i am picking up a 51 f1 today when i leave from work. i will have it torn down within a week or two. usually when i do a unibody car i cut the sides off of the frame rails in sections and scrape them down and put the antirust paint on them. should i do this on my old truck. the good news is that this truck has been sitting in a barn since 1968 so its really not in horrible shape. i dont know from what i have seen that it needs to have the anti rust paint on the inside of the frame. but is it a good safety precaution anyway? I plan on giving the truck to my son but he is only 1 yr old so it will be a while before he gets it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

The frames on the smaller model trucks are single thickness "C" channel giving open access to the inside of the frame rails. Only on the big models (F-5/6/7/8) did Ford use a double "C" channel which is notorious for trapping moisture and causing rust. The only places where you won't be able to get at are where the cross members are riveted to the side rails. Some guys drill the rivets so that they can derust and treat the metal at these joints, but IMHO that's kinda extreme. When that's done they use grade 8 bolts to replace the rivets. Or you can buck new rivets if you really want to keep it original. Stu

 

Duh i remember that now. they are channeled towards the middle of the truck. and i will drill the rivets out and do that part too. i wont leave any part of this truck untouched. its my first full project by myself at 24 years old. and i want it to last until my son can get it. of course it may take me the next 15 years to do it anyway.

 

Welcome to FTE!

Couple things here; take lots of pictures so your memory doesn't have to do all of the work when putting it back together. And a sandblast and epoxy prime of the frame is the norm.... Be aware of sand and its safety hazards.

Maybe you know all that, but the bottom line is, these old trucks are more forgiving than unibody cars, so you can be more aggressive on getting rid of the rust.

If riveting is what you want to do, big flats rivets is one place that sells them. http://www.bigflatsrivet.com/

 

This was my second post on this forum the first one i was trying to figure out the vin and someone helped me out. the post and replys on this forum are some of the best that i have seen.

thanks for the help guys on this. i will take and post lots of pictures. I just hope i can get that old flatty running.

 

In addition to welcoming you to the forum, I'm also going to write the dissenting opinion. As a car and truck builder for over 35 years, most of that time professionally, I can assure you there is no reason to disassemble the rivets from the frame crossmembers. You can, and probably will, do more harm than good. If you want to clean and paint your frame, that's great. Your frame was assembled with techniques unavailable to the common man in his garage. You can lose a lot of structural and dimentional integrity by removing all of your rivets and bolting it back together. In normal situations, and by that I mean unless you live under the ocean, rust will be the least of your problems.

I will also say that if your standard M.O. is to cut out little sections of frame rail and weld them back together on unibody cars in the interest of rust prevention, you again are doing much more harm than good. If the rail is rusted to the point of needing repair, then it should be replaced with solid metal. If it's not, cutting it up and welding on it all along it's length will destroy the integrity of that structural mamber. I wouldn't want to own that car, or even ride in it, after you're done. I highly encourage you to rethink your practice before someone gets hurt, and I also hope you can formulate a better plan for your new truck, so it will last for generations. Keep hanging out here and perhaps you'll learn some things. There's a lot of talented people here to show you the right thing to do.

Again, welcome to the forum!

 

I would also suggest not taking the frame apart. Those rivets are a B!tch to get out anyhow. As long as you get everything sand blasted and painted/sealed. You will be fine.

 

I second and third the Wayne's and Jordan's opinions. No reason to take the rivets out.

 

I'm with the rest on the rivets, like a sleeping dog,leave it alone or you could be asking for trouble. Welcome to F T E . JIM

 

Well as far as everything goes. when i open up the frames on the cars its because they are rusted through already. its not a practice i would like to do but its very rare to find something in great condition like this truck really is. i also build me a custom jig out of 2x2 steel and make sure that when i cut the frame doesnt move anywhere. thanks you guys for your opinions and i guess i can leave it alone but i usually leave no stone unturned.

 

It's a dirty job.
You might want to find a media blaster.

 

I once sold a F-5 frame to a guy who drove all the way from some place in Canada, above NY somewhere, in a snow storm. He told me he was going to remove all of the rivets, clean the frame and then rerivet it back together. The frame was the cleanest F-5/F-6 frame I had ever seen. There was no visible rust, and absolutely no sign of the frame pulling apart. I personally thought the guy was going a little nuts on it to go that far.

Look at it this way, for the first 50+ years of it's life your truck was used and abused, left out in all kinds of weather and driven throw the mud, rain and snow, overloaded with loads it wasn't designed for. If your truck had ever seen a thorough wash or wax it would have been a miracle. It was most likely hammered hard as a tool, which is what it was. Most weren't probably expected to last longer than ten years. From the factory they were painted with the cheapest paint available, most places that couldn't be reached without bending over probably got a thin coat of paint, if any. The frame was given a quickie coat of the cheapest of cheap black paint so it would look good until it was out of the dealers lot.

Now you have it, you're going to take it completely apart down to the frame, degrease it and bast the frame. If there is no major rust out the frame will probably be find with a good coat of paint. Almost everyone will use a fancy paint like a rust encapsulator or even have the frame powder coated. After that the rest of the parts will be painted with high tech modern urethane. Every part will be covered from every angle, inside and out. After the truck is finished it will most likely sit in a nice, dry garage and only brought out on nice, dry sunny days and it will never see the heavy loads it saw in the first 50+ years of it's existence. Your truck will easily last another 50+ years, it will be around way after you're gone.

I doubt even if you took the frame apart you will be able to extend the life of your truck all that much. What could happen is once it's torn apart something in your young life will pop up and the truck will be put on the back burner, sitting as a pile of parts. Life happens. These old trucks take a lot of time to do, why extend the amount of time doing something that will give little if any additional benefit to the life span of the truck? Clean the frame as best as you can, inspect it for flaws, fix any you find and give it a good coat of some kind of good quality paint. Use the time and money saved to put into other parts of your truck.

Just my 2¢

 

I should add I don't recommend taking the frame apart either. My previous post was merely showing the means to doing it if you wanted to. I kinda got caught up responding to the question without figuring out the why's and who's, etc...

heck, I would think it would be easier to find a better frame, than disassembly of one. My first F1 frame ended up being thinned in spots, cracked in others, and had rust separation between the shackles, crossmembers, and frame. I found another frame that is better, and got a whole parts truck to boot, lol. Anyway, that frame, I removed the running board brackets because that was the only place where it was bad, and they can be bolted on without affecting structural integrity.

My further two cents.

 

I have a question about the frame rust too. I have a 1951 Ford F-1 and the frame is in very good shape except for the surface rust. If I coat the frame with POR-15 will that stop all the rust and look good? I have heard good things about that stuff but I didn't know if it would work well on the frame.

 

Por15 was made for surface rust on frames. I used a similar product from Eastwood 12 years ago on my 48 daily driver and the frame still looks great today.

Since F1-F4's don't have double walled frames I wouldn't take them apart either. Henry designed his frames to flex and they still do that very well.

It would be interesting to hear how well all the welded boxed frames are holding up when used as trucks on a regular basis........