Appell equipment sales, Galva ,IL

I used to know Dave. He bought lots of junk at auctions as cheap as possible. Wasn't known for buying quality. But that was a long time ago.

 

Seen a few pictures of their lot. He buys a lot of beat up cabovers and puts them up for sale online.

They're a little tough to get ahold of online, but they pick up the phone during business hours.

Almost bought that orange K100 they have for sale, but another one in florida caught my eye, and didn't look like it'd had some livestock living in it for a few weeks.

Don't know much more about them other than they're about 3 hours from anywhere in northern illinois.

 

Picked it up this week and got about a day's worth of driving in. Bought it from a porsche race team that got it in a package deal with an enclosed car trailer.

Its about 330" long (only had a 25' tape measure with me, so it could be off), so that compounded with getting used to the cabover and ancient steering system made for a rough first day sneaking it back to the hotel.

Its never been titled as a CMV, so it needs a lot of little things to be legal, like low air warning buzzers, and reflective tape on the mudflaps, and some air leaks cleared up, but overall, its better than I expected. Should only take me a lazy week working on it in somebody's parking lot to get it to pass inspection.

Only tried jacking up the cab once, but by the time I figured out the latches, it was dark, so I gave up. Also got to guess which was the oil filter, and which was the fuel filter, since they were both the same size, and both painted over.

 

Its got a 90" sleeper sitting on the frame behind the 108" cab, so it doesn't look too lanky.

I found it on ebay while looking for parts for the orange one. It was the same price for twice the truck. They'd both had recent rebuilds, but the orange one has likely been sitting for years while the one I bought has been getting low miles the last 30 years.

There are two major sellers of COEs on truckpaper, and Appell is one. Look closely at their website, and you can count over a dozen of them on their lot.

There is a salvage yard somewhere else in the midwest that has the other lionshare of them. Think they're in ohion, but can't recall the name.

 

He said it would drive off the lot, but was rough. I didn't see it in person, but got his business hours, and found out he doesn't take credit cards/bank cards, but is willing to do a wire transfer at the time of sale.

I wasn't too excited about doing as much body work as it needs to look OK in person (the corners are a mess if you look at them closely).

If I was going to get any truck from appell right now, it'd be the purple K100E with the gray stripes. Decent balance of interior and exterior condition, the miles aren't too bad, and its under 20 years old.