pretty simple, light and not very adaptable to a work machine. The engine electronics are generally tricked into a general purpose mode to burn the LP, the base electronics engines do not like LP as it has to run rich to run at all. Fuel economy on these as memory serves was crappy at best.

Coke you are correct, they were set up for the box to be the rigid form on the frame, frames were light and the trucks although marked as 6500 series were not much better than a heavy ton truck. Hydraulic disc brakes, light duty 2 ton differential, and gas engine usually paired to a automatic trans.

If you're serious about buying one, there is a guy in Black River Falls that has about 50 of them and they're all for sale. He must have gotten a good deal to buy that many. If you want, I can pm you his phone number.

Son has a school bus converted to RV which runs on propane, With a Chev 366 engine he figures it gets about 5 MPG if lucky . AND propane when dispensed into a motor-vehicle pays road tax and sells for more than the $1.25 a gallon. 

Edited by Coke-in-MN - 14 Mar 2013 at 11:23am

i wouldn't be afraid to put a flatbed on one because of a light frame. I have yet to see a flatbed that doesn't have an integral frame built into it. Even our Peterbuit semi that we turned into a dumptruck has a sub frame built into the box that the box sits on when down. The hinge for the box is on the back and the lift cylinder is mounted on the front. 10 or 12 bolts and it comes right off. All we had to do was pull the 5th wheel plate, shorten the truck frame to match the box and bolt on the box assembly As for a dump box on that small truck just cut the frame off just behind the spring mounts. Any box that hangs out past that point is usless anyway. A properly loaded truck will have to have the majority of the weight towards the front of the box to get weight transfer to front axle anyway. I know of a local guy that buys old Schwans trucks and uses them for tow trucks. One of them is a medium duty wrecker for small trucks. Another one he built as a roll-back flat-bed wrecker. If you looked at most wreckers built for cars, they are just 1 ton pick-ups with a different bed. I used to run wreckers, and help build a couple of them. All most people do to beef them up is put heavier springs on them or just add boosters. I've been thinking about getting one myself for pulling my gooseneck. As for the maintenance of them, Schwans has their own fleet mechanics, most are certified. One of my brother in-laws used to work at their plant in Marshall, MN. Another fella I know used to be one of their refrigeration mechanics. If you decide to buy one, remember their just like any other used car. Some good, some bad. Take it for a test drive, have a good mechanic look it over.   If your buying through a dealer you might even be able to get the service records.