I finally got an Effie come live in my garage. It is very rough on the sheet metal side, but all the running works are there. 272 Y Block, heavy duty transmission and heavy duty rear end. All very rusty stock truck. There are markings on the door that it used to be a shop truck. It is a 250, but has a 100 badge on the hood. I ended up with a spare hood and grille, but there are other oddities that make me wonder what I ended up with. Engine turns freely, and in the next few days, I will hook a battery to it and see if I can get it to turn over. http://picasaweb.google.com/stephen.spence/F250Truck?feat=directlink yea, I know I have a date with a welder, and about 100 pounds of sheet metal to bring it to life, but the price was right and I need something to act as stress relief when I get home from work.
The hood has the badges for a '55 F100 - may have been switched out sometime in its life. What are the other "oddities"? Check out the F100 Group too: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/group.php?groupid=8 We have a few guys building the bigger stuff.
The carb is an autolite with a holley bowl. I don't know if the seat is stock, and I doubt it is, but it fits, so it will go back in it. Much to my surprise, the floors are not as bad as I expected. I need the floors from the seat area to the toe boards, but that is it. Typical rubber mats held moisture and rotted out. My first question for HAMB, can I get tubeless tires to mount on those wheels? I would really prefer to run radials, but it would be nice to not have to buy different wheels. Also, my only other personal build is a Model A, but other then Mac's and Dennis Carpenters, where do you all turn to for effie parts? I would love to find some parts trucks to get some goodies off in the tidewater VA area, but I doubt I will find that with all the car people up here.
Dennis Carpenter is a good source for parts. http://www.autokrafters.com/ is another one I can think of. What size are the wheels? I'm guessing they may be a bit narrow for modern radials.
Not trying to direct anyone away from here as it doesnt compare anyway but it is more specific to your truck (I also had a 56 f250 that I converted to a f100) http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/forum41/
Thanks Low Budget, found some great info from that link. I think the wheels are 15" and the bias tires on there now are 7.00 I don't know if width matters that much, I found radials for my 15" 4.5 inch wide front wheels for my A, but those wheels were made for tubeless. My father mounted some tubeless tires on old wheels and got them to hold air, but I was wondering if anyone has done that with a truck this heavy. No clue how it will stand up to the weight of my effie
An F250 would have 8 lug wheels... you may have an F100 longbox. '56 was the first year for that option... I owned one from 1979 to 1983... most F100 guys will tell you they weren't made but Ford produced a few thousand IIRC.
yep, it has 8 lug wheels. I decoded the vin and it also has the info tag in the drivers door jam. It is a real 250. The hood on it was a 55 F100 as Carbs & Chrome pointed out, and it has another hood with it with F600 badges. I hooked a battery to it and discovered either the solenoid is burned up, or something else I haven't thought of is wrong, most likely both. I love the links and info I have found on this board/thread. My Dad has a 41 truck we built and a 49 that he got pretty much together, so the 53-56 stuff is new to me. It was cool to find out it was the first 12 volt year for ford trucks. Since electric wipers were and option I am going to go home and see how lucky I was (I just saw replacement cost to put a working motor in, wow) I found out it was a truck for Nansemond County schools system, then was used by a hunt club locally after that. There is a 72 date scratched in the radiator top, and that was the year that county got absorbed by a bigger one, so I bet the hunt club put the radiator in it. Playing detective on a new project is pretty fun when you start finding out cool stuff about the ride.