Gday, thought I'd pop in as a new member of the Ford truck fraternity, well, to clarify - Old Ford truck.

Been an old rodder forever, done a few classic builds (XP, XC Coupe, 53 F100). In fact I’ve owned more cars that I can remember and not a one of them didn’t have a blue oval on it, had to stick one on the missus Feroza just so I could make that claim

Why am I here? Well, just picked up a nice '41 1 1/2 Ton, the beginnings of yet another project. I'm dead keen to keep her relatively original aside from updating or modernising the front end.

I'm looking for a bit of info from the fellas that have been down this road before, I'm sure I'll make plenty of my own mistakes but I'd sure appreciate learning from some of yours.

I've done an L300 front graft on to an XK falcon for a mate years ago and am thinking of doing the same to the 41 Truck (better than an HR graft, at least the L300 front has a ford stud pattern!).

Yes, I know there are great kits for this but I can get an entire L300 front for the cost of one of the disks that come with a Mustang II front kit!!

Now, being the man I am I'd like to keep the stock ford truck (20 inch) wheels on her, I'm all good with getting stuff to fit, but was wondering if anyone could tell me what the PCD / stud size and centre hole size is for both the front and rear 20 inch wheels.

The truck will be on my doorstep in 3 weeks and I want to hit the ground running, and bugger me if I can find anything useful on google!

The minister for war and finance (aka - she who must be obeyed) made it abundantly clear with this new project, if it doesn’t have disks and power steering I'd better get used to pushing the truck 'cause if she can't drive it neither can I



And a big thanks in advance too guys, I’ve been reading through the forums and some of you folk have done some very nice stuff!!


Cheers,

Strewth

 

G'day strewth and welcome to FTE bro. Cant really help ya m8 just wanted to say hello. Im sure someone with the info you need will pop in. Also keep an eye out for our March 2012 GTG. Old Parliament House. Good chance to catch up.

 

As Brian said, welcome mate!

You might have better luck posting in the 47 and older forum:
1947 and Older Ford Trucks - Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums

Those guys in there will be much better equipped to guide you through the project.
Let us know how it goes!

 

Well yeah - but let's think it along a bit further....

What Strewth said is a point worth hashing out. What most of the gang in the States have available is a ready stockpile of (whatever) parts (that've NOT been crushed and sent to China that is...) and down under there must be loads of vehicles with something like a mustang front "K" frame that should work very well. But they won't be the same as over here.

For example - I dunno if I've heard of this "L300" before. What is the front end under a Falcon like though?

If the frame rails are the same space apart (or anywhere reasonably close) there must be loads of them in the yards over there - and Strewth sounds like quite a capable guy!

I'd go into a number of salvage yards with nothing but a camera, tape measure, and a notebook&pen just to look at what is possible. It's amazing the ideas you can gain that way! That was how I figured out how to get a 302 smallblock into an '82 F100 that originally had a V6 in it, I went and looked. Turned out all I needed was to carve off some frame mounts from a V8 truck and bolt them right in!

So by all means a scrapyard crawl is the very first step along the way - it IS where I get most of my own "Better Ideas"...

 

Hi Greywolf,

The front end I'm referring to is a Mitsubishi L300 van, but the same front ends are found on a number of Mitsubishi light commercials (vans and utilities).

The L300 and its siblings with the same front end cover a lot of years (roughly 1979 to 1993) L300 in Australia, Europe and New Zealand, also known as an Express and Starwagon in Australia, and plain Mitsubishi Van and Wagon in the US. They are prolific in Australia.


The XP and other early Ford Falcons (1961 - 1966, same as the Ford Sprints over in the US of the same vintage) front chassis is pretty straight forward, same as a Mustang of the same vintage really. The upside with the L300 front ends is that they are a complete unit manufactured by a well-known car maker so everything on them passes the ADR's (Australian Design Rules), makes having the car's engineering inspection for modified vehicle registration easier and cheaper. As a bonus they are relatively to stupidly easy to fit up if you have some skills.

As a commercial vehicle they can support considerably more weight (legally, for registration and engineering inspections etc.) than those way over priced off the shelf setups (The L300 type sell regularly for around $150 complete) and service parts for them are cheap and available everywhere over the counter.

And to be fair, anything built in the 30's and 40's is pretty agricultural so lots of flat surfaces on the chassis and painless to modify. The front end's I speak of are the life blood of Aussie Hot Rod and classic custom builders.

And there we go again, thank you Gerywolf for making me think about this response, I answered my own question

Now, to find those pesky specifications for the original 20" wheels.

 

DIAMOND!

I knew it was likely you already had a better way - and why import a problem from all the way across the planet? I bet it's a considerable hassle to pass an unknown item through the inspection process you already described.

CHEERS M8!

~and as the US NAVY taught me time and again -

"THINK OUTSIDE OF THE BOX!"

 

I also hope to see the Strewth's project '41 F series at the Shannons 2012 F truck GTG.

It is going to be really interesting to see what work everyone ELSE has done to their trucks - esp Brian and Bryan (assuming Bryan hasn't moved so far north that he's in PNG come March 2012).

 

Should have my motor in by then. failing that the best I can do is a JW tranny.

 

Actually i got a phone call 4 weeks ago,to go work in PNG,a new mine is starting and the guy who rang me has won the contract to put the road thru to the mine 6 months work.

Ive got all the bits i need too finish off my smartride setup for the air suspension,i'll get into it this weekend

 

Wot at kings cross,hope chris dont find out geez brutha..

 

Check the Septic to Ozzie translation page!
Namely:
Tranny = trans

 

Mmm, Shannon’s is love!! I've been insuring with them since those gogomobile ads first came out Yes, I am a Shannon’s fanboy, the guys on the phone actually know there stuff, no offshore call centres!

I'll surely be taking the truck to the show (time and location depending of course). She's progressing well, 70 years of grease and oil caked in to the crossmember took me a while to chip out (all 5 kilos of it!), wiring is near done, bless the EZ Wiring kits, and I'm about to start ordering a whole lotta rubber for windows and doors.

With that, I have found a bunch of eBay guys that seem to sell everything from the USA, is there an Aussie merchant / shop / trader that sells these resto bits?

I know it's cheaper to import but I do like to support the local economy and prefer to buy in-country where possible, I hate spending 500 bucks on ebay in the USA then going to the local for a 22c grommet I missed

And lastly, I know I'm a noob on these forums, but how do I get permission to advertise some excess parts I have just for Aussies? I bought a 48' 5-Ton the other day for some spares I needed, and in essence what I don't need (err, read 'have room in the yard for') is a complete good condition chassis with a good pretty much rust free cab on it, dual wheels and a pair of Eaton 2 speed diffs, happy to sell for the scarp value plus a few bucks (located in Young NSW).


I have some other parts too but I'll not stretch my welcome by listing the lot without permission.


Insomnia only sucks when you're neighbour frowns upon the compressor hammering away at 4am!

 

You get a few extra privileges once you hit 25 posts. That will gain you access to place an Sell post in the buy/sell section

 

Excelent, all I have to do is wrangle my remaining 23 brain cells and get them to write a post each!!