I picked up a 56 f 350 yesterday. It's been about 12 years since I finished the blue truck, I needed another project. I got 10 wheels with it. 4 are 17.5" and 6 are 16". I didn't have time to look it over much, I got home at 3:30 pm and had to go out on a pump call, didn't get home until 8:30. And we're leaving tonight for vacation.








Kevin, he handed me the brake booster, I have no idea where it was mounted. He said he wasn't going to use it. Dennis

 

That sure is a project, Dennis. Good luck with it. It looks like a dually. Are you putting a flatbed on it?

 

Abe, he said it had a flat bed on it, but he lost it in a flood. Got all bent up. I'd like to make a dually pickup out of it. Picked it up yesterday a little north of Williamsport. I have the metal thingys that fit into the stake pockets, but that's all he saved. Dennis

 

You should of let me know. Williamsport is 30 miles from me.

 

Abe, we'll be even closer coming home from the cabin. We usually come home 44. Dennis

 

I got the suburban unloaded yesterday, made room upstairs in the garage. The truck is still on the trailer. Just noticed this on the front wheels. Some kind of adapter. Educate me please. Dennis

 

What you are questioning appears to be the normal hub assembly for the F350. That appears to be a locking ring wheel. IMO, the drop center tubeless wheels in 17.5" are a more desirable wheel.

 

Thanks, next year I'm getting rid of my work truck and I was thinking I could put those 16" tires on this truck. Dennis

 

I got some of the frame painted with epoxy primer and finally got it off the trailer this past weekend.

 

I got some more work done this weekend. The frame is all epoxy primered and I got some of the frame painted black, 'till I ran out of paint.







The old left front tire is a goodyear, and it says made in Canada on it.



The previous owner had replaced floor pans, sills and all 4 cab corners sometime in the past. Shouldn't take long to get the cab in primer.

 

Those aren't adapters on the front. They are where the front drum bolts on. It's an 8 lug style pattern on the brake drum, but of course 6 lug on the wheels. I have done lots of research on the f350 dually pickup thing. I almost did it with my '59 f350 flareside pickup. Just for starters, I would try my best to find a 9' bed. If it's a flareside I always thought that those 4" wider fenders for hot rods would cover on the outside. On the inside you'd need to tub the fenders in the box because the dually axle doesn't have 4' between the wheels. What a lot of people don't understand is that a cab/chassis dually, even today, is narrower than a dually pickup rear axle. They didn't have dually pickups back then. Another way to look at it is this... A cab/chassis dually has the split between the duals lining up with the center of the front tread. On a modern dually pickup the inner duals line up with the front tires and the outer ones are totally on the outside. That's why they look so wide when you're behind them. If you built a dually pickup like you are proposing, You couldn't haul plywood or put a camper in it. That;s why they went to the wide dually axle. Ok, I think I have exhausted what I know about dually pickups.

 

I ordered a Mid Fifty catalog a couple weeks ago, and they're showing a 9' bed in there. A number of years ago I stopped at a sheet metal shop in Ephrata. They were making pickup bed sides. It had the rolled top edge and was bent on a 45. I don't know what a Chevy bedside looks like, but it sure looked like my Ford.

Our camper is a bumper pull as is the car trailer. Only need to haul firewood in the bed. Dennis

 

The camper and plywood analogy was just to point out that the rear tires are about 48" apart and when you add the inner fender 'tubs' or wheel wells with their clearance of about 1 1/2" each, you would have a very narrow pickup box. Gm also made a 9' one ton box pickup but the bed sides were quite a bit lower and the box was narrower than the ford because it didnt have the wheel wells out around the tires. The whole box was straight sided. Of course neither of these were narrow enough to clear a normal dually cab/chassis rear axle like you have. If you can find a 9' box, then you'd tub the wheel wells inwards to clear those duals, no matter what you plan to haul, otherwise the tires would squeal against the bed sides and catch on fire. I solved all this by using a sterling 10 1/4 from a '92 dually pickup and I don't run the outer duals. I also have a cab/chassis '92 f350 with duals, so I have both versions of that axle. Someday I may convert my '59 to a dually pickup, then I'll use a cab/chassis width axle and use the 4" wider fiberglass hot rod fenders and widen the wheel wells in the bed. To add the outer duals to what I have would take rear fenders about ten inches wider that the stock ones. It is all very possible to do and I would love to see you do it. I later converted my 6 lug front axle to 8 lug to match the sterling, but that's a whole different story. Sorry to labor this, it just happens to be one of my favorite topics, and the one tons are my favorite Ford trucks.

 

My wife hates the look of a modern dually from the rear. Maybe she'll like this one if it's not as wide. Dennis

 

It will look awesome with the stock axle. Unfortunately I am a cabinetmaker so not hauling plywood isn't an option and I have a camper too. I tend to agree with your wife. The latest version f350s with those rounded fenders look a whole lot better than the early dually pickups from the 80s with the bolted on FG fenders.