After a month of trying to figure how to get this Ol' Gal home, Yesterday we were finally able to get her!! She is a 1950 Ford F5, and will be making a perfect car hauler for our flathead front engine dragster! MANY MANY thanks to our buddy Dwayn for taking his Sunday and his semi up to the high desert to get her! Someone decided to paint her in white house paint awhile back, but it protected all the trim which is 99% there! Still has the Flathead V8 which we will be removing for a little bigger engine so we can go faster than 50mph.... but we will make sure the flathead finds a good home with one of our new projects!
Thanks! Yeah i fell in love with her when i first saw her. Fomocokid, not sure just yet what engine we are going to put in her, gotta do some more research. but would love to hear your guys thoughts though!
I'm starting to lean to a diesel engine to power her. What do you think will be the best diesel specifically by its' size, I know it will be a lot bigger than the flatty.
doesn't that have a 337 in it? you got 145 horse instead of 100, and 98 extra cubes. keep the thing and just get some gears. you probably got enough power, just not the gear ratio to get up to speed.
good old 12v Cummins and 5 or 6spd and power steering. You don't want to be worn out by the time you get to the track by tryying to drive some antiquated motor in a big and very heavy truck.
WOW Dynaflash, I would love to put that beast in her! She would ROAR down the highway! Seetz, I'm pretty sure only the F7-F8 had the 337 in it. The F1-F6 has the 239. when we pull the engine out if for some reason it has a 337, I will keep the flatty in it.
Nice score! I'm currently restoring a '48 F4 for a gentleman I know. I pretty much have it mocked up, I just need to take it apart and paint it. It looks like the fenders are in good shape on yours which is a good thing. Finding good workable fenders for these big trucks is tough!
The F-6 only came from the factory with the small V8, The F-7s and 8s came with the 337. You have a lot of room in the engine compartment to stuff pretty much any engine you want in there. You have to take in consideration the suspension and wheels. The stock suspension might be adequate for your needs but the brakes will need work to make them stop good enough for today's traffic conditions. From what I can tell from the pictures you posted you're going to need new wheels. You truck looks like it has the dreaded Widow Makers. You'll be hard pressed to find a shop that will work on them because of liability issues and finding good replacements is getting hard but they're out there: http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/widowmaker.html Other than what I posted, looks like a nice truck.
fuck it, get a Ford GAA to drop in it. 1,100cui of power, you could do a wheel stand with a car on it. lol
Hivolt5.0 I am really happy with the shape of the fenders. There's only surface rust on them. Love to see the pictures of the 48' once it's out of paint. I'm still trying to think of a paint scheme for it though. I've been leaning towards a burgundy. bobj49f2, yeah i've heard the story about the widow makers. One thing I heard is that the UPS truck wheels have the same bolt patterns, so i'm going to be looking into those wheels.
A lot of old trucks had that same 5-lug pattern, including Studebakers. of course, they all had split ring wheels, but they aren't all the same and not all as dangerous. I do think the Ford ones were suppose to be some of the worst ones for failing at bad times. The danger is mostly when airing them up and little danger afterwards if maintained well enough with enough pressure to keep them seated. So with all split ring wheels, you need to inflate them in a wheel cage because if they blow, you will likely at least lose a hand if not an arm or your life. I am keeping the split rings on my trucks as I think they are part of the true detail character and again, the safer ones are pretty safe. Do some research, but I do think the Fords were the ones that are risky. But, then again, those wheels have been on that truck for 70 years and probably never caused a single problem. They look in pretty decent shape too. One thing I don't like is an old truck with modern wheels on it just like some can't stand radials on hot rods. It's a minor detail, but an important one to me and yes of course there is some trade offs like with anything. Oh, an I also just run big old bias ply farm truck tires on my trucks and have no complaints whatsoever. Works and drives just fine for me. In fact, I had the current tires put on in 2002 including a spare. I have never so much as even had to put any additional air in any of them once since then. I think I did rotate the front tires once, but can't recall now if I did or just thought about doing it.
UPDATE!!! Well we pulled the flathead out, and we have decided to put another flathead in. We are going to take the flathead out of our Front engine dragster, and put it in the F5. It is a 296 and runs great. We will put a 471 blower on it, two strombergs and call it a day! We have a McCleod Clutch that has only three runs on it, and it will hold up fine. What will are going to do with the flathead from the F5 is make it a fueler motor, bore it out, possibly 4-port it, and run some nitro for our flathead dragster, keep it injected and have some fun! So basically we are swapping engines. Here is the engine we are going to put in the F5 (Minus the injection, magneto, and aluminum heads) And here is the progress so far with the truck. Pulled the engine out and we are REALLY surprised how great of shape it is in! Turned over very well, and really clean inside! Well thats it for now, I will have another thread for building the fueler motor. Enjoy!!
The Jalopy Journal
