I am new to this site however I have been reading posts for quite some time and I enjoy reading the "logs" and "diaries" about everyone's trucks so I have decided to make my own diary.

Lets start with the basics. I am seventeen years old and I have wanted an old Ford for many years and as of today, I bought my first vehicle. It is a 1951 Ford F2 with the original 6 cylinder 226 Flathead in it. I have been looking at it for several weeks and I finally committed to buy it today. It will be a restoration project that I plan to work on all summer and winter. The truck itself was stored in a barn since it was taken off the road many years ago when the PO bought the property he took the truck and put it out in a field where it sat for only two winters. Therefore there is some rust, but overall, it is a solid truck. There are dents in the fenders and the runningboards need to be replaced, but other than that, it is pretty much there. I will be sure to keep everyone informed on how the restoration goes. Any advice, and help along the way will be apprechiated. Since I have little experience with restoration, I am sure I will rely on everyone here to help me with my problems. Thank you and stop back to check on my progress!

I have some photos of the truck but I don't quite know how to upload them without them being on a website. I will add them when I figure it out.

 

The first thing I would do is sell it and buy one of the nicer designed '48-50 trucks

Just kidding!! Ilya, Stu just calm down!!!

Looks like a pretty decent truck. I started out with a lot less truck 25 years when I was a teenager and dove into my dad's old truck. F-2s are a little harder to work on because of they aren't as popular as the F-1s and not many places make reproduction parts for the F-2/F-3 specific parts. Things like brakes are one concern on the larger trucks. You will have to have your brake shoes relined, no one I know of sells new or rebuilt brake shoes. The brake drums are another hard to find part. Again, no one sells new drums, although I think Job Lot, www.joblotauto.com has them some times. NAPA, or any other good, non-chain auto parts store should be able to get you brake cylinders. Joblot has a complete package with all of the cylinders, including the four wheel cylinders, master cylinder and three brake hoses. I have a handy chart made to help with what parts fit from each model truck:

http://www.fatfenderedtrucks.com/partsinterchange.html

First number one thing I strongly recommend is buying a shop manual. I don't know how anyone can work on one of these trucks without one. You can buy them from most of the guys who sell reproduction parts and the originals show up on eBay all of the time. You should be able to find on for around $30-35. They also come on CDs. The shop manual is worth every penny you pay for it. It has 99% of the information you need to work on your truck.

Second, make sure your tetanus shots are up to date. I will guarantee you will cut yourself on a piece of jagged rusty metal. We all have put in a certain amount of blood and sweat into our old trucks.

If the fenders are solid but dented you can use them as a good learning tool on how to bump dents out. You have a lot of metal to work with, just take your time and try to find someone who has done dent work and metal repair to help out. There are also good books and CDs that can supply you with good advice.

I would also suggest just getting the truck in safe running condition first, before tearing it too far apart. Get all of the mechanics repaired, take it for a spin and see how you like. Play with it the first year you have to make sure you have most of the mechanical bugs worked out of it. In the mean time gather up parts you will need for your restoration. When you start your restoration you should have been able to amass a decent stock pile of parts.

Stay in touch with the board, don't be afraid to ask questions no matter how simple they may seem. You may ask a question that some one else has been wondering about but too afraid to ask.

Mostly enjoy your old truck.

 

One more thing, be prepared to get infected, old trucks are a sickness. I started early and got infected early. If the decease gets bad enough you will be able to start smelling old trucks even if they're hidden in thick brush behind buildings. You might not be able to stop at just one.

Just wanted to warn you.

 

Welcome to FTE. Glad to have you on board. Take a little time and read the sticky at the top of the page, Info for newbees. Lot of good information. The gang here is always ready and willing to help, so don't be shy about asking questions. Looking forward to following your project.

Gil

 

well i agree with bob take the time to get it running before you tear it all apart i mean you dont have to make it road read but just try to atleast get it goin i am 17 well will be in two weeks and i bought a 1948 ford f1 last summer and its got the same 226 ford as yours well it didnt run and i couldnt get it goin because it had a bad oil pump drive gear and by the time i got a new oil pump the truck was compleately didassembled and i quite often wish i had got it running because now i cant wait any longer to fire it up its been at the machine shop way too long so take our time and dont get discouraged if something doesnt go right oh and by the way those oil pump gears are hard to come by but if you need one i got 2 spares

 

Update #1

Well thank you for already giving me feedback on my thread. I am happy to say that the truck is now at my house! I am ready to get going on it to fire it up! As of now, the engine will turn over but I think I need to take of the oil bath air filter and just put some gas straight in the carb to get it going.

Thank you for the tip on getting it running. I don't think it will take too long to get it going. I do need to rip out the bed though, otherwise I will be dumping rusted strips of metal and decayed wood all over.

More updates to come.

 

Hook up with the guy in the swap meet section on the board here with the F2/F3 runing boards for sale - finding them in good shape is hard, and if you find 'em, grab 'em!

~Jason

 

Update #2

Well I just took out all of the rotted bed strips and wood. It didn't take nearly as long as I expected. Next to go is the front bed panel. This will need to be replaced as it is rotted out pretty good.

I thank everyone for their comments and I thank you for the suggestion of getting it running, but I have decided that I will enjoy driving it more when I know how good it looks. So I have begun taking it apart. Is there any good suggestions when taking the truck apart? How to store parts? The order to taking it apart?

Thanks,
Curtis

 

Take pictures!!!!!

Take pictures of everything before, during and after disassembly. When I tore my F-2 apart I only had a film camera and it would have cost a small fortune and whole lot of time to have the film developed. With a digital camera there is no excuse not to take pictures, or even small movies as you're tearing into the truck. You will be amazed how helpful it will be to have everything digitally documented when it comes time to put it back together. Even with the limited pictures I took it was a tremendous help to see how a certain bracket was bolted together or positioned.

Try to keep all the nuts and bolts in clearly marked bags or boxes with the parts they were use to assemble.

Oh yeah, buy a shop manual and take a lot of pictures!!! These suggestions can't be said enough.

 

First, I'll add my welcome. And say it's best to ignore what Bob says about our great 51/52 design. We wear our "buck teeth" proudly.

When tearing into your bed, keep scaps in a box to let you recreate the dimensions. And don't misplace the metal spacers that go on the ends of the middle cross members between the wheel wells. Also, don't be too quick to scrap the headboard. You'll play heck finding another one that's much nicer. Nobody reproduces them. You may have to fix the one you've got.

 

Stu, I apologize, I shouldn't make fun of a person's shortfalls, I am sorry.

 

No doubt!

My F2 came as a basket case, so when an unmolested, all original F2 of the same vintage came up on Craigslist, I jumped in the car and burned through well over 100 pictures of it just the other day for reference! The guy even let me sit behind the wheel!

~Jason

 

Wear them PROUDLY.

 

How often does one get to do that!? Pretty cool.

A quick trip to the dentist will take care of them buck teeth.

I'll add my welcome to the board, and say good luck with your F2!!!!

On last word of advice: save this thread to your favorites. It can get buried pretty quick....if you wish to make this a build thread.

 

Thank you once again for more comments and suggestions. As for today, I got the bed ripped out, the grille off and the headlights out. I also took off the front bumper. I will have to check out the front bed panel some more and see if I can't muscle up the mind power to say "I can do it!"

I have already taken about 100 photos of the truck and I plan to take more with each and every sub-project. I plan to buy the shop manual this week to help me out as well. I should also buy an instructional dvd or book on body work. It will be some weeks before I get into it but I think it will be worth while to get.

Question: Should I buy a sand-blaster (maybe used in the want-ad) or should I have everything professional done? Everything is going to need to be blasted at some point so it may pay off to buy one. Is it worth the cost?