My brother-in-law always has a cool project or two going on.  He owns an excavating company so he has a fleet of four-wheel-drive trucks, all Ford Super Dutys, ranging from F-250's to F-550's.  One thing he has been needing to add to his fleet is a crane truck, but the $98,000 price tag made his head spin.  His solution: Buy a used crane truck, remove and restore the crane assembly, and then mount the whole works on a new F-550 4WD cab/chassis.              

He found this well-used 2000 F-550 2WD with crane and hauled it back to his shop.  As you can see he has begun the disassembly of the truck.  After he removes the box and crane he's going to send it out to be sandblasted and painted and then he'll mount the like-new setup on his brand-new 4WD F-550 cab/chassis.  He estimates his plan will cost approximately $65,000, so he'll save about $33K from the price of a new unit. 

The 8,000 lb.-capacity crane and the 40 cfm air compressor are both PTO-powered.  The service box has a mind-boggling amount of storage on each side.  This is drool material for folks who love, and respect, a good work truck.