Junkyard Gem: 1973 Ford F-100 Custom

The Ford F-Series has been the ideal-promoting truck in The usa for a thing like eighteen,000 a long time and the ideal-promoting automobile in The usa for about seventeen,990 a long time (in fact, the 1st figure is forty three a long time and we could argue endlessly about the latter amount dependent on hair-splitting dissimilarities in between the F-one hundred fifty and all the other F-Series styles as opposed to their rivals). Since work trucks continue to be practical for numerous decades and the visual appeal of the F-100 and its F-one hundred fifty successor didn’t improve a whole great deal in between the early nineteen seventies and middle nineties, it can be effortless to overlook old Ford pickup just after old Ford pickup as I walk the rows of my neighborhood automobile graveyards. I’ve documented a few of these trucks over the a long time, but the importance of the F-100/F-one hundred fifty warrants more wrecking-garden history. This is a perfectly-worn 1973 F-100 in a Denver-place garden.

The create tag displays that we have bought a 1973 F-100 with two-barrel 360-cubic-inch V8, constructed at the San Jose assembly plant in California (now the web page of The Good Shopping mall). The first transmission was a Borg-Warner T-eighteen 4-on-the-flooring (cheapskate truck consumers could continue to get a 3-on-the-tree at this time) and the differential experienced a 3.twenty five:1 ratio (I use the earlier tense for the reason that this truck has the glimpse of a automobile that has been through a good deal of ingredient-swapping over the decades, so this stuff may possibly have adjusted due to the fact 1973).

The F-100 ongoing as the entry-amount fifty percent-ton F-Series pickup all the way via 1983, but the F-one hundred fifty appeared in the 1975 product yr as the “hefty-responsibility” edition and eventually grew to become the default commuter pickup for North The usa. Most junkyards go ahead and label F-100s as F-150s in their inventory listings, so deeply has that designation turn into ingrained (even with the F-100 name— allegedly encouraged by the F-100 Super Sabre airplane— relationship back again to 1953). “Tailor made” was the base trim amount in 1973 superior-rollers went for the Ranger XLT versions.

This could not be the first a hundred forty five-horsepower, 360-cubic-inch (five.nine-liter) FE-sequence V8 engine that went into the engine compartment in Milpitas back again in 1973, but it can be some member of the FE massive-block loved ones, and the truck-only 360 is a good bet owing to its undesirability in the eyes of velocity-crazed effectiveness fanatics. I’m a little bit surprised that some 390 operator hadn’t grabbed the aftermarket tube headers by the time I bought in this article. Possibly the swap meets have turn into glutted with these kinds of areas these days.

Similarly, the granny-equipment-equipped 4-velocity is just not in significantly need by your typical Mustang or Torino operator, while it can be really sturdy.

The mismatched camper shell and abundance of stickers notify the story of a truck that put in its remaining a long time as an un-killable utility beater.

The shift-knob hood release is a wonderful fix for a common challenge on old motor vehicles.

I’m not guaranteed what is actually heading on with this setup, but I feel it can be an armrest and area-expedient doorway-release tackle made from supplies on hand.