Old pics of cool stuff!

[blkfordsedan]

I found some old photos today as I was cleaning out my desk. Most of them were taken at my Father's acreage south of Phoenix shortly after he passed away. I added comment to each photo to explain. Sorry for the long post, but every picture tells a story!

These are the view off the front deck




These are some views of a fraction of the "gold" he collected in the last 10yrs he was there. The tractor is a 1900 Ford diesel w/front wheel assist. The white mini truck next to the van is a Mazda with a Rotary. He liked them because the frame was wider & heavier than a Courier and would accept a small block V8 easily.


A 64 Falcon convert, Ranchero, 62 Comet S22 sedan & convert, 64.5 Mustang and a hydraulic dump box designed to fit inside a standard 8' pickup box (which he made a 5th wheel trailer out of)


A 45' tandem axle trailer he built; loaded full of old Ford engines, trannys & parts. Everything from flatheads to FE's, 429 Cobra Jets, 351C 4V's, Toploaders, etc. This way, he could lock it up so the "locals" wouldn't steal it all!


A couple views of his shop he built. It was packed FULL of "automotive gold". The white Mazda pickup with dual rear wheels has a 351W 4V/AOD swap. Dad used it to pull a camper. The triple axle white trailer is 39'6" long with a hydraulic drop beaver tail for loading. The other truck is a '95 F350 Powerstroke. My brothers and I made 4 trips from AZ to NE with this trailer loaded full. I would guess we were grossing at least 18,000Lbs per load. The first 2 loads were just shop equipment & tools. The last 2 trips were the most valuable stuff. After 4 trips we gave up and just spent a full week there selling stuff to the locals at 10 cents on the dollar. We still had to leave 75% of the stuff behind.






THIS is a REAL TRUCK. 3208 CAT V8 diesel swap, 5 speed trans, 2speed Brownie aux box (under/direct/over), and 2 speed air shift rear axle with a "tag" axle. 30 forward gears & 6 reverse. The frame is completely boxed & fishplated and the air brakes are functional. All assembled from junk. The amazing part is he put about 40K miles on it pulling trailers between AZ & NE before he bought the Powerstroke. The trailer hooked to it is a home-made water trailer used to carry water from the pulic well about 2 miles away. The large tank sitting upright was Dad's water storage tank. It would hold 7 of the trailer loads. Dad got both tanks for free from a COOP in central Kansas. They said he could have them if he hauled them away......so he hauled them 1200 miles to Arizona.


This is the most valued treasure that my brothers & I inherited. My dad assembled this truck from parts back in the early 50's. The cab is a '33 Ford grain truck, Fenders are from a '36 Ford car, box is a Chevrolet (? year) and the frame & chassis are from a '40 Ford with a flathead V8 and dual exhaust stacks with no mufflers. Dad drove it as a daily driver until late 1969, when he bought a brand new F100. I barely remember riding in it. It has a bad valve, but someday, we will all drive it!


Finally, here's my rust free '62 Galaxie sedan. If I ever quit messing with my Festiva, the 428 Tri-power will find its way into the engine bay, along with a Toploader 4 speed and 3.89TL. I have everything, just need to assemble it.



Thanks for looking, hope you enjoyed it all!

[bhazard]

Holy crap.

[red stiva]

Cool inventory. Nice galaxie looks dry. If I had a 428 tri power and toploader ready for that car I could stop messing with my festiva. I've got a 63 convertible that has a body like yours, rust free.

[drddan]

Holy crap.

^ Yeah. What he said! drool

Your Pop is a pretty constructive guy.

[sc72]

Thanks for sharing your family history,sounds like alot of good times. Thanks

[Britstiva]

That's pretty cool that he built the truck from multiple vehicles! That indeed is a family treasure!

That white truck reminds me of my dad's Chevy Luv. And all of that garage space???

Now let me whipe the dribble off my chin.. LOL

I just love old cars! I wish I had a 200 acre building that I could park all of my favs in!

[blkfordsedan]

^ Yeah. What he said! drool

Your Pop is a pretty constructive guy.

Was a pretty constructive guy! He passed away in April of 2000, just a few days before we took these pictures.

This was just the tip of the iceberg (just the stuff he had in Arizona). He spent the last year of his life bringing trailer loads of stuff back to Nebraska. He had a building back in Nebraska that's 75' wide X 1/2 block deep that was full of stuff (Galaxies, Mustangs, pickups, tractors, tools etc.). We spent 2 months going through everything and the Estate sale lasted 2 days. And that was just the stuff he accumulated in the last 15 years of his life! He had 10X that much stuff that he accumulated in the first 55 years. He sold the farm & everything on a sale in 1985 and moved to Arizona with nothing but a pickup & camper trailer.

[blkfordsedan]

Cool inventory. Nice galaxie looks dry. If I had a 428 tri power and toploader ready for that car I could stop messing with my festiva. I've got a 63 convertible that has a body like yours, rust free.

I guess there is a slight rust spot about the size of a quarter, just in front of the P side rear wheel well. Other than that, it's clean. I want to put retro fiberglass front fenders, hood and bumpers on it. Then swap the front bench seat and carpet out for a set of vintage Econoline van buckets and a rubber floor mat. Also need to install clutch pedal assy and manual steering column since it was originally a Cruise-O-matic.
I want to make a 406 factory lightweight clone out of it.

The problem is; I'm not sure I can find all the parts for it! I have a small 30' X 60' room in our building that is 3' deep with parts piled up. Somewhere in the pile is a pair of factory cast iron FE headers. The only thing I'm missing is some adjustable FE rocker arms. I had a cam custom ground to my own specs so the base circle is reduced. I need adjustable rocker arms to compensate (or maybe just custom pushrods). Plus, the building that I have to work in is 35 miles from where I live. I can pull the engine out of the Festy in my single car attached garage, but I don't think I can even fit the '62 in the garage and close the door!

[htchbck]

Wow, all that stuff is awesome, but the Cat swapped F-series with twin rear axles is where its at! That is one of the most beautiful trucks I've ever seen, got me thinking about about custom building a rollback instead of looking for one already finished. With a single cab something like that could have an 17' bed easily. Thanks for sharing the pics!

[blkfordsedan]

^^^ Actually, it was a little rough cosmetically. Dad always said if you have a truck & trailer that look like you have money, the DOT will always stop you. But, if you drive junk and have Nebraska Farm tags, they'll leave you alone. He always said to just drive by the scales and let them chase you down if they want you. If it looks like you're a poor farmer they won't waste their time. Don't know if it quite works that way. However, he made probably 30 to 40 trips between Arizona & Nebraska (never on the Interstate) and was WAY overloaded and NEVER had any type of license on any trailer he ever built. Keep in mind, he always had lights and excellent trailer brakes that worked and had the truck & equipment to handle the load. After he passed away, we followed his instructions and made 4 trips without getting stopped. We did get pulled over one night by the Border Patrol south of Los Cruces, NM. All they wanted was to search the trailer for illegals. All they said when I opened the door to the trailer was "You guys got a ton of cool stuff in there!". Then they shut the door and told us to have a safe trip.

We sold the truck on the estate sale and it brought $1500. The auxiliary 2 speed was worth that. The Powerstroke actually pulled better at higher elevations through the mountain passes, but the CAT would move a house as long as you weren't in a hurry. I actually saw the truck a month ago in Wilber, NE. It still looked the same.

[htchbck]

^^^ thats good its still being kept up. I'd love to own something like that someday. And my comment about the truck's beauty had nothing to do with the cosmetics, but the ingenuity and sheer awesomeness of the vehicle, the fact that it has a job to do and it obviously is capable of doing it As the old saying goes, "beauty is much more than skin deep"... holds true for vehicles as well as people, at least in my book

[yelo festiva]

really cool

Wow that's a lot of neat stuff. Your Dad was a gearhead sure-nuff. He obviously had a sense of mechanical understanding. Probably could show Detroit a thing or two. Thanks for the eye candy, really enjoyed it!

[bravekozak]

This Lambo looks like the Ford in your picture!

[Advancedynamix]

What happened to the land?

[blkfordsedan]

What happened to the land?

Dad passed away in 2000 (cancer). Before he died, he initiated the sale of it to his neighbor for $28,000. That was 4 acres, with a double wide trailer and the building and water tanks in the picture. We decided to honor his wish and complete the sale. In hindsight, we should have kept it. It was just southwest of Firebird Raceway on N. Warren Road.....right outside Maricopa. I heard the area is all developed now. I'm guessing land value went up since 2000.