38 Ford truck project The Maineliner

New project here,,new member also. I picked up this cab and nose here in Maine, it had been sitting out in the woods behind a farm since the mid 1960's I was told originally it was a beverage truck from an old bottling company that went out of business back in the 60's .The rockers and cab supports were all pretty much gone so I rebuilt them as soon as I got it home,the floor pans where also gone but I'm going to wait to get the motor and trans in it before I do the floor. I decided to build a chassis out of square tube rather than find a chassis and cut it up.(I used to build oval track race cars) The goal here is to have a safe fun hot rod for as little money spent as possible. Many years ago I had a 79 ford pickup I was hauling off for scrap and I cut the frame off just ahead of the spring hangers, basically a rear clip with springs and a 9 inch rear, that's been sitting out in the woods behind my house for 20 years! A thick grove of pine trees have grown up around the rear clip and I spent a good 2 hours getting it back out ,,chain saw, my pickup,tow chain, a 12" diameter tree had grown up between the frame rails that was a challenge! The front axle was A local Craigslist find, its from a 37 dodge pickup (50 bucks). I scored some old wide white tires from a friend that hot rodded a few cars and used modern tires and rims, they were junk to him (free!)

chassis

I know I want to chop the top as much as possible and I want the ride height to be as low as possible and the fact that I'm 6'2" 290 lbs means that I'm going to need to drop the frame down instead of channeling the truck cab, I built a mock up chassis out of wood 2x4s just to get a layout. I tend to be a design as I go kind of guy so the mock up chassis was a big help in showing me where my suspension components were going to be, the wood cost me about 15 bucks but I will use it for something else when I done.maybe build some shelving!

suspension layout

I had thought about trying the 1/4 elliptic type front suspension but instead I laid out a buggy type using a 1700 lbs buggy spring from tractor supply (about 30 bucks). Home brewed some front axle mounts and picked up some hiems & bungs from ebay,those will make up my front axle links. I did compress the front suspension down a good 3" with a tow truck just to make sure the spring would compress and not bind,it seemed to work well. I might need to either remove or shorten up one front leaf.(it seems a little stiff) I got one stick of 2x4 square tube and one stick of 2x3, the 2x4 went into the center (under cab)and the drop or Z areas the 2x3 is for cross members and the front clip. I spent about $185 on the square tubing. The rear springs are from the old ford truck rear clip I had out in the woods, took the leaf stack apart and kept adding or subtracting leafs until they "felt right"

Rollin

Well I have the 38 in a rolling state,sort of ,I have the cab sitting on the tacked chassis[, all my rear suspension is laid out as well as the front, I will need to add a pan hard bar to the front end and shock mounts front and rear but that's no problem. I'm getting very restless and wanting to start doing the chop and the other cool body mods, I really should finish the chassis first. I took some pics and used Microsoft paint program to chop the top,,maybe that will hold me over for now, I have the real pic and the a couple of different chop levels. A few of my buddies have looked at the chops and say it resembles an early freight train so that's where the Maineliner name is from

6 Banger

When I started this project I put the word out to a few friends that I was looking for a inline 6 cyl ford engine for my rat rod project, a month or so later one of my buddies that owns a salvage yard showed up on a Saturday morning with a complete 1974 ford Maverick, low mileage 250 6cyl with a c-4 automatic, the car had not been run since 1999 but with some fresh gas and a good battery it was purring like a kitten! A little help from my kids and its out and on the garage floor.[cl

Cool project..really nice start

Nice start to your build.
I'm 6 foot 2 or so and my F series cab has a 4 inch chop with a 6 inch channel.
Still plenty of room for me but if you chop too much you will end up with a really hard cab to see out of. But that's part of the fun[S
Good luck with the chop if you do it and post plenty of pics.
Torchie.

chop

Ok guys thanks!, as soon as I get it chopped I will be posting pics. I took some measurements and piled a bunch of junk up to sit on inside the cab, I think I'm going to go with a 9 inch windshield, that seems to net some decent visibility and a real cool look

Looks like a great start! Welcome to RRR!

welcome to rrr. on your chop don't forget to account for windshield frame and or gasket. i'm doing a 49 f6 cab with a 5 inch chop,3and a half inch section and the floor channeled up four inches for the two by four frame. I may have to raise my windshield opening at the top to be able to see up at the traffic lights.

Looking pretty good. But word of advice on your front end, I'm sure you already know, you will need to move your spring perches out so that the shackles are parallel with the axle unladen. That way when the engine sits down on it, the shackles have room to move down and spread properly.

Kool lookin truck [cl [P
Here's a 39 cab from a dump truck I done, just before I finished the doors, for a customer last summer.
Has about the same front window you mentioned and about a 3" mail slot rear window

Old Iron said:

Kool lookin truck [cl [P
Here's a 39 cab from a dump truck I done, just before I finished the doors, for a customer last summer.
Has about the same front window you mentioned and about a 3" mail slot rear window

Click to expand...

Looks good, I'm going to slant the windshield back so I dont have to add to the middle of the roof

Slanting the windshield will look good too

Hey Dansman

I am loving your build...Kudos on the power plant too...I know most folks on here want big V8's and such...you will love it...and a lot less trips to the gas pumps too...those little 6 cylinder Fords can be a lot of fun...we used to race roundy rounds back in the early 1980s with those motors...
Thanks for posting your project...

MikeC

Gonna be nifty. Like the dropped frame instead of channel, the Ford six and the wide whites too.

mikec4193 said:

Hey Dansman

I am loving your build...Kudos on the power plant too...I know most folks on here want big V8's and such...you will love it...and a lot less trips to the gas pumps too...those little 6 cylinder Fords can be a lot of fun...we used to race roundy rounds back in the early 1980s with those motors...
Thanks for posting your project...

MikeC

Click to expand...

I used to race inline sixes on the ovals also,,lots of fun, we could run with the 8s but we were allowed less weight and we just had to stay into the throttle longer,,that little 250 will power that old pickup just fine

great build so far.
[cl
like the photo shop pictures you did for the chop
good thinking
will be watching this build as about to start on mine soon

Well after a looonnnggg winter back to work on the ford

Got back to it today, got the chassis all squared up, shortened the wheelbase 4 inches, I laid the nose and pickup bed out and just didnt like the looks of the wheel placement. I don't want one of those stretched out looking trucks,allthough they are cool just not for me,I'm tryng to keep the wheelbase as close to stock as possible

Six banger ford

Got the 250 and c-4 all mounted ,ended up using the motor mounts and frame mounts from the donor Maverick then made some 2x3 square tube perches to mount it all to, I then cut down a spare cross member left over from my Chevelle build, that made a nice trans mount with a dip in it for exhaust clearance