Fc-150 Resurrection

I picked up this 58 Fc last weekend from a local auction/ scrap cleanup. I wanted one for atleast 20 years since I first saw some at a junk yard in high school. Iv been looking hard for atleast the last 10 years. The stars aligned. Friday night I saw the listing and ten minutes later my brother rolls in with a car trailer. His boss needed the winch fixed. It was just the ground. So we went on saturday. Just 20 minutes from home. 900 was pretty much my limit and thats what i got it for. Its exactly what I wanted and expected to find eventually. A complete fc-150 widetrack. It has more rust than I would have liked but dont they all. Rust I can deal with.

 

Digging in. The frame is pretty good just has a few holes and cracks where the plow mounts. Just missing the passenger side shock mount. The box is toast. But im going to fix it. Id say about half will be reused. I have all the metal so its just time and welding. Thats what I did mostly this week. Rebuilt the back half of the frame with bed frame welded into C channel. The fender top parts Im using 1/8" plate. and galvanized 16 gauge for the lower parts. The upper braced part of the gas tank side is good. The spare tire side is bad and will need more work. Im not sure how thats going to go yet. But I got the gas tank side mostly put together already. The bottom of the front pannel and tailgate bottom will need reconstruction aswell. The floor i think im going to just use 5/4 pressure treated deck boards for now. Coated in used oil. Maybe i will use rubber roofing term bar for the aluminum strips. Itll look good.

 

My brother is helping me a bit when he feels like. He wants to drive it too. He likes to do the mechanical stuff because he is a mechanic by trade. He has been dailying my 67 cj5 for the past year or so. The plan with this truck is to get it all fixed up and be a year round driver like the cj5 but probably not quite as nice. Im going to be hauling firewood and all sorts with it. Minimal budget. I have a few gallons of old laquer paint burgundy i will probably use. Today we got the steering column out and the cab ready for removal. Probably pull it off tomorrow when the rain stops. The rear shackles were stuck solid and not taking grease so i removed them for cleaning. The engine isnt stuck but only moves a little bit. We are going to likely pull it out and go through it loosten up the rings and make sure its all good. Check the clutch and everything.

 

The cab has a few nasty hits on the roof tons of rust around the windshield. The windshield is good btw! Im probably going to use lexan for the rear window and some of the side windows. The driver door is pretty toast. I dont think there is any use patching the skin so I have a trunk and hood from a porsche 914 I may try to make a new skin with that. For the roof Im going to need to cut out some of the supports behind so i can bang them out. but the rust I think i can deal with lots of patching.

 

Its a 58 Im pretty sure because it says 6/58 on the rad. It has no tag and the rear frame number is toast. Fingers crossed the front one is legible or maybe i can just use the engine number. Its a t90c I guess they went to 4 speed late 58? I havnt dug into the brakes yet. Surprisingly it rolls and nothing is locked up. I will keep the drums because I prefer them they last forever once rebuilt unlike disks that rot away every few years. The passenger seat is missing but I have a few extra black low backs from 80s dodge van I can use. Now I wish I grabbed the ones from the fc I saw at the junk yard a few years ago. Heres a pic of that one just for fun. I have one bumperette from a willy wagon but im not sure i want to use them anyway. I need one more marker light lens and bezel so ill keep an eye at the junk yard. Im not sure how the front bumper brackets are supposed to look anyone got a pic of them? I have the outside ones but I dont have anything for the center since the plow unit was there. Im not going to put the plow back on atleast for now.

 

I hope you keep this build thread going, I am starting to love FC's more & more.

Just FYI: If you want to insert picture from the earlycj5 media page, go to your media page, click on the picture. On the right there will be a "share image" window. Click on the address in that window to highlight it, press control+C. That puts the ink on your clipboard. Then go back to your thread. Click the insert image button which is 2 spots to the right of the smiley face. Hit control+V for paste, the picture will now appear in your thread. Makes it a lot easier for the readers.

I borrowed this pic from your media as an example. By the way this picture is calendar worthy!

Looking forward to more updates!

 

Looks like a great start for the price you paid! Congrats!

 

cant wait for more...love me some FC

 

What a cool project.
I'm liking your progress. Those FC's are pretty cool.
Thanks for posting this.

Dave

 

That's a smoking deal for an FC!

 

Thanks guys. Yesterday we got the body ready to come off and the engine to pull. Going to borrow an engine hoist tonight to lift them off. I have a board going through the front and rear window I plan to balance the crane in the middle through the windshield and lift it like that. Its too heavy to lift it by hand with 2 young and 2 old people. It has to come about a foot and a half up over the engine. I removed the fan shaft. What a crazy design. I guess the pin is supposed to punch out of the frame but mine is stuck in. So i cut one of the tabs off and will make it bolt on. Silly that the tube is such thick iron. They really didnt want it to break lol

 

I didnt do a whole lot today hammered out a dent and got one shackle back on. I started cleaning up the trans and t case. The bolts in the t case were all loose there was a visible gap at the top two of them were almost out one was hanging on by a thread! But I pulled the pto off and it looks good inside the t case. Im not putting it back on for now. So I made a aluminum cover plate for now I'll keep an eye out for a real one at the junk yard. I will pull off the plate again and clean it out better at some point. I was going to drop the pan but im not going to if i can clean it out good enough from the top side. I took a quick look inside the trans fill plug and it looks ok too but i will pull off the top cover to clean it and inspect at some point. My brother brought home the engine hoist so we will get on that the next day or so after the snow storm. Oh also the pto gearbox at the back its locked up tight I went to move it and rusty water dumped out the vent hole in the top so the outlook isnt as good on that but ill try to restore that at a later date.

 

There should be a drain on that PTO unit. I would go ahead and drain it to get the water out of it and re fill with some motor oil of some kind to be soaking.

 

good idea i will use kerosene

 

I would pull the drain plugs on the trans and transfer case also. I any water at all has gotten in them it will be in the bottom ( the oil will float) and will rust the gears in the bottom of the cases. Having not been run in a long time any water and oil mixed will separate and the water will settle to the bottom.

 

yes i will be changing all the oils. Im going to spray them out with brake cleaner and all. Ill pull the covers on the diffs inpect and clean them out too.

 

I wish you were near me, we could do a weekend of jeep work.

 

Finding one with a t98 is just like finding a cj5 with a t98. Hardly ever.

 

Yup its a t90. We had no power for 4 days with the snow storm but got alot done. Took the body off and engine out and apart. Looks pretty good inside. All the piston rings are broke so good thing we checked. Also found the front serial on the frame its a 59. I cut out a few bad spots in the frame where the plow was mounted. The transmission was stuck not the engine. It was the front bearing and some rust chunks on the gears. I worked it loose it will clean up. I also pulled apart one wheel today and started evaluating the brakes. The shoes look good and we turned the drum. Might have to replace one stud. Im going to see if I can save the wheel cyls. It has one bad tie rod end and needs bell crank rebuild. So im starting to make a parts list.

 

Some more pics of the mess. Today we did some more cleaning on the engine. Things are looking pretty good there. Also worked on the wheel cyl that i have off and I was able to dissasemble it and it cleaned up well. I think im just going to reassemble and give it a try. Hopefully they are all that good that would be cool. I ended up diasasembling the entire hub aassembly because turning it has a rough spot so ill get it cleaned up and check the bearings. The front pinion seal sprung a leak somehow. It had so much grass wrapped around it maybe thats why