For some guys, too much is just right. Most of us do just fine with a pair of differentials and four wheels on our 4x4 pickups. After all, why spend any extra money on tires if you don't have to? But, then there are those types who can't leave well enough alone. Take Chuck Chaplinski. Not only has Chuck owned a whole slew of diesel Fords (an '83, '90, '91, '96, '99, '03, and an '05-all of them black), but he's also outfitted every single one of them with an extra set of rear wheels. Now, these aren't simply freewheeling supports for the cargo bed, like on a semi trailer, they're driving wheels. He's reused the exact same system that he custom-fabricated on his first Ford and simply transferred it over and over again to each new truck he acquires.
What motivates a guy to go to so much trouble? Because he can. You see, Chuck is in the concrete business and builds gravel-handling equipment for a living, so modifying a big diesel pickup is mere child's play by comparison. We can just imagine him standing back and looking at one of his heavy-duty conveyor-belt tracks and thinking, Hey, a couple of those wheels would sure look good on my truck.
Then, there's simply the desire to own something different. Explaining how he got involved in this odd hobby of converting Ford 4x4s into 6x6s, he says that he "wasn't able to buy something unique, a vehicle that [he] wouldn't see coming down the opposite side of the road... and I know how to make things work."
So, Chuck decided to get busy building a truck that he'd never encounter on the road or anywhere else for that matter. The more you get into the details of this six-wheeled monster, the scarier it gets.
 |  The conventional rear driveshaft...  The conventional rear driveshaft feeds into a custom-fabricated gearbox mounted forward of the first rear axle. A set of 1:1 gears transfers the driveshaft rotation to an upper driveshaft, with an air-shift system to lock in the second rear axle. The rearmost axle's pinion is tipped up about 7 degrees to accommodate the angle of the upper shaft, and both rear axles run a 4.10 ratio. |  "The wheels were quite an...  "The wheels were quite an issue," admits Chuck. He chose an AAM rearend for the back axle because the company makes one that's already 10 inches narrower than stock. He didn't want the wide fiberglass fenders seen on dualies, and instead handformed the fender flares out of 12-gauge sheetmetal and tucked the wheels under the bed. |