Hi! Does anyone know if the F1 parts are compatible with the F5 parts for the Ford trucks. I have a buddy who has an F5 for sale that needs a bit of work and quite a few parts need to be replaced. The availability of parts will determine whether or not I buy the truck from him. Please help me!
F1 trucks aren't the same. That being said, what year f5? Just exactly what needs to be replaced? Adam pitchers?
The hood should also fit with cab and doors. I built my 1950 from F7 fire truck but used frame and grill from 1952 F1 .
The cabs are the same as stated. The front clip the grille, hood, header panel and lower panel are the same. The inner fenders are close but there are some difference at the bottom were it meets the frame. The F1 is 73 inches wide at the edge of the front fenders. The f2 and maybe the f3 are the same width but have a larger wheels opening. These fender were used a lot when putting the truck on a 4X4 ch***is. As the size of the truck goes up the fenders get wider and longer. I have seen the wider fenders used when someone got the front suspension to wide. Some of the larger cab do not have the hole for the gas fill. I have also seen some large cabs were the back window was not cut out. There are also some army trucks out there that have a flip out windshield.
The cabs are all the same, from F-1 all the way up to F-8. I have a cab from a F-8 truck on my F-2. The doors, hood, grill, filler panels above and below the grill are the same. The interiors are the same except the ****** cover has the shifter holes in different locations but the holes can be filled and moved. The gauge pod is the same but the speedometers are different in the larger sized trucks, they larger truck speedos have shift marks. The F-1 has it's own fenders, front and back. The fenders from F-2 to F-6 are the same. These fender will bolt up to the F-1 but the wheel openings are larger than the F-1. F-7 and F-8 share fenders which are wider, longer and higher than the others. The filler panel below and above the grill are wider along with the grill. http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/partsinterchange.html There are many mechanical parts shared between the models. They have the same engines and electrical parts. The suspension and transmission are pretty specific to the larger trucks. You can get many parts from good local parts stores. Job Lot in NY carry brake parts for the larger trucks. There are two major concerns you should check before jumping into a larger Ford truck project. First, check the frame. The F-5 and F-6 trucks have a double walled frame that tend to rust and separate. The double wall starts about the middle of the doors and goes over the rear axle. Crawl under the truck and take a look at the frame. The second major concern is the wheels. If the truck has stock 20" wheels then I'd bet they were the Ford rims referred to as Widow Makers. These are two part wheels that were a bad design when new and haven't gotten better with age and use. You'd be hare pressed to find a tire shop that will work on them. They are hard to tell but the give away is to look on the concave side of the wheels. If you see a thick band running the cir***ference of the rim then you have WMs. You can find replacements but they are getting hard to find. If you're lucky the truck will have 22" wheels. These are tubeless and are fairly rare but a coveted by the old Ford truck guys. http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/widowmaker.html
Listen to bobj49f2 - he's got the info on these trucks. I've got a couple of F6's, an F4, an F2 and an F1. I just replaced the 8.25 - 20 tires on a set of non-wm wheels. $1500 +/- for rubber plus cost of wheels. Point is these trucks aren't cheap to work on so make sure you have deep pockets.
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