Sorry guys, you forget that henry always went cheap - he was building a car for the masses. If you wanted more you could get more, aftermarket or even through your dealer.

You guys always complain about the heaters - I grew up in the southwest where heaters were not installed in most trucks. It saved almost $16.

BTW, the Model A heater was a cast iron box bolted to the exhaust manifold with a duct thrugh the firewall - you could smell the engine and the only fan was the same one used on the front of the engine. My brother used to retard the spark so the exhaust manifold would get hot enough to keep us from freezing on the way to school!

Ford sold a lap rug or robe to lay over your legs to keep them warm - remember you didn't have defrosters so you had to drive with the cab windows open to keep from fogging them up!

 

Yep - That's the way it was and nobody dared complain because we liked it.

 

I have to throw my opinion in here cause i'm getting tired of just hearing about Ford having the metal staples. ALL the vehicles back then had it. I work at a car interior shop where we specialize in classic vehicles. You name the car, you for sure have a metal staple somewhere......either in the door panels or the weather stripping. They are a pain in the *** to get out but ya deal with it. I own a 1957 F-250 Custom Cab, i have yet to even attempt locking the doors. I lock the gas cap cause teens in high school can be real jerks sometimes. I have a heater, but i have rarely used it, even my mom's new car's heater doesn't work cause of a computer chip thingy majig (i'm into old vehicles, not new). One of my best friends owns a 1955 Chevy, and i'll back up that even if you don't have the key, you can bump that foot starter enough till it gets enough juice to finally do it, and the ignitions is lose enough you can take it out when it's on the on position running, and he only has a passenger door lock. One thing you'll never see happen to a Ford guy is them fly out the darn door cause the latching surface wore down (my 57 uses a star type set up) I have seen this happen to a Chevy guy, you could open the door without even pressing in on the release, it was a bad design on Chevy's part because it wore down and became faulty. I was riding with Kendal (owner of the 55 Chevy) and he was starting to slow down so he could get over but one of the front brakes locked up and we ended up skiding around on the dirt road then he got thrown out because his faulty latch didn't work (luckily we weren't going fast or anything) and he was thrown clear and i ended up about a 100 ft down on the oppisite side of the road. The lesson learned is never have bad latches. You guys can go ahead and criticize me for my viewpoints on this or laugh at me or make fun of me, but we have the right to our opinion.

 

Passenger side door locks were indeed for safety. ALL vehicles, beginning from when door locks were first introduced, had only the pass. side door lock. In addition, in the days of side mounted spare tires, when a single side mount spare was ordered (yes ordered, they weren't standard), the spare was mounted on the passenger side. An earlier poster was corect, the thought was to keep you away from the traffic side of the vehicle. Some early Ford's didn't even have a driver side door! And in the early days, the carberator was also found on the passenger side (for those fun times tinkering with the thing to get it running).

 

i just cured a bad idea last night by installing an electric wiper conversion from mid-fifty. worked great, and easy to do.

 

....can't the crooks do that too?

Vern

 

Another bad idea; pulling the trans out thru the interior, instead of down. ('48 - '52 anyway) Great idea! Wonder why my seat smelled like 90 wt?

 

this whole thing is pretty inane but I will add my $.02, one of their worst ideas was letting Arkus Duntov go to work for the competition

 

If I am in a situation that I am concerned about leaving my truck somewhere I yank the coil wire. I would rather have someone rummage through my truck and finding I don't have anything in it than breaking a window or prying something and causing big buck damage. Without the coil wire it ain't going anywhere. Anyway, I have the crashbox tranny and I kind of concider it a low tech anti-theft device to begin with.

 

I remember growing up in the 50's, we never even locked the door to the house, let alone the cars. Also, who would want to steal a truck anyway. In our lower-middle class neighborhood nobody had a truck. If you owned a truck, you were probably a redneck hillbilly. Trucks were considered a farm tool, like a tractor.
_________________
XFM...

 

Hardest thing I had to learn when I moved to Califorina was to remove my keys when I parked - lots of bother to keep track of them, and what happens if someone needs to move your truck while you are gone?

Even today most of the time my keys are left in the coffee cup holder if I am not going to be gone for long.

 

The only truck I am aware of without a driver's door is a school bus.

On the 48-50's anyway, the flathead 6-cylinder had the battery on the driver's side. If safety were in fact a concern, it would have been mounted on the driver's side like on the V-8's unless of course they had more concern for the safety of folks who shelled out the extra money for the V-8.

I'm sure they sold it as a safety feature but that was only to mask the real reason for this - cost. I'll give another example. The door lock on these trucks was far more secure than what I currently have on my 2003 F-250. On my new truck, the lock is imbedded in a plastic piece that is fit to the door. Thieves are aware of this security weak-link and can access this truck by prying a screw driver under the plastic to pop the door lock in less than 5 seconds. This wasn't done by Ford as some sort of an upgrade. It was done because it was cheaper to install. Much cheaper. In fact, the cabs on our trucks are probably far more secure than my 03 F-250.

Another example. Back in the mid-90's, my wife and I purchased a house in Atlanta. This was a a very nice home - 3000+ sqare feet. One of the "features" that the builder provided was "ventilated shelving". What this consisted of was wire shelves with metal brackets that could be installed in probably 1/10th the time it took to install and paint regualr wood shelves. The wire shelves came pre-coated so no painting was required. In reality, this was done as cost cutting measure by the builder but marketed as a feature. After a two or three months of my wife's spice bottles falling over in the pantry I was instructed, in no uncertain terms, to downgrade our pantry shelves to normal wood shelves.

On my 03, Ford deceide effective 12/2/02 to eliminate the courtesy light in the doors and call it a reflector. This must have saved the $5.00/vehicle but it adds up. As I write this, I am in the middle of installing these missing courtesy lights.

Again, follow the money.

 

Ok you young'uns...

In Oregon and other western states it was once illegal to parallel park and exit a vehicle on the driver's side.

--van

 

Well Ihave had the vacum wiper set up on my 50 and it worked great. I got the electric wiper on my 53 and it works great. Aalso I never lock my truck, I've seen what those, who want to get in your locked vehicle bad enough and the damage that can be done.
I have though had vacum wipers that I have used manually, that is to roll down the window and reach out and operate by hand. I will say one thing about the vacum wiper system, if its kept in proper repair it will work good for you.
A reserve vacum tank can also be made from the oil filter canister, to give a reserve when climbing a hill. In my own opinion that is all those oil filter units were good for.
All in all Ford did have a good truck, yeah there was need for improvement, but what isn't.

 

I doubt most crooks could fit their arms through that space. I can barely reach and I weigh under 120 pounds.

If I'm in a spot where I think someone might try to steal it, I'll latch the vent window anyway.