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The Story Up To This Point:
The truck is a 1948 Ford F-1 that was produced at the Long Beach California plant in 1947. It was one of the first 6K Fords produced for the 1948 year and was sent to Hollywood CA. to be a dealer display. So many of the features in the truck don’t match the manuals as some things changed as the truck ventured into higher production. This truck had a 59L Flathead v8 (commonly used in Bus’s and large trucks during the 1947 production year) it also has dual wipers, and a few other features exclusive to an early production truck. It was sold to a high-profile owner who used it as a ranch truck for his cattle / dude ranch. It was unclear if he used it himself or it was only used by his ranch hands. We’re still trying to authenticate if the truck was owned by this person. But we did have a ranch hand, who worked for this person, contact us and confirm some unique welding repairs that only someone who had known the truck would have known.
We have unfortunately had 0% Luck with getting the trucks history from the DMV. But until we have hard proof of the truck’s history, we will just say the owner is high profile and the name on the title I received when I bought the truck had his name on it. But I was young, and this was before cell phones. So, I didn’t get a photo of it before handing it into the DMV. The quest for hard proof continues.
The Ranch Truck has been a project sitting in storage for many years now.
It has a direct connection to the 59L that inspired me to start The Flat-Spot. The 59L engine, for those that don’t know, we plan to make a running display out of for our booth and for more educational content. That engine was pulled from this truck. The 59L broke a valve seat loose and we pulled the engine back in 2000. The 59L is a second Flat-Spot project that is coming along nicely.
At the time I was a regular customer at Vintage Ford Parts in Stanton California. The owner Bill was the one that helped me find a replacement engine. The deal was to good to pass up and would have cost me less than just rebuilding the old engine the way I wanted.
The new Motor is a Mercury 8ba 255 cu. in. that was built by the head gas mechanic for Disneyland in Anaheim California. He had built the engine for himself to put in a Vicky, but never got the chance. So, needing to move on to another project I picked up the motor for 3K. Now at the time it was polished and perfect. But sadly, I was forced to move to Arizona from California and the truck went into storage in a shed in New Mexico for around 10+ years. The Engine had less than 50 miles on it, and as you can see it kind of looks like hell, from years of sitting in dry storage. It is our plan to not only bring the old beast back to life but also take it to the next level. We have been waiting for the perfect time to get the old truck project going again and for the first time in years we have amazing news.
I needed a plan. This truck will be used as another display item and will hopefully be a feature in many of our upcoming videos and educational content. We want to use it as a kind of mascot for the group. So, it being a simple flathead was not going to really work. We needed something cool. The engine is set up as a 3/4 race cam with a 4inch crank. We have the base platform to build from.
I was lucky enough to get a hold of a VS57 supercharger that I originally planned to flip. But over time the idea of doing a Supercharged Flathead got more appealing. I then spend the next 4 years looking for an original Flathead VS57 bracket. I managed to talk someone out of one on eBay and got him to send it to me. I think I paid 240 bucks for it. Time passed and I chose to save up for the rebuild on the supercharger. As the Flat-Spot expanded and I started to meet new people I had the great fortune of meeting Aaron Loveless. Who I had seen before and honestly fell in love with the quality of his products. He and I worked a deal to have my bracket reproduced. He would then continue making them for himself. I would in exchange get back my original and then a reproduction. This was the flame that lit the fuse on me doing this project with the VS57.
In the Summer of 2021, I was able to send my supercharger off to get built by Craig at Paradise wheels in California. If you need a charger rebuild Craig is the only person I trust to do it. He not only rebuilds the superchargers but also has the Pat. and the original tooling for the VS and I think the SN series superchargers. So, you know, he knows what he is doing. We paid the extra money to get our supercharger cleaned up and upgraded with a better impeller design. This upgrade commonly takes your supercharger from 4-5lb of boost, to 6-7lb of boost. We were not making a monster, but we still felt for the money why not take the time and do it right. By the time we were done the supercharger rebuild cost about $800.00 and the upgrades added another $200.00.
AAt the same time Craig was able to offer me something that I had been chasing for close to a year. A blow thru carb. Many of the carbs I had seen advertised were north of $850.00. We were able to get a carb from Craig for about $600. I took the leap not knowing what was in store.
To see what happens next watch the video. It is our goal that we will be documenting the future of this project on TikTok and Youtube moving forward. Check back here also for more in-depth information as we hopefully get this old Ranch Truck back on the road.
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