My guess is the center area houses a winch and both sides are probably tool boxes or chain boxes. All of our drill rigs and tow trucks had winches mounted in this manner. So you would not want to be rear ended by this guy.
Does look like this one is a counterweight on closer exam of the photo. Our tow truck at the dealer I worked for back in the day had a similar bumper but it was taller and lower, with probably a half dozen 8v71 cyl heads in it for ballast. Bumper was covered with rubber conveyor belt material so you could push something without damaging it.
It doubles as a counterweight for the hoist!
Could be not so much a bumper, but ballast to offset the load that the telescoping boom in the back would pick up.
“The NHSTA paperwork on bumper standards sent to International Harvester inadvertently had a zero in it.”
More of a counterweight than a bumper but serves both purposes
I would feel very safe driving that truck. Always loved the look of the old IH R series.
My guess is the center area houses a winch and both sides are probably tool boxes or chain boxes. All of our drill rigs and tow trucks had winches mounted in this manner. So you would not want to be rear ended by this guy.
Does look like this one is a counterweight on closer exam of the photo. Our tow truck at the dealer I worked for back in the day had a similar bumper but it was taller and lower, with probably a half dozen 8v71 cyl heads in it for ballast. Bumper was covered with rubber conveyor belt material so you could push something without damaging it.