Hello everyone. I have been lurking here for a few months now reading and learning a whole bunch. I will say that this is the best forum I have ever encountered. Thank you everyone for the free sharing of info. I have been the proud owner of a 55 F600 since 1990. I purchased it to help me haul materials for a barn I was building. I tore down 3 1/2 barns for the materials and the old girl did a bang up job hauling a lot of it. My old girl ( I have lovingly named her " sweet old Bessie") started life as an army truck. There is a plaque on her dash saying she was overhauled at 10341 miles in 1962. After her stint in the army she was sold to an airport and then to a roofing business to haul waste. Then she got sold to me. Her odometer says 37443 miles and I am sure it is all she has ever seen. In the over 20 years I have had her I doubt if I put 1000 miles on her. After the barn job Bessie was put to rest and not driven for over 15 years. I really wanted to fix her up but she was relegated to the " some day I'll get to you, to do list". This last May I had a heart attack which sort of makes you look at your priorities in life and low and behold "sweet old Bessie" popped up to the top of the list. It was now or possibly never. So here I am having a lot of my questions answered before I had to ask them and some before I even knew they were questions. Like widow maker rims, I never knew they existed before here and of course Bessie has them all around.
Right after I bought Bessie I turned her into a dump stake for ease of unloading rocks and beams etc. I found a 56 F600 grain truck in a farmers field and all the pto and hoist mechanism bolted in nicely. Checked the fluids and it worked like a charm. Unfortunately the rest of the 56 was trashed ( windows shot out, sheet metal shot too)I saved the front end ( which with the front portion of the frame was made into a farm trailer) rear end and some other parts. I also found another 56 F600 that I bought for parts and also to help with building the barn.This 56 had a 223 6 cyl the same as Bessie and amazingly still ran. This 56 came without doors and hood and pretty well messed up other sheet metal. My local scrap man hauled it home for me with the promise of getting all the metal off it I didn't need. I made a crane to put on the rear frame and it lifted rocks for the barn foundation. At the end of the job it got striped down to the frame and running gear and made into a hay wagon.
I think I read in a thread ( correct me if I am wrong ) where in 56 they changed from 5 lug wheels to 6 lug. The first 56 grain truck had 5 lug all around ( widow makers). The second 56 had 5 lug on the front and 6 lug on the rear on a 2 speed Eaton axel that was vacuum operated. My first question here is would the second 56 have come that way from the factory? Or was the 2 speed slipped in later? It seems to me you would need 2 spares and I just can't see ordering it that way, but who knows?
Question 2: Can the vacuum operated 2 speed easily be changed to electric operating? I am toying with the idea of switching it into Bessie. I don't think the army wanted it to go over 45 mph which seemed to almost be tops in 4th gear when I drove her.
Thank you for bearing with me and I hope to not have bored you all to death. Pics.... Yes, I will try my best to post some. I am not very computer literate and it takes me a long time to figure things out. I will try my best.

Louie

 

Welcome Louie. I can't be of much help with the biguns - but you know that others can.

Happy Motoring!

DW

 

Hi Loui, its good to have you on site, I too am not prepared to answer questions about big trucks, but we have a lot of folk that can, and should be along to answer your questions. As far as posting pictures, I have found that if you hit the Faq button on the blue line (at the top of the page) and then click general forum usage, there is a lot of how to information ,its easy to find your way around in there. If you have trouble just ask and someone on line at the time will be glad to help you, there are also several threads about posting pics, and i think its also covered in the "read first thread" wich is one of the 2 of the first threads on the page (board) when you log in.You are in the rite place so hang around , see ya later

 

Welcome WmJoe will be a big help to you.

 

Hello again. Thank you for the welcome, I am sure I will enjoy my stay here. I just uploaded some old pics into the gallery. ( Spent the whole morning figuring it out). " Sweet old Bessie" is presently in many many pieces. When I started the restoration I was amazed and quite dismayed about her condition. Sitting out in the Michigan weather for 15 or so years took its tole on her. Lots of cancer, including the entire floor pan needing to be replaced. I will try to eventually get some new pics of her in progress when something looks good on her.

Louie

 

Welcome to FTE. Great group here that are very helpful. Sounds like a good project. Good luck

Doug

 

Welcome to the forum! Lots of great people here with tons of info and all willing to help with any questions you may have

 

Welcome to FTE!

 

Here are some 20 year old pics of "sweet old Bessie" and also of the 56 with the 2 speed rear end . Bessie is in the dump mode , the 56 is shown arriving home and also working as a crane . This is my first try at posting pics here I guess I still got a lot to learn. Louie

 

Welcome to FTE! Love the Pictures. Talk about making what you have work for you, Absolutley love your crane truck... Looks like one heck of a lot of work went into your Barn too, (We need pictures of the Barn as well)

I think I have asked the same question on the 56's 5 lug vs 6 lug wheels, since I have seen some with 5 and some with 6 and I can't recall exactly the ansewer but may have had to do with Ford using up what stock they had on hand, also may have had something to do with F500 to F-600 differences??

I am not too familiar with the 2 speed Electric rears, (or 2 spd vacumn rears for that matter) but I think ?? (someone will correct me if I'm wrong) that you would have to swap out the entire axle to an electric shift 2 spd.
Lots of big truck guys here that will know for sure.

Later

Josh


Edit; is that your barn behind your 55 dumping picture on th right side? looks really nice- I need a barn

 

Here are a couple more 20 year old pics. One is Bessie being loaded with beams from a barn dismantle job. (Sorry about the GMC in the pic ). The other is the 56 at work again. Yes Josh, the barn is to the right in the dumping pic. The barn took 4 years to build and was done in 2 stages, one 30x40 section and than another 30x40 section. I can't remember if the dumping pic was the beams for the second section or for the next project which was building a shop for my wife. I dismantled another barn for those materials too and Bessie did some hauling for that project also. Louie

 

Hello again. I thought I would bring up my old thread and show some current pics of sweet old Bessie. After sitting for over 15 years she was pretty rusted out. I changed almost the entire floor pan, rocker panels, cab corners and mounts, etc. I have her stripped down and ready to pull the cab off so I can finish the body work on it and also go through the engine and running gear. I am not much of a body worker with sheet metal so there will be a lot of bondo covering up a lot of weld seams and ripples. Bessie is not intended to be a show truck. I just want to use her around my mini farm here and get her presentable so she might last another 15 years. Maybe even take her out for a ride on the road once in a while too. And "yes" she has widow maker rims all around. I did manage to find 4 split rims with almost new 8.25x20's on craigs list. Just have to find a couple more now or use a couple widow makers for the inside duals.
Louie