I have stumbled onto threads here before and enjoyed the reading so I decided to sign up and share my project as well as hopefully find some help in getting her back on the road again. I have finally got my grandfathers truck back and am very excited to start work on it. This show the damage to the front fender, this is the day it came home.

It is all original sans engine, the 239 V8 was frozen, so years ago it was removed and disassembled and resides at my parents house. It has a 1960 292 in its place that ran when removed, and I have installed the 239 intake and carb on, but has not ran in the 54.

All the wiring was shot so I have removed it and planned to rewire the entire truck but have ran into some walls finding diagrams, I will not be keeping it 6volt, as I am going to install a late model 5.0 with fuel injection and AOD trans. Until then I will keep the 292 and 3 on the tree so it will be mobile, providing the motor still runs. The pass front fender was heavily damaged, I have begun repairs on it but it and valance will probably need replacement before paint.

Brakes are complete but master cylinder is frozen, how can you tell if its rebuildable or is it better to just replace it? I will rebuild all wheel cylinders and hardware at the 4 corners, but not sure best avenue for master cylinder.

The only major rust problem is in the pass side front lower corner of cab, most of the corner is gone, but otherwise the body is in very useable shape.

I would like to use as much of the original suspension as I can, but want to lower its center of gravity a bit, Mustang II front end is an option, but prefer to avoid if I can get desired results without grafting a new front end. Have heard of Toyota 4x4 steering box swaps? Not sure how easy those are. Overall I want it to be a nice driver and capable of towing my 1970 Mustang down to the track occasionally.

 

Welcome to FTE!

We love pics. You can upload them after they're somewhere on the web, like Photobucket, etc...

Go to Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket and sign up for a free account. Then create an album for your truck. Upload any pics you want to post on FTE to that album. Have this album open on your computer when you want to post pics on FTE.

While you're making a post on FTE, select the pic you want to post from your Photobucket album. When the large version of the pic is open, right mouse click on it and select "View Image Info". The image info will be highlighted and will look something like this:
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/l...ghtsafter1.jpg

Copy that highlighted info (right click / copy).

When you have the spot in your post where you want the pic to be placed, select the "Insert Image" icon at the top of the post (looks like a mountain) and paste (right click / paste) the image info you copied in the highlighted box (just shows "http://" when it opens).

Your pic will be placed in the post.

Hope that helps.

 

Welcome to FTE, Rhinoh. The '54 looks solid and ready to be re-awakened! Yep, another treasure saved . It's also cool that it belonged to your grandfather...makes it that much more special. Thanks for sharing.

 

Yea my parents had it for years, it was parked in 1980 sometime and that's when the motor froze. My mom gave it to her cousin like 10 years ago but he never restored it so gave it back to me. So after a nice journey around California, its back home with me and will get the attention it deserves.

 

Hey Rhinoh,
It looks nice - much nicer body than most of us started with.
You can pick whatever engine you like for this project - What's in
that mustang over there? Looks like you already got new mags for it..

Looking good over there.

Ben in Austin

 

The Mustang is my baby, was my very first car and I've managed to keep it. It's currently running a 351w punched out a few extra cubes backed by a 5-speed. Have got the body just about ready for paint and I'm putting the finishing touches on the interior. Then the money starts getting funneled into the F100.

Worked at a Ford dealer and picked up the 17" 5 spokes off a mechanic for a good price. Had to put some spacers on the fit properly but really changed the look of the car from its old 14" slot mags.

 

Hello and another welcome to FTE. Trucks with a story are always great. Was your grandfather the original owner??

The fender looks like a relatively easy fix....the cab corner is probably a little more of a challenge. It looks like you can probably handle it!!

On the wiring...do a search, but there are several brands of decent wiring harnesses available for around $200. It'd be hard to buy that much wire for $200, so I look at that as a pretty good way to go. You'd also get a modern fuse block.

Good luck with your project....keep us posted with progress pics!!

Dan

 

I haven't done all the research I can to see exactly when G'pa bought it, he got it used, my moms best guess is some time in the late 50's, but can't remember for sure. It is special to me because he passed away 2 years before I was born, so I never got to know him, but having it is having a piece of him with me. The fender is pretty bad, it destroyed the entire leading edge body line and the inside lip that meets the outer skin coming around the front of it. And good friend and I spent some time banging on it to get it reasonable then a little layer of filler, plus it tweaked the valance pretty good so may just look for replacements for both. Thank you guys for a great welcome already.

 

The other guys can weigh in on the fender, but I think you should be able to find a replacement for a 54 without too much trouble. I only say that because I have a 52, so my parts searching has been for 51/52 parts. I think the fenders were probably the same from 53 to probably 56. Where in California are you?

Dan

 

Central Valley, its most of what kept the metal in such good shape, it spent almost 10 years in Mariposa in the snow but held out ok. I don't know, the metal work required is beyond my friend and my abilities, I'm sure someone could fix it, but don't know hat it'd cost me compared to starting with a better unit. We have a decent amount of swap meets in the area so I'm gonna start hitting them looking for deals. This is it after my initial work, bfore my buddy helped and we welded up the holes and cracks.

 

So I showed my dad the website and he came up with an idea since I have the headlights out, to cover the openings, here's what came of it.
Guess the truck is getting jealous of all the attention the Mustang is getting

 

it may be the fact that it's 5 in the morning, but that just made me lol.

 

My project truck came from pretty close to there. It was hiding behind the Railroad Museum in Portola CA. I guess snow and cold doesn't hurt much....they don't use salt on the roads here, so any rust I had was pretty superficial.

Dan

 

The lack of salt use on the roads here is invaluable. It has kept the truck so much more savable than had it been in an area where salt was used.

 

The Toyota PS swap is a bolt in, and works like it was designed for this use. see here:
Toyota Steering Box Swap For 1948-1960 Trucks .: Articles