I just drug in the F3 I bought.
Saw old friends towed in a old truck and drove about 1000 miles round trip, all in my old 1978 F250. I was in Eastern KY, SW VA and WV up around Bluefield on 77.
I took the F3 to my friends farm and he bought it from me. I didnt have it in my possesion 48 hours.
He wanted everything except the engine and trans, so we made a deal. It will help his project get back on the road and it helped me out.

 

Good stuff, hope the F3 went to a good home.

 

With a cut here and a cut there F3's make good F1's...

 

My friend needed a better cab and doors for his F2. The bed walls are usable. Pretty much everything sheetmetal wise is toast. The grill is savable but all the fenders are so rotted they are see through. The fronts were so bad the top flat area is peppered with holes. The hood fell apart when we loaded it. The stainless was perfect on the hood.
I have the clear title to it also. I might trade him for something later.

 

With an extension here, bigger,better box, an extra lug stud'n'nut or two here AND there, and an F1 makes a good F2 or F3....



R

 

Although I suppose it could be done, I've never heard of anyone making an F-2 or F-3 out of an F-1. It's just not practical. Try finding an F-2 or F-3 express bed or running boards and you will see why it's done the other way. Hopefully, someday the aftermarket will wake up and start making reproduction parts for these trucks. I needed running boards, fenders, and a bed for my 48 F-3 when I first bought it. I found it much easier and less expensive to convert it and use F-1 aftermarket parts than try to find the F-3 parts...

 

The point I was trying to make, is that there are still a lot of F1's out there. And you can find one for not much more money than a decent F2 or 3. I'm pretty much a "stock" kinda guy. I cringe when I see someone pick up a great F2 or bigger, and then chop it down, change everything to make an F1, when, for a lot less work, and probably the same money, start with an F1 to begin with. Sure, the F1's are seemingly more desirable. But, as has been proven, you can build an F100 TOTALLY from aftermarket parts. Is that still an F100?

You mention you found it much easier and less expensive to convert your F3. Wouldn't it have been a lot easier and perhaps less expensive, to find an F1 originally, and make it an F1?

R

 

Not only are there NOT a lot of F-1s out there (at least in my part of the country...the rust belt of the northeast) but they are considerably more expensive. I was looking for a F-1 when I found my F-3 which was not more than a basket case. Perhaps if I lived in an area where F-1s were plentiful and inexpensive I would have gone that route. If I had not bought my truck it would probably still be rotting under the oak trees where it sat for 5 years before I bought it or in the scrap yard...you work with whatever you can find up here...

 

I am NOT finding fault with what you are doing. Nothing "personal" here. As you said, you found a "basket case" rotting under a tree. There ARE a lot of F1's in the same condition. Perhaps not where you are. I said in my post DECENT. And a decent F2 brings almost as much as an F1, at least around here. I'm sure it has something to do with the unavailability of the bed parts, etc, and people looking for them. I know that the rear fenders are almost impossible to find, and they bring a huge amount of money, so if you find an F2/3 that the bed is in grand shape, it brings a lot. I've been offered twice what I gave for my truck, just for the bed. If I were so inclined to build a flatbed, I would jump on it. And of course, there's a lot of "B-J'itis" around - Barrett-Jackson disease. So everything is going up, regardless of condition. I'm looking at a $50 cab right now, that's probably JUST worth the cab, and not very nice (at least, in MY opinion), and the reserve isn't met yet. Of course, with the high price of scrap steel, that doesn't help the "value" very much, either.

Now, the question remains - if you had found an F1 instead of an F3, the same price/condition, etc, wouldn't it have been easier/cheaper to build the F1, than convert an F3 into an F1?

Just my $.02 worth - again, it wasn't an "attack", just my opinions...

R

 

Possibly easier, but I doubt if it would have been cheaper. My goal on this project was to build it on a budget and as cheaply as I could. My F-3 came with no bed (except an old Dodge bed a PO was thinking about putting on it at one time), no rear fenders, and running boards and front fenders were trashed. Other than my labor to shorten the frame there was no other major expense to the conversion. I still would have had to buy a bed, fenders, and running boards even if it had been an F-1 in the same condition.

I did not take your comments as an attack. It's good to have other's opinions and I appreciate yours.