Latest Aquisition

[cletrac (RIP)]

I was at a farm auction yesterday and ended up with this Cab 13 F15A. The auction bill said it was a 2 ton army type fire truck. The fire truck part was built on for a town fire dept after the war. There's a big PTO pump underneath at the rear. It's pretty well complete except they threw away the transfer case and ran it 2WD. The engine is in the back. It had been rebuilt but they left water in the cooling system and you can imagine what -40 temps did to the block.



One more picture.



I might just as well post my last photo too. That's not a very big caragana growing up through stuff.

[Bob Carriere]

.....and you still have the original hatch in the roof.

By the time you have stripped and sold the scrap steel you should almost break even.

What are the plans for it...???

Bob C.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I haven't decided what to do with it yet. I'm picking up a few more in the next couple of weeks so I'll wait and see what I end up with. This is the first one I've acquired that has the roof hatch in place. It also has the pintle hitch mounted on the back on a frame extension that's easily removed. The grille and grillle guard and engine cover are all in the back too so there's not much missing. Three of the tires are still inflated.

[Bob Carriere]

Don't forget to give us blow by blow description of whatever you decide to put together.......

Do you have a picture of the rear hitch/pintle set up....
We have been having discussion on why some are below the frame and why some are within the frame...... relevant to the original body style/size.......

Boob

[cletrac (RIP)]

I don't have a picture, but the pintle is mounted between the frame rails and not below them. I have no idea what the original body might have been.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I went and picked it up today. I tipped all that scrap iron off the back before loading it. My little S10 wouldn't have handled the extra weight. I was surprised that the fourth tire held air too. The tire had been off the bead for who knows how many years and was full of water to boot.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I don't want to haul anything heavier than this with this outfit. Most of the 80 mile trip was on gravel and traveling at 40 mph I had to run in 3rd gear but it handled good.
I avoided roads that might have a highways cop as I was a tad overloaded.

[Snowtractor]

,,the hood scoop on the S-10. Makes it look fast even sitting still.

Sean

[Ryan]

You did a good job getting that home on that trailer. The old wooden floor looks like it gave out under the front wheel. When did you notice that?

[cletrac (RIP)]

That floor plank was like that when I loaded it so I positioned the front wheel over one of the frame crossmembers to keep it from going right through the floor. I've got a few pieces of 6" wide channel that I'm going to replace the broken planks with on both sides so the wheels will ride on them instead of the wood. An F60L would still be out of the question unless I pull it with my Eagle tandem grain truck.
The S10 has a warmed over 3.1 litre V6 that I swapped to so that's why I can pull as much as I do. On this trip I had too much weight forward so the back of the truck squatted down quite a bit but I couldn't reposition the load because of the broken plank. I had the flathead and cutting torch and air compressor plus a bunch of misc other stuff in the back so that didn't help much either.
I have to get a couple more CMPs from 250 miles away next week but I'll load them piggyback in the 18 ft grain box on the Eagle. It's got a 425 hp Cat engine so I'll be able to roll home at whatever speed I want. I have several at this location but I think I'll bring home another cab 13 F15a and a cab 11 C15 4x2 this time. I'll post more pix here when I do.
Sean, that scoop is off an old Torino. It's a perfect fit on the Chevy hood.
I looked the old flattie over and the block's not cracked. It looks like a cylinder was full of water and when it froze it just pushed the top out of the compression chamber in the head. The motor has a 1951 Ford of Canada rebuild sticker on it so being a small town fire truck it would only have accumulated a few thousand miles since then. There's no wear on the cylinders and very little rust either so it might be possible to break it loose and slip in a set of rings and bearings to get it going again. There aren't even any of the normal flattie cracks around the head bolts that don't matter anyway. The cracks by the valve seats and in the exhaust ports are the ones that destroy an engine. When Ford rebuilt these engines they relieved the block between the valves and the cylinder wall and that was supposed to stop the cracking problem.

[Bob Carriere]

Don't forget pictures of the next load.....

Bob C.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I had a few hours with nothing to do this evening so I fired up the torch and cut off a bunch of stuff that was welded to the frame. The only thing that the previous owners had hurt on the frame is the rearward facing gussets on the rear crossmember. A little grinding now and most traces of alterations will be gone.
Here's a question: Are the transfer cases out of a C15a and an F15a interchangeable? I have a Chev one laying around.

[Tony Smith]

Originally posted by cletrac
Are the transfer cases out of a C15a and an F15a interchangeable? I have a Chev one laying around.

Yes.
The 2 Speed cases will have some problems with the mounting of the shift tower, but the Single Speed case from the 15cwts are fine. You might find that the Speedo cable might point off in a slightly different direction, but generally in the right place.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I went and bought those other trucks today. It's quite a collection. There's an 11 cab F15A and a 13 cab F15A at another yard also. That's our Eagle tandem at the left.

[cletrac (RIP)]

I didn't get the green F60. He wants to fix it himself. Of the six 13 cab F15As the one with the roof hatch is the best. There's really nothing missing on it. When I get them all home I'll have lots more F15s than I really need. There's a box for the blue one.

[4bee]

Do you get up in the morning & think, "I think I'll go & buy 1/2 dozen trucks today or something"?

Nice Vehicle Park.

[cletrac (RIP)]

We loaded this 1940 11 cab C15 4x2 into the tandem after installing some wheels and hauled it home along with a bunch of loose parts. It handled it way better than the S10. This C15 doesn't have the cowl vents so it's one of the real early ones. I need the hood and grille for my C8 wireless so I'll have to watch for another to replace it. One of the F15As has a pintle that hangs below the frame.

[cletrac (RIP)]

This is the one with the pintle. The frame with no body hasn't had anything welded to it or cut off or anything. That can be hard to come by sometimes. A few of these have been lengthened.

[cletrac (RIP)]

Actually it was eight trucks. The only problem is it's a 500 mile round trip. Next time I'm towing a 45 ft trailer on our tandem converter behind the Eagle. That'll save a few trips. We were going to take the car this morning but decided we might as well bring something home. Besides, the Eagle is nicer to drive than a car.
That's the box on the right. It's sitting on the remains of a carrier that might come home too.

[Keith Webb]

Almost looks like the average farm in Australia doesn't it?

Some nice pieces there, especially the cab 11.

[David_Hayward (RIP)]

How BIG is that farm? It looks huge. And so darned dry, as it is here.

[Snowtractor]

...I am a prairie boy David, so it looks pretty normal to my eyes. The farm itself may only be a few hundred acres or many sections but in South and western Saskatchewan and sountern Alberta you can watch your dog run away for two weeks. You can see as far as you can see on the ocean , seas of grass or grain. Like the Steppes in Russia. You would likely find it as amzing as I find the postage stamp sized farms in England with hedges or stone fences around every one.
As for the truck menagerie, very cool. I expect to see some pics of you unloading them with the Cleltrac
Sean

[king of obsolete]

lucky find, keep the pictures coming.

thansk

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally posted by David_Hayward
How BIG is that farm? It looks huge. And so darned dry, as it is here.

Dave,..
When I was a young airman on a prairie radar base back in '64,I worked for a local farmer,on my days off, that had 10 sections,his brother had 12 and his dad had 14 Sections of land..(640 Acres to a section)...
Those were normal sized farms in that area in those days..
And the pay was $2.00 an hour,plus your meals ...good cash money in those days..

[cletrac (RIP)]

We backed up to a pile of dirt and raised the box. Nothing to it! The Cletrac is at the other farmyard so we had to settle for the John Deere AR. We were going to use the JD R but it wouldn't start.

[cletrac (RIP)]

The srart of a new lineup. That 13 cab roof still has good windshield glass. There's a couple of solid gas tanks there too. A few of those 13 cabs are just parts trucks so if anybody needs 13 cab or Ford 15 cwt parts let me know and I'll see what I can do. There's very little rust damage on any of the cab parts.

[cletrac (RIP)]

This is for you people who've never been to the prairies. That tall thing on the horizon is a grain elevator in a small town 8 miles away. You really can watch your dog run away for a few days! Notice how many farms and trees show up in this picture.
It's actually pretty wet here now. It's just too early in the spring to have much growing.

[Rob Fast]

it reminds me Dave of a little excursion us Manitoba Prairie Command guys made into a salvage yard in Beechy Sask. on a -35 degree winter late afternoon. I didn't know if I would get out alive if we had vehicle problems!!! Great find! Cheers Rob/Steinbach Manitoba

[cletrac (RIP)]

Here's the door markings on the cab 11. I didn't get any pix of the other door markings. I didn't notice any data plates on any of the trucks, which is disappointing.

[Howard]

Look at that Jiff!
And you reckon Ganmain is just (Quote) "Miles and miles of flat-f**c-all"! At least we have the occasional stand of trees!
Fascinating photos of both the landscape, AND the CMP's!
HH