Posted on 04/13/2022 12:13:48 PM PDT by Red Badger
Someone converted a vintage commercial truck into a one-of-a-kind pickup.
Sometimes when a commercial truck gets retired from service, someone comes around and converts it into a pickup. The result is often garish, with feet of ground clearance and a bed that doesn’t fit the cab’s design. For a time, this niche was just popular enough that even commercial truck manufacturers joined in on the madness. But despite its handsome looks, this 1952 Ford F-7 Big Job never left the factory looking as good as it does now.
Converting a commercial truck into a pickup is a creative way to reuse some old equipment. If done right, they look pretty awesome, too. I was going to feature another one of these custom trucks on Monday’s Dopest Cars before something better came around. Then I came across this 1952 Ford F-7 Big Job on Bring a Trailer, and I haven’t stopped looking at it since. This is how you build a commercial truck-based pickup.
Photo: Bring a Trailer
Ford’s F-Series was born in late 1947 for the 1948 model year. FoMoCo says it watched as post-war Americans moved to cities and suburbia, taking their pickups with them. This gave Ford the idea to expand their pickup’s scope to cover a variety of purposes. The new trucks would be easier to drive with bigger cabs, better visibility, some creature comforts and style.
Photo: Vauxford | Wikimedia Commons (Other)
The result was the first-generation of the Ford F-Series, and Ford built enough classes to cover a half-ton capacity (F-1) to cabover heavy-duty commercial trucks (F-8). F-7 and F-8 heavy-duty commercial trucks were marketed in brochures as Big Job trucks, boasting performance and then class-exclusive V8 power. Later, an even bigger F-9 would be added to the Big Job truck lineup.
Image: Ford These Big Job trucks were available in an array of configurations. Buyers could pick them up as semi tractors, straight trucks, fire engines, flatbeds, dump trucks, grain trucks and more. But one configuration that I could not find advertised is a pickup. That makes sense as commercial trucks are a bit overkill for pickup duty.
So, this 1952 Ford F-7 Big Job is a custom job, and it’s a build that looks so good that it looks like it could have rolled out of the factory that way.
Unfortunately, the person who knew about this truck’s history has passed, so the seller doesn’t know much. Thankfully, someone with access to a parts catalog was able to provide insight into this Big Job. It rolled out of the factory painted in green, and it didn’t have that bed, but the drivetrain appears to be original.
The 9-foot bed appears to come from a smaller first-gen F-Series like an F-3, but it’s been enlarged with stretched flares to fit the F-7's dually rears.
Image for article titled This Ford F-7 Big Job Is An Epic Pickup Truck That Ford Never Made Photo: Bring a Trailer Even the running boards look like they were widened. The finished truck looks like it could have come that way from the factory. It’s great to see the concept of a commercial pickup conversion done with such good execution.
Moving forward, the cab has stayed in its factory configuration but has been freshened up, from the listing:
The bench seat was reupholstered in gray vinyl and additional refurbishment work performed under current ownership included installing a headliner, door panels, firewall insulation, underdash wiring, floor mats, a driver-side window regulator, and door handles. The windshield wiper motor was rebuilt along with the heater core which reportedly features a 12-volt blower motor.
Under the hood is a 4.5-liter Lincoln Y-block V8 that’s making 125 horses and pushing them through a five-speed manual transmission and a two-speed rear axle.
This truck is going to be a slow and leisurely drive, but that’s fine because you’ll be smiling with every mile.
You may not want to go that fast, anyway. Since this is a commercial truck, it has a 19,000-pound Gross Vehicle Weight Rating.
The largely unloaded suspension will make for a rough ride, probably even on light bumps.
I’m surprised to see such a cool truck bidding at just $15,500 with two days to go. I’ve featured vintage trucks for more money on Dopest Cars. But no matter what the buyer ultimately pays, I’m going to call this one a good deal.
I wish someone would stand next to it for scale...
Would love to have this made into a big pickup.
INFADEL..... LOL
The pics have to be uploaded to a server like Instagram or even Facebook, or Pinterest, where they can then be posted to FR............
Disc brakes would be my only mod, for safety reasons.................
Years ago, I learned how to drive in an F-2 series pickup (which was virtually identical to the F-3 series, except for much heavier duty suspension and wheels from the larger F-Series trucks). It had the old flat-head 6-cylinder, and was geared down enough so it was possible to start off from a level start in fourth gear. There was no such thing as “synchro-mesh”, so it was necessary to practice up on a technique called “double-clutching”, in which the clutch was depressed, lever moved to neutral, released while allowing the engine RPM to change to a speed appropriate for the next higher or lower gear, depressing the clutch again, and moving the lever into the next desired gear. Just like slicing a knife through hot butter. Simply jamming into the next gear resulted in a rather nasty sounding gear grind.
With practice, it even became possible to shift from one gear to another without even USING the clutch, if you listened carefully to the engine note relative to engine speed. Also smooth as butter, until it wasn’t.
I found that narrower tires on the front make a big difference. The manual steering on my 75 C-20 was almost
impossible unless you were moving but I went with narrower
tires and reduced the footprint and now it only takes
both hands to turn it standing still.
125 HP. Lol. Younger people have no idea just how slow cars were just a few decades ago. Most mid-sized cars in the 50s and 60s had 6 cylinder engines of around 130-140 hp and weighed like 3500 pounds or more. You could get V8s in some cars but most people didn’t. My Dad had a 1959 Chevy station wagon with the 140HP 6cly, 20+ sec 1/4 mile performance. 4000 lbs. Many hours spent in it with the family and a trailer grinding up mountain roads in second gear. Lol.
A 50s era pick up truck would have a very numerically high rear end ratio making freeway speeds near impossible. A friend’s 55 Ford would rap out at about 55mph. You could haul most anything in it though. I think 1st gear was lower than reverse.
Trucks were for hauling stuff not hauling a$$..............
Open an imgur.com account. You can drag and drop your photos and get the link for posting on news groups. Simple. Free.
I know. Today they are luxury cars. Just yesterday I saw some clown in a Chevy pickup with a 4 foot bed and a snowmobile shoved in back with the tailgate up. I think most of the sled’s track was hanging over the back bumper. Ridiculous.
WE SEE THE SAME THING HERE WITH JETSKIS AND WAVE RUNNERS..........
I did that too, on a big Ford truck I learned to drive when I worked at a kid’s summer camp in college. I couldn’t just go by the engine sound though, I had to also sort of “drift” the gearshift lever so I could just barely feel the gear teeth whizzing by. A little more gas, they whizzed one way, a little less they whizzed the other. Hold the gas just right and they would stop, and you could shift without the clutch.
I could only do it on level ground though.
When engines were simpler! What a beauty that thing is!
Brings tears to my eyes...
Ford might have considered building a few prototypes, to compete with the Dodge Power Wagon. By 1954 Ford came out with the overhead valve V8 that replaced the flathead, while Dodge was still using a reliable but outdated flat 6.
I drove several split axle trucks. Starting when I was 15, I always had a summer job through when I graduated from college. At 17, the summer job was a county road crew in Oklahoma.
The road crew temps were mostly college and a few high school like me. The foreman asked if anyone knew how to drive a flatbed truck. I piped up that I drove tractors and ranch trucks so got assigned driving something like a F-750 or 650 flatbed with a 460 V8.
There was a button on the floor shifter. What's that? From the placard on the dash, I figgered out it was a two speed shifter button. The shift pattern picture showed the order of the gear ratios to shift in order. It was something like 1L, 1H, 2L, 2H, 3L, 3H, 4L, 5L, 4H, 5H.
The first few days of driving that truck, I must have ground away a few pounds of steel out of the 2-speed axle. An adult dump truck driver told me I had to double clutch as the axle gears weren't synchronized. What's a double clutch? The tractor only had one clutch. The truck only had one clutch.
Anyway, I figgered out the double clutch and shifting rhythm well enough after a few days that the truck was safe from me.
My girl had a 56 ford ton pickup left to her from her dad.
It has a 312 y block.
When you drive it your arm gets tired from waving back at people who like the truck
I had a 1961 Volvo that had what I thought was a noisy transmission. I put some STP in the tranny to quiet it down. BIG MISTAKE. The slippery lube of the STP made the synchronizers useless, and turned the transmission into a “crash box” that required double clutching.
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