1963 F-350 Cab/Chassis (New Member Intro)

[reflectionpoint]

Well I posted a thread over on fordification-DOT-com about my new find and ezernut9mm was nice enough to invite me over here.

A little about myself. I'm a little young, 25, haha.. but have been around automotive stuff most of my life. I'm not the most knowledgeable about everything, but I'm a quick learner and have a 'mind' for automotive. I worked at RadioShack and Big O Tires (similar to Les Schwab, Tire Kingdom, Merchants Tire, National Tire & Battery in other parts of the country) for years. I'm good with electronics, wiring, tire and wheel fitment, etc. I'm happy to help where I can.

Alright.. so, onto my 'find'. I was talking to a car/bike/truck-nut friend of mine today at the grocery store about my '72 F100 Project and he said: "You know, I have a '63 F350 flatbed I'd sell you if you promise not to part it out"

I reluctantly declined as my finances are pretty well drained with family expenses and the little bit here and there I've been spending on the F100. He replied, oh, you can afford it, if you promise. Intrigued, I said that I would be willing to look at it with him and discuss it.

Long story short, I saw it tonight and will be getting the title later this week. He placed what he called a "gentleman's price" (similar to a gentleman's wager) on it of $100, to transfer ownership.

He said with the 390 that is installed at 4000RPM the top speed is about 57 MPH. It has a 4-Speed with a granny-low first, and a 5.13 pinion in the (monstrous) rear end.


Nice straight bodied cab, notice the original front bumper straddling the frame.


Door tag.

I got it home yesterday, having towed it 20 miles behind my Explorer. Nothing was frozen up (brakes and such), rolled really nice, 40-45mph. I put a special cocktail in the cyl's before we left and part way through the trip I slowly eased it into 4th gear and it rolled right over and sputtered to life for a brief instant (no gas in the tank, so nothing to sustain it).. was kind of funny when suddenly I had power brakes.. haha. Anyways, seems like with a battery and good fuel it will be a running machine once again.

So.. I was thinking--maybe a conventional tow truck, a rollback conversion? What ideas come to your head when you see a beautiful piece of machinery like this?

-~Eric

[64fordf100292v8]

Welcome the club and I am very jealous of your new truck. Nice find.

[thenephilm]

dang thats pretty sweet...welcome!

[36truck]

Sharp looking truck you have.

[Anthony]

Welcome from West Virginia..... I am thinking dovetail car hauler???? Anthony

[65f100_Thug]

car hauler!! Heck you could make a living moving slicks for members LOL Welcome from Arkansas!!! NICE TRUCK!!

[ezernut9mm]

glad you made it over eric. can't wait to see what you decide to do with it. -chris

[ICEMAN6166]

welcome from Alaska.

i have several of the f350s here, not much aftermarket stuff in the catalogs for those other than some of the shared body parts with the f100/250s.

they make nice towtrucks and the frames are easy to convert to 4x4.

[Greg D]

Welcome to Slick 60s.
That looks VERY nice!
You can always regear the diff.

[Gritsngumbo]

from Louisiana. You've SCORRRRRRED!!!! Great looking truck.
Since you can't make it into a fire truck, I'll vote for a car hauler. How long is the frame?

[factorystock]

Welcome, we specialize in 61's to 66's here. F 350's are always high on the cool factor and the timeless dual wheel set up is own of the best inventions of the 20 th century.I look at F 350's like minerature F 600's, they are built very similar.It has the 6 lug hubs which Dodge and International also used in these years. If you have 2 piece 16" rims, you can upgrade to the 17.5" one piece rim . A change to 4.10 ratio would also be a big improvement.Most F 350 were flatbeds or towtrucks.Good luck, it doesnt look like it needs very much.

[reflectionpoint]

Thanks all for the very warm welcome. I can see I'm going to enjoy my 'stay' already.


Anthony, I like the idea of a dovetail, I saw a car hauler earlier that had ramps that went up well over the top of the cab, looked like it could fit two cars..would probably rather lengthen it and keep it behind the cab for just one ride at a time.. like a combination dovetail/rollback. Don't think I could afford the hydraulics of a rollback though

Gritsngumbo, The truck has an original uncut 132" Wheelbase.. just a standard cab 8" bed.

factorystock, The wheels are split-rims, but are a 'solid ring' and are still serviceable.. 16" tires are MUCH easier to come by than 17.5's at the moment. I did find a place that makes solid 'tubeless' rims to fit this truck with stock offset and bolt pattern (for a pretty penny). It really doesn't need much, interior, some glass, paint and.. well.. the business end attended to..

The T18 has the PTO cover on it.. so I could maybe scrounge up parts to make that useful again..it was used at one time as a wrecker--it has the 'throttle' knob still installed in the dash (don't know if it's functional at the moment).

I would love to swap the gear ratio out to make it a little more..highway friendly, but I want to shake it out first and see exactly how it evolves before I make a change like that.. a limited slip would be super nice as we do have loverly-winters.

I don't want to kill any of the awesome character of this old monster..none of the modifications made have done that as of yet..really all that's been done is a 390 swap. Everything else is pretty well stock. OH! Ya the PO put in a Thunderbird power bench seat..that works.

Okay, well enough for now--keep the ideas coming. I don't really want to alter the frame if possible but I feel that either a wrecker 'hook' bed or a hauler bed are in it's future..the wrecker will fit easily stock, the hauler would be much longer than 8 feet. Ideas? Also, what about disc brakes on these? I can find all I want on doing them on the F100s, but not the F350.

Thanks again for the warm welcome.

[deviant1]

from AL
Cool truck...looks great as is. Ask yourself which option of altering the truck would benefit you the most. Do you really need it as a carhauler/tow rig? If not, I think it would be cool to just have a flat bed with several tie down points. Just my

[reflectionpoint]

Well got a chance to go tinker today. The good news is.. after an hour or so, I got it running! The bad news is.. the in-cab tank has rust-through which I didn't notice until AFTER I had put fuel in it. I got the truck running by putting a length of fuel line into a gas can.

I have two bedside tanks on the F100.. I'm taking one off to use temporarily on the F-350 until I can either get a new in-cab or until I find a more permanent tank to put behind the rear-end inside the frame rails.

Bottom line. It does run, it moves under it's own power (if only a couple feet) both forward and reverse. I only let it run until it got to running temperature, then shut it down. I'll do this a few times before I drive it. Also--the oil looked great, nice and clean. Before and after running. I'm still going to change it next time I go out there though.

I'm all smiles

[twistedfreak]

welcome to the forum and to let you know i have one from a 62 that im not using if your interested

[reflectionpoint]

Well.

Went back out today to get it going again and thought I'd start making 'improvements' because I knew the fuel system wasn't happy.. it'd run but it wouldn't go much above idle and a few other symptoms. I had already changed the carb mounted fuel filter and I knew the fuel was clean and good.

So. I checked the fuel pressure and it was about 1.5lbs. haha. So I got a fuel pump. Then the carb gave up the ghost with all the new pressure.. it wasn't real great to start with so it wasn't a surprise. Bottom line, new pump and temporarily put my Edel 650 4bbl on it. Wow. What a difference. I could start it, rev it, hold an rpm. Sounded pretty nice..

After running it for about 20 minutes and coughing and choking on the oil and dust burning off the exhaust I noticed some fresh oil on the front of the engine. After cleaning the area off and running the truck some more--sure enough. The front of the intake gasket is leaking..crap..the rear as well.

Noticed a few other little leaks too. And some ticking on the left bank-could just be because it sat so long. Looks like I'll probably be pulling it and giving it a thorough once over before doing anything else.

Also had my step-dad-in-law (haha) look at it and he is excited and wants to help me stretch it and make it into that dovetail I was dreaming about. Said he's done a few trucks very similar.

Exciting.. and kind of bumming.. haha such is life with trucks!




Power seat in a slick? That's right!


Another Sunday sunset.

[ezernut9mm]

what's that seat out of? looks cool.

[DukeRoche]

Pretty sharp, why can't stuff like that happen to me. Welcome and enjoy

[reflectionpoint]

what's that seat out of? looks cool.

I was told a T-bird. Don't quote me on that though. It doesn't quite fit perfect, but it's close enough, and once it's reupholstered, ought to be quite nice, and somewhat unique--everybody has put in power seats from chebby pickup's, but this one is true vintage Ford.

Pretty sharp, why can't stuff like that happen to me. Welcome and enjoy

Thanks for the welcome. The best tip I can give to you is talk to people, make friends, don't be annoyed when that one guy you only -kinda- get along with talks your ear off.. that's how I got both my bump, and now my slick. Plus an insane amount of luck-if luck exists, that is.

[factorystock]

This truck originally looks like it had a factory grill guard. Notice the small horseshoes above the turn signals. This was done to run a round bar thru the grill to the frame.