Done, well almost after 3 1/2 years.

[DeputyDog25]

Wow, that is some fantastic work you did there. You should really be proud of both yourself and the truck. I would love to see it in person, really can't appreciate all of the work from a picture. I have said it before and I will say it again. We have some of the most talented and intelligent people on this forum!

[Outch]

WOW nice truck. Give yourself a BIG pat on the back. Looking GREAT.

[doc1876]

Ah, the good old days,,,,,dont forget to check the oil level in the air cleaner!

.

I would like to have a nickle for everybody that looks at that post sideways, and confused

[elk hunter]

[QUOTE=roysha;2890574]Did you use the original engine or is it a later replacement? The Ford engine from that era was only 85 hp on a real good day but the Mercury was said to be 100 hp. We used to swap heads from Mercury engines to our Fords to supposedly bump the hp to 100. Doubt it did much but was good for some bragging rights.

I had to replace the entire drive train from the radiator to the differential, but the motor is the correct one for the truck, it is a model 59 AB which is the 100 horse power version. The model plate for the truck indicates it is a 59C, 5 is the code for 1945, 9 is for the 100 HP V-8 and C is for "Commercial" which was Fords designation for the 1/2 ton pickup. The 3/4 ton and above were all called trucks.

I too love the sound of a "Flathead V-8", nothing else sounds quite like it.

I have a 1951 3/4 ton, another family truck, that I need to start on soon before I get to darned old to do the work.

[Pb2au]

Lovely truck. Thank you for sharing.
When you get your nerve up, rebuild a V-12. We restored a '41 lincoln, equipped with the V-12. That was an absolute hoot. A lot of the parts can swap between the 8's and the 12's, but not all. The camshaft looked like a walking stick...
It took a day to set up the distributor and run the wires in the tubes for the plugs.

[fixit]

I love old iron!!! you did good!

[Buckshot]

.............Yup, a picture is nice to look at and if a person has never done a resto' all they can is 'imagine' what it was like. When I was 6 years old (1959) my grandfather had a '34 Ford with a flathead V-8, Powerdome pistons, Offenhouser aluminum heads and a Ruckstell transmission. He was going to sell it and get a new (to him) pickup. My dad wanted it but mom said no Grandpa bought a used '54 Ford pickup (had been a Pepsi Cola company truck) with a 239 V-8. We had a '57 Ford station wagon and Granpa thought it was the bee's knee's with it's 312 V-8. He'd always mention it as the "T-Bird" engine!

When my daughter was 16 (they grow SO fast) I wanted something for the both of us to do together so I figured a 53 - 56 Ford pickup truck project would be just fine. Some hard looking and asking turned up one through a buddy. Their gate guard had a '55 he was needing to sell as they were moving. He drove it back and forth to work everyday (but NOT on the freeway!). Sale details aside, we bought it for $1500 and drove it home (But NOT on the freeway!). It had had a FE series 352 V-8 with a truck 4 spd trans someone had put in. It had twin glass pack mufflers with the exhausts sticking out in front of the rear tires. And did it smoke?! Chris and I drove that thing home, all on surface streets and we laughed all the way home. That thing went down the road like it was fogging for Mosquitoes. When we came to a stop light smoke would come up around us and the trail we'd laid would catch up and envelop us. Both doors were held closed with bungee cords hooked under the dash. The front end was so shot it wandered all over the place. When we got it home and parked it (where it sat for 6 months) oil dripped out of the exhaust pipes for DAYS!

Happily it had a lot of stuff that would be normally missing like inside and outside door handles, strike plates, sunvisor rods (with the cardboard visors missing) and glovebox door. But it didn't have any Bubba'd extra holes in the dash or other junk. Original seat (pretty much exploded) and the side mounted spare tire mount behind the cab on the left.



She and I took it all the way down to the frame. Had sheet metal scattered ALL over. Cars of that vintage were pretty much all bolted and screwed together. Well, the cab was spotwelded together into one piece! We hauled the chassis over to "Mid 50's Pickups" in Riverside, CA and had them install a Chrysler Volare front end under it and a Ford 9" rear end. Back at home Christian and I boxed the frame. We completely rebuilt the front end and ran all new brake lines. Then installed an underfloor power steering unit so we could use the same "Through the floor" factory pedals. Then we put in a '78 Cadillac tilt/telescoping steering column. Since the gas tank was under the cab, and the spare tire was op on the side behind the cab we had a 2nd gas tank fabbed up to go between the frame rails under the bed.

We put in a 'Smoothie' rear spring kit (the originals were like 1.5" wide and 11 leaves tall) with teflon pads. The new bed was all done in clear Red Oak with polished stainless bedrails and hardware. We added repro original tail lights with chrome FORD script across the lenses, and of course ........... blue dots! For the front the headlight buckets were replaced as was all the chrome trim. Luckily the hood emblem was there as was the 'F-100' lettering on the side of the hood. We installed a BMW hood tilt kit, so the hood tilted forward.



For the interior I made a new dash panel out of aluminum. It contained the speedo, oil pressure, oil temp, water temp, voltmeter and gas gauge. I made another small aluminum dash/bracket to carry the tranny temp gauge and a 5,000 rpm tach. It got all new tinted glass, and all new polished stainless windwings, side mirrors, and window tracks and hardware. We then took it over to San Bernardino to an upholstery shop and Christian got to pick out the carpet and upholstery. The sunshine in the pic has it kind of washed out, but the door panels were done in gray tweed to match the seat and the carpet was black. The carpet ran from up under the dash, the seat, the overhead and up to the top of the windshield. Then for no charge they used the gray tweed material to make a jacket to go around the steering column, secured by Velcro.

Christian wanted to keep the button starter which I did, but ran it's power from the GM switch on the steering column, so you had to turn the key to the run position and then press the button on the dash to fire it up. My grandmother had given me their '69 Ford LTD they'd bought brand new, when she decided it was time for her to stop driving. We drove it a couple years ourselves. It had 68,000 on the clock when it became a 'donar'. So Christian and I took the 4bbl 429 V-8 and the C-6 out and put it into her pickup. Donna said she didn't think Chris needed an engine that big, but I said, "But honey, we don't have the money in the budget to buy another engine and trans. So we were stuck with that! Ahem. And lemme tell ya, that truck would HAUL the mail!

I had the trans rebuilt, just because. I really, REALLY wanted to do something to the engine. The engine didn't NEED a thing. But you know what I mean so I went over to Wayne's Engine Service in Riverside to talk to their 'Ford Guy'. He came out of the back so I told him I had a '69 Ford 429 with a 4 barrel and was wondering .... you know. He asked me what I was gonna do with it so I told him it was in my daughter's '55 Ford pickup. So still wiping his hands on a rag he asked, 'What's SHE gonna do with it?' I said, well drive it back and forth to college and work an' stuff. He rolled his eyes and said, crissakes it already has 360 hp, but I know how it is. He said it has a heckuva intake side with huge round ports, but the exhaust side has a couple bumps and hickies. You pull the heads and for $150 I'll give you another 40 horses. I never did, but I DID put an aluminum Edlebrock intake manifold on it! Swapped out to an electronic ignition. Put in a big old brand new old timey looking downflow radiator with a monster electric fan. That thing cooled like an Indiana Winter. For exhausts it had 2" pipes, each side going through Flowmaster mufflers, with the pipes turning out in front of the rear tires. It sounded REALLY fine. Christian was pulled over 3 times while she had it and NEVER got a ticket. All the cops wanted to do was talk to a cute girl ..............and her pickup. We never got pulled over for those blue dots in the tail lights either.

Christian was a bit upset that there was no air conditioning, but ya can't have everything. She drove it for 3 years and then when she went to work for the local PD (and was getting married) she decided she needed a bit more sensible vehicle. We sold it for the $11,000 we'd put into it (that included the cost of my MiG welder and air compressor, plus misc tools) to a teacher in Alaska.

..............Buckshot

[elk hunter]

Buckshot,

Pretty girl, nice truck. Wish you would build another one like it and sell it to me for $11,000, no make that two.

You're right, unless you've done it it is hard to imagine how much work it takes to build or restore an old vehicle. I did all the mechanical work, and part of the body work, on mine except building the new drive line. For what the company charged it just didn't pencil out for me to build it. I haven't added up the costs on mine yet, but I suspect I only spent about $6,000. It was the time that was the biggest item, and I still have one more to do.

[David LaPell]

I love old pickups, I am in the process of restoring a 74 F-100 and that gets a lot of attention but I love those late 40's trucks with the Flathead V8. A guy locally has a 47 1 1/2 ton flat bed with a flat head he is selling. If I were to win the lottery I would buy that old Ford long before I bought a Ferrari or other high priced sports car.

Here it is from this summer. It gets right along, it came from the factory with the 390 automatic in the short bed configuration, from what some Ford collectors told is pretty rare for that combination, most were 300 inline sixes and the occasional 302 or 360.

[Buckshot]

.............Here in So.Cal (probably other places too) the mid/late '60's to early '70's (avoiding the worst of the 'Pre-Computer smog stuff) cars and trucks are selling very dear. A shooting buddy sold his '67 Ford F100 with 302 V-8 and 3 on the tree trans, no AC, stock wheels and tires, and not much TLC lavished on it in a loooong time. It ran well and was complete. He got $3500 for it.

.............Buckshot