That plate looks kind of familiar. Are you sure your truck isnt an F8H in
which most people have never heard of. F8-H series has a tripple
frame not fish plated , because I had one (it should be in my gallery).
My guess was this was special order, cause my other plate said
property of US Navy with Navy numbers and their own weight ratings.
This truck is the one we put a 430MEL in it, that woke it up. sam

 

The plate in the glove box in not blank, the flash of the camera just obscured the stamped weight rating. And yes, it definitely says 32,000. In case the photo is blury, heres what the plate reads:

"Max gross weight except as restricted by tires, springs, and auxiliary equipment. (see instruction book for load capacity chart)
32,000
Warranty void if above weight is exceeded. Cert. net. h.p. of std v-8 engine 127 at 3300"

I'll post pics of the frame soon so we can determine if its an F8-H

 

Sam,
Although I have probably the most extensive Ford truck literature collection known to exist, and I have probably owned more 1948-50's than anyone, I'm always interested to learn something new. I have never seen or read anything about an F-8-H. I have, however heard of F-7-L, and F-8-L. The cowl emblems are listed in the 1948-50 Chassis Parts catalogs. I never found reference to them anywhere else (Ford Data Books, Ford Engineering Books, brochures, etc.), and I was beginning to think they never got produced, until I found one of each of the emblems at Hershey one year!
Chuck

 

I could be Im thinking that the truck I had which was built in Somerville
near or close to vairious US bases and this was specked that way and
they merely slapped an H code. My reasoning is after high school I
worked at Raytheon and we (did over many army jeeps). The military
brass was always roaming the plant and changing things. examle you go
by a print they come undo what we just did. All I can say is they are
always around like watchdogs so it was probably the same at the Ford
plant. Look around in my gallery its the green cab & chassis which we
shortened for a 10' dump. It had truxmoore rear suspension many many
drills to go through three frames. The third frame (channel) went from
the rear all the way to the front spring hanger. All the ladders were
rivited through all three as usually. So one look says this was not done
in somebobys back yard. I also have exstended supply of books as you do and absolutly no mention of this. To reason, the military is notorious
to overbuild something like this only to carry 10 soldiers. My conclusion
is that this thread is about a 32,ooolb military order. As they can stamp
anything they want on these plates. All I know is I had one. sam

 

Sam,
I do have literature on Truxmore conversions. They did do things like adding an inner frame liner on top of the other 2, torque links, trailing axles, etc. Their parts were installed at authorized distributors. So, if the truck was shipped from Ford to a truck equiper for beefing up, they must have sent them out with the blank GVW plate. Similarly, I have had a couple Marmon-Herrington 48-50's that had the prefix left off of the serial number on the plate. I'm sure that was because they knew that M-H would be assigning their own prefix on their own plate. I have no doubt that your truck was built up extra heavy like you say, but the truck in question doesn't appear to have much done to it, so I'm still baffled as to how they justified that drastic of an increase in GVW.
You have quite an impressive fleet of trucks. All of the 48-50's are gone? Do you happen to have any 337 flathead parts? I'm in desperate need of a RH head with the bypass port in the front.
Chuck

 

Sorry about the 337s. At that time in the 70's we or my father went to
352s or 390s and one with a 430. As you may know a 390 391 flywheel
bell housing starter will slam right on a 383 or 430. And as for whats
left is the F6 service truck he bought new (239). So now we run with
the F6 3 F900s 1 F800 and the 10 wheeler im still try to find an alum.
15' used dump. Ill keep my eyes open for a 337 head and also one of
my F900 has the truxmoore setup but I have no info on it. All I know is
this truck was born and raised is the Boston area so I suspect sombody
around there was a Truxmoore dealer. Till now I still dont know why
this setup is better. Just looks like overdone dragmasters. Any Idea. sam

 

Heres a pic of the plate where you can see the weight rating. I'll have more pics of the chassis when the snow around the truck melts.

 

Ohmygosh she's gorgeous!!!

 

I'm afraid all I know about that truck is that it's awesome. Great find!

 

Thanks for the last two posts!

i've had a chance to look at the frame now that the snow has melted and it looks pretty normal to me.... so maybe we'll never know why the GVW is 10k too high..... oh well.

Gladys got new belts on sunday and since the carb rebuild she's running great!!!

By the way- I'm missing this piece to my dash. If anyone has one for sale let me know!

 

I
I
V

 

Looks like I have a mongrel.

Just got off the phone with Chuck and he straightened me out as to the changes through the years. Just googled some pics to be sure, and it looks like I have a '51 cab with a '50 nose and '50 gauges hacked into it. The middle of the dash is like the pic 2 posts above, but with the rectangle gauge cluster. All the paint is equally rust/patina'd so I bet someone built this thing to their own liking a long long time ago.


LOOKING FOR SADDLE TANKS AND VINTAGE 5TH WHEEL!!!!!