1962 F100 unibody drag truck

[KMcCullah]

This project has been in the works for a while. My dad and I are doing this one together. We've been working on it for a few months actually.  The whole Photobucket financial sodomy thing has kept me from posting pics. I almost said screw it but decided to not let it get to me. So I'm just getting around to figuring out how to post pics from my phone.


Here's our subject:



Edit - It's going to take me a while but now that I've figured out postimage, I'm going to redo all the pics in this thread.

[KMcCullah]

This truck has been sitting in dads sagebrush for at least 10 years. He found it in a news paper ad I think. It's been around Western Colorado for a while. I found a local phone book under the seat from 1972. I also found a personal check under the seat from a bank in Pasadena TX. I'm guessing the trucks original owner might have stashed it there. It was folded in half and tucked into the springs on the drivers side. Kinda cool I thought.

Hey check out the rear bumper. I don't know if the dealer had to install the bumper or if it happened at the assembly plant. But it looks pretty cool. And it has steps on the corners. I just saw a Chevy truck commercial advertising the same feature. Took em a while figure that one out.

[cjshaker]

WOW, that thing looks EXACTLY like one I had about 25 years ago! Same color, same patina, same uni-body style. I LOVED that truck and it is probably the one I most regret selling. Cool old truck! Are you going to restore it or keep it the way it is? I'd be tempted to leave it as is, bodywise.
Edit: Looking closer, I see it has a couple body issues. Nothing serious, but still worth fixing.

BTW, when I clicked on the first picture and hit 'view image', it came up correctly oriented. Sometimes this site is a bit funny that way.

[KMcCullah]

The body isn't going to change much. I don't have a pic of the passenger side but it's had some serious southern exposure to the sun. Dad keeps saying, "just look at the patina on this thing!" Lol  We might just shoot a flat clear on it and call it good. It also had some serious rust issues in the floorboards and cab mounts. More pics later.

[KMcCullah]

We swapped tires to get the truck looking right. Kinda set the mood for the project you know? I found a nice pair of M/T drag radials to try out. I've read several stories of rear bumpers tripping the 60' beams with these tires. This would be a fun issue to sort out I think. Lol They barely clear the inside lip of the fender with 10" wheels. We may roll the inside lip up to clear. We don't want to radius around the rear tires if possible.  Keeping the swooped back tin looks better.




We also pulled the front clip to make things more accessible. It had a blown up 250 straight six with a 3 speed. #6 Rod was hanging out of the block. It all came out in one chunk.
The steering column and sector all came out in one chunk too. The sector would have been right in the way of the headers. We've got a plan for a different sector.



 

[KMcCullah]

We scratched our heads for a while on the rust issues. The front cab mounts were completely rotted. The bottom of the hinge pillars had huge holes rusted thru. The floor of cab was just as bad. The Trans tunnel had been butchered to make way for a NP435 also. What we ended up doing is using the floor and firewall out of a '64 3/4 ton Camper Special. This also gave us a taller tranny tunnel with a removable cover. It has some rust too but it's way better than what we had. Check out the 3rd pic down...this is how much the cab fell when we cut the posts.

[KMcCullah]

We spent quite a bit of time measuring and fitting. I've got a ton of welding to do still but this is about where the project sits at the moment. With plenty of thick tin to deal with, welding should be fairly straightforward. I can't imagine doing this with today's paper thin sheet metal.

[machoneman]

Nice workmanship!

[steinauge]

Very nice! What engine\trans will you use?

[KMcCullah]

Thanks for the kind words guys. I'll let dad know. I did finish the welding last weekend.

 I somehow forgot to post a few drive train details. My bad. Here's the details... The motor will be the 504 that I built for my Highboy. Link below:
http://fepower.net/simplemachinesforum/index.php?topic=2481.msg23898

The trans will be a C6 roller that I've been working on for a while. With a Broader Pro Tree valve body. I had a local guy build the torque converter. I gave him a copy of the dyno sheet from my last chassis dyno session so he would have an idea where to start with stall RPM. He said he would adjust the stall probono for us. Which is good because we won't be running the fenderwell headers from the last dyno session. Several other things are going to change also, but the headers are the big one. So this should be an interesting process. Lots of variables here.

We're gonna be working on engine/trans mounts the next few weeks. Will post a few pics.

[Joey120373]

I want to see that bad boy when you are done! hell, i want to see it now....

Buddy of mine races up at the strip, i want to set up a grudge match when you get that finished, He is always talking SH!T about my " junk FE "
motor....

[Leny Mason]

Hi I have three of these trucks they are prone to rust, the body mounts and were the floor of the box meets the side panel behind the doors, what front suspension are you going to run  I bought my first one in 1969 I think and still have it, raced it a lot with a 1968 PI 428 it ran great  you will have fun with it I did. Leny Mason

[KMcCullah]

Joey- PM sent.

Leny- Yep lots of weird places for dirt and moisture to settle in these cabs. The passenger side cab corner is rusted just like you're talking about. It would have been so easy for Ford to put some clean out holes in these nooks and crannys to prevent these rust spots.
The front suspension won't change much I don't think. Maybe soften it a bit so it works a little better. The rear is gonna take some time and thought.

[Leny Mason]

Hi, how wide do you think you will need, if I remember right my M/T Stagier Block tires were twelve inches wide, I think you will be surprised that there is no wheel hop at least on mine, the Dana 44 posi axles were the week spot but back then they were cheap all old Ford trucks had them in the junk yards I think I went through twelve my senior year, but I had fun. Leny Mason

[KMcCullah]

Hey Leny, I'm not sure what we're gonna need for tires. No idea at all honestly. I'm a mud guy.    The drag radials I found looked good enough to start with. Hopefully they don't get hard with age. I think they're two years old already. But like you were saying....a wider tire is easy to do. It's got some big ass wheel wells. I should post a pic of that feature. Factory tubs.

The main reason we started with this truck was that it had a 9inch rear axle. That.... and it had a title. Haha most don't have titles around here. We had several of these trucks to choose from. They all had the Dana 44 axle except this one.