I had a very pleasant surprise when pulling into an out of the way campground in the black hills of S. Dakota. Met with John from Spearfish S.D. driving this 1959 fridge. as soon as we got settled i had to drive over and meet with him and check out his truck. John told me of how he found and recovered his truck from a overgrown tree row, complete with the sapling he preserved that was growing between the cab and bed.







Whats the chance of two 1959 Fords, both with mountain bikers, on vacation at the same campground?

 

Dang, you were right in my backyard. I only live 10 miles from Spearfish and drive my 59 everywhere

 

Cools strory

 

WB it would have been fun to meet you and check-out your truck. But I'm a poor planner!
We spent a week at Deerfield Lake and drove through some of your beautiful Black Hills while doing the tourist things.







When we dropped down into Nebraska we happened upon a parade and car show in Chadron, Nebraska

 

And to think all of that could have been avoided with some decent erosion control practices. Sheesh.

 

Usual nice parade car show pics but I truly preferred the pic of the two '59 in the forest with their hoods up facing each other. You can't script it better than that. You don't need to plan when that kind of stiff happens.


I know what you mean about erosion, it almost looked liked the water was trying to form faces on the rocks! wink, wink!

 

Awsome!! Thanks for sharing all of the pictures

 

Wally, have you changed gearsets in your 59?

 

No Im still running stock 4:56/4:55, works well with the tall tires and overdive.

 

Ah..overdrive. What kind of overdrive is it?

 

Im running Stock Differentials and transfer case with the engine and transmission from a 1996 Lincoln Mark VIII, all electronic EFI 4.6 and 4R70W

First: 2.84 :1
Second: 1.55 :1
Third: 1.00 :1
Overdrive: 0.70 :1
Reverse: 2.32 :1
I know its not era correct but its FOMOCO and totally reliable(so far ~21,000 miles).
At 65 MPH its running about 2000 RPM. The tires are 255 85R 16 BFG's (I like the tall skinny) which are aggressive tread and starting to get noisy as they wear down, I would like to go to a less aggressive tread design but not many choices in this size tire.

 

I've been thinking about a different drivetrain for mine but now I'm leaning toward another whole build. I have a 460/ZF, a pretty complete 78-79 F250 4x4 and access to several decent 57-60 bodys. You can see where I'm going with all that.

 

That would be a real strong runner and I think you would have better chassis parts availability. Now sure how difficult the body swap would be.

 

Newer frame will be 2 inches wider I believe. Haven't been home to start putting the gather on stuff or do any measuring. Might just have to keep the old frame and slide the front under, make mounts for the ps ect.

 

Beautiful pictures Teddy. I hope you enjoyed your time in the hills. I'm in Spearfish myself. Its a great area. If you didn't get a chance this trip, I would highly recommend Spearfish Canyon next time you're up this way - its a nice drive/way to kill an afternoon.