1966 f250

[Deaf Bob]

I could not more whole heartedly support the "no big wheels on classic vehicle" sentiment. It's sick and wrong. For older trucks, 16" are good! Maybe 17 or 18 if there's no other option (which pushes you into modern looking wheels) but if you can figure a way to put modern truck brakes on the front of this thing, maybe it's worth it.
What about swapping this over to a modern chassis? You'd get bigger 4 wheel discs all around, longer leaf springs in the rear, and updated front end as well.

I recently picked up a set of 8 lug conversion brakes for the 49 F3 from TSM. It's probably not enough brakes for you, if you're already thinking your 2 piston front discs are not enough, but for us mere mortals, it's a great upgrade to the 4 wheel drums, which you can't get parts for anymore. Maybe worth looking at.
I just drove a 2003 grand marquis back from Florida, in two days, through mostly rain. The improvement of this car over the 1998 I'm used to (with the tranditional parallelogram steering) is very VERY noticeable.
I'm not sure about the load carrying capability of the 03 up panther front end - but with all the folks using them, I'm sure you'll find examples with some
googling.

Milner: load carrying capability... Kind of a slippery slope.. BBR put one of those front ends in his F250, made it into a sport truck
How good are these Panthers? My granddaughters have 3 on the farm (10-12 yr olds) they give adults rides thru the fields and do donuts..
When we get to them, they will get older front ends bolted in because the aluminum components break in derbys..
The grands' cars have lots of miles on them. And were used as pit manouver trainers with push bars.
My son daily drives a P71 that had 119,000miles on it when he bought it (detective's car). Has near 200,000 miles and only had to replace some vac hoses.
Why are they good derby cars? The crush box under the firewall is one of the straightest around.
Look up BLIZZARD BASH, most of those cars are Panthers!

[DanStokes]

Be forewarned: Little Andy was just neutered and it's taking some time for his old urges to pass. So even if you did the deed you might still want big brakes for at least 6 weeks or longer (might not solve the issue).

Dan

[cstmwgn]

The truck came from the factory with 16" splits. I put 16.5 on it until those became almost impossible to find. I then went up to 17" a few years back for tire selection. I can live with the 17" look. I am looking very closely at the Silverado 2500HD OEM stuff (1999 - 2010) as donors. The rub is hubs with an 8 on 6.5 bolt circle force you to a fairly large rotor hat which in turn forces you to a bigger rotor.

Another option would be to get neutered - then I could probably get by with stock Ford brakes!

[silver_bullet]

I got your message, and Sean is doing some research on your behalf....I'll let you know of anything he finds out!

[milner351]

I could not more whole heartedly support the "no big wheels on classic vehicle" sentiment. It's sick and wrong. For older trucks, 16" are good! Maybe 17 or 18 if there's no other option (which pushes you into modern looking wheels) but if you can figure a way to put modern truck brakes on the front of this thing, maybe it's worth it.
What about swapping this over to a modern chassis? You'd get bigger 4 wheel discs all around, longer leaf springs in the rear, and updated front end as well.

I recently picked up a set of 8 lug conversion brakes for the 49 F3 from TSM. It's probably not enough brakes for you, if you're already thinking your 2 piston front discs are not enough, but for us mere mortals, it's a great upgrade to the 4 wheel drums, which you can't get parts for anymore. Maybe worth looking at.
I just drove a 2003 grand marquis back from Florida, in two days, through mostly rain. The improvement of this car over the 1998 I'm used to (with the tranditional parallelogram steering) is very VERY noticeable.
I'm not sure about the load carrying capability of the 03 up panther front end - but with all the folks using them, I'm sure you'll find examples with some googling.

[DanStokes]

No it was built as a detached garage / man cave. When I bought the place there was 3 rooms inside the structure. One was a 12 X 12 FULLY cedar lined room with a motel style A/C unit and the ceiling fan. The other room was 12 X 20 paneled with particle board and appeared to be a pool room. The first thing I did when we bought the place was pull out the walls but didn't do anything with the ceiling or walls.

Makes sense to me!

Dan

[cstmwgn]

...What's the scoop on your shop? ...

No it was built as a detached garage / man cave. When I bought the place there was 3 rooms inside the structure. One was a 12 X 12 FULLY cedar lined room with a motel style A/C unit and the ceiling fan. The other room was 12 X 20 paneled with particle board and appeared to be a pool room. The first thing I did when we bought the place was pull out the walls but didn't do anything with the ceiling or walls.

[Deaf Bob]

Nice progress.

What's the scoop on your shop? Looks like it was a house at one time? Not too many shops have textured ceiling in one part and a patterned cedar ceiling and walls in another, lol.

A neighbor of mine bought the ranch style house next door for a wood shop. Its on a crawlspace, okay for a wood shop I suppose. Yours looks like it was on a slab?

Was thinking it was a fancy shop.. Here it is very rare to see finished walls in a garage much less a shop..
Looks like it might have had a corner office?

[STINEY]

Nice progress.

What's the scoop on your shop? Looks like it was a house at one time? Not too many shops have textured ceiling in one part and a patterned cedar ceiling and walls in another, lol.

A neighbor of mine bought the ranch style house next door for a wood shop. Its on a crawlspace, okay for a wood shop I suppose. Yours looks like it was on a slab?

[cstmwgn]

Not much has happened in the last 6 months. The wagon has been pretty demanding getting ready for Cars and Cones, then fixing it when we got back so it would be ready for PowerTour. Not to mention the work needed after PowerTour to get it ready to Crusin the Coast. But now that the weather has turned cold I actually did some more disassembly.





The frame and suspension parts need to go off to the sandblaster so I can start putting the chassis back together. Still lots of stuff to figure out - BRAKES are my highest priority right now. I just can't bring myself to running 20s all the way around which eliminates the WilWood Brute Force stuff.

[silver_bullet]

A working girl posing as a sport truck.....hmmmmm....

[cstmwgn]

Another update

While I don't recall any trees growing in my bedroom as a child, clearly there is a shade tree somewhere in my past!



Resting on it's new chassis



Now I can start on cleaning the old chassis and figuring out what direction we are going. Recent developments might suggest that this truck will in fact morph from a work truck to a sport truck!

[cstmwgn]

Thanks

[Tubbed Pacecar]

'66 Wiring Diagram in the link below!!

http://www.fordification.info/tech/wiring_66.htm

I forgot to label where that green wire came from

[cstmwgn]

I made it to the metal store - bought some more tubing and have it rough cut and ready to be welded. Hopefully get that finished after Easter. Went to Daytona yesterday (3/23) for the spring swap meet and picked up some stuff;






I also picked up a couple of these.




it appears I must be trying to keep up with the Jone's as I now have a truck with 4 doors