I live in Springfield, and the '54 is currently living south of Ozark, at my brother-in-law's shop. It's nice to work on it in a HEATED garage, with the cold temps that we've had recently.

 

Good to see you on here Bret. I did not have the eyes reversed on the springs, pretty sure I started with stock 53 springs. Glad you got it installed and are on the way to driving it again.

 

LOL. Must have been someone before you, maybe. They are definitely reversed, though. I will definitely be using them later, after I get the front taken care of.

It may be a week, or so, before I get the chance to work on the truck again. In the mean time, I'm studying up on a few different wiring diagrams for the Overdrive tranny. When I was driving the truck, I never used the overdrive, but I was mainly just running around town. It appears that the previous owner had it wired up to a little toggle switch, on the dash, versus the switch on the accelerator pedal.

 

He probably had the toggle switch wired in place of the governor. Gives you six usable speeds forward. If memory serves me right, you had to turn the switch off to get into reverse. Anyway, neat as all get out. At least it seemed cool to this guy about 58 years ago.

 

"They are definitely reversed, though"

Being hardheaded as I am I had to go look at some build photos and compare them to the factory manual. You are correct [sorry I doubted you], I cant imagine how they ended up on my truck, there was nothing low about it when I bought it. Sure sat good with them though.

 

LOL.

I gotta say, your '53 has always had the perfect stance. I'd like to try and get close to that, however, with the dropped axle and springs. I'm hard headed that way. ;-)

 

I am assuming that the heater hoses are not correctly routed on my '54. This is how it's been since we bought it. I am guessing that the hose from the water pump should go to the valve, and the valve should go to the heater core, correct? It appears that the way that it is currently routed, there should be constant flow through the heater core.

NEVERMIND...Looked at MidFifty's page and found a PDF of the shop manual. Shows the pump to the upper heater core, out to the valve from the lower heater core, and back to the manifold from the bottom of the valve.

 

After nearly a week of patiently waiting for a chance to work on the truck, I burned a vacation day and ran down to Doug's shop for some work.

Since I was working alone, I bought some speed bleeders and bled the brakes, changed the oil and filter, and cranked over the motor to build up some oil pressure. ALL GOOD.

I put a longer piece of fuel hose on the fuel pump, and jammed the other into an oil bottle that had gas in it, hoping to get some suction out of it. No joy. New fuel pump is on the list anyway.

I cleaned the points and checked for spark, on the number one plug, then poured a little gas into the carb and cranked. It took a few tries, but finally it ran for a few seconds.

I told Harrier that I would post a video when I got it to run!


Hopefully I can score a fuel pump in the next week or so, and I can take it for a test spin.

 

Well, temptation got the better of me and I wound up buying a new fuel pump on Sunday. One of the benefits of living in Springfield, the O'Reilly warehouse delivers to stores on Sundays!

Installed the new pump today and took the truck for a short spin.

















Also took this quick video of it running.

Found that my alternator does not seem to be charging.

 

Your story is almost identical to mine....except mine was parked in '85 and not nearly as straight as yours. I did have the 239 engine rebuilt in about '83 and I have decided to move towards the darkside on a whole new build of the same truck.
So, if you are interested in a rebuilt 239 with probably less than 6,000 miles on it, then let me know. We started it up about 4 months ago and it ran just how I remember it. It's still located at my Dad's house in Southwest Colorado and I plan on bringing cab & front clip to So Cal for a new chassis install this Summer.
Here's my build thread:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-30-years.html

Have fun!

 

Glad you got to drive it, sure looks like it sets good now. I know it will end up a good driver.

 

Love it! Looks like Dorothy's twin sister! (my 54) Thanks for sharing a bit of the history of the truck with us, it really adds to our appreciation of it.

 

Sounds sweet! What kind of exhaust are you running?

 

Hey BJ,

It is 2" back to some 22" bodied NAPA glasspacks that I bought at Ken's Alto Parts, on First Capitol, back in 1984. Stock 239 Y-block with noisy lifters! ;-)

Peter, I have photos of "Dorothy" in my collection of 54 f100 photos. I thought the same thing!

Joe, the springs helped the back quite a bit. Also, the stock rear end seems to have some bad bearings, so your old one fixed that problem for me with minimal effort! GREATLY APPRECIATED!

 

I'd love to have a much fresher Y-Block, but budget won't allow for that, at this point.

My build will not be near the depth of what you have going on. It'll be a low budget, "get it back on the road, then work on stuff as I can" mode. I'll be trying to sock back some coin, for next winter, to pull the cab off and start replacing floorboards and lower cowl sections.