Lights, Sirens, Action: 1967 Ford F-350 Brush Truck
Usually finding a use for a retired fire truck is difficult, but this little truck listed on eBay has lots of possibilities. With over a week left on the auction, bidding is just over $3,500 with no reserve. It’s a one ton all wheel drive truck with less than 15,000 miles. Those weren’t highway miles and many miles were no doubt in rough country. It has had regular maintenance if not gentle treatment. The auction states the siren and lights may or may not be included, but there’s no word on the axes. The tires only have a few miles on them, but there’s no word on how old they are. Thanks to Jim S for yet another interesting tip.
It has a 250 gallon tank with a Wisconsin 4 cylinder engine driving a high pressure pump. This truck would be handy for pulling boats out at a marina and hosing them down. Or, you could start your own mobile car wash.
This 352 V8 could use some attention. The truck missed it’s last service, but it runs and drives well.
There are lots of possibilities for this truck. One could strip off the fire equipment and add their own bed and have a great, low miles all wheel drive work truck. Perhaps there’s a small fire department or ranch out west somewhere that could use a brush truck. This one is rigged and ready to go. Someone, somewhere will surely find a use for it. Your comments will be interesting.
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Comments
A friend of my dads bought an old fire truck with a water tank and pump to water trees at his orchard. It would be good for a lot of other agricultural purposes as well. Maybe filling water tanks for cattle that are grazing in fields with no water source.
I asked my co-worker what he thinks it could be used for. He said “riot control”. That would work too I guess.
I asked my co-worker what he thinks it could be used for. He said “riot control”. That would work too I guess.
Good one, I’ll let Ferguson, Missouri know abut this truck.
Most major cities train some of the fire fighters in riot control even us up here in Toronto!
It would be perfect as a fire truck. Wait a minute – it already IS a fire truck! The gasoline engine thing is a little off-putting though – especially for wildland fires. I know just the guy for this. He has a very remote ranch sandwiched between a military training area and a national forest. It takes a minimum of 45 minutes for fire equipment to get there from the base and they aren’t too keen on the prospect of maybe getting caught on his 1.5 mile “driveway” with flames headed their way. Because of the small tank it’s only good for spot fires, but it’s way better than nothing.
Where do you start? I would like to have it just for the cab and chassis. Of all those years (’67-’72) I like the ’67 the best. The fire apparataus would be OK for some but, like what was previously mentioned, it would be great for crowd control. But that cab/chassis would be a great tow vehicle for me.
I agree with geomechs, lose the fire truck stuff, and personally, I’d make an all wheel drive dump truck out of it. While there’s no mention of any work done to the engine, don’t be fooled by the low miles, I’m sure the engine has thousands of hours idling.( even with the pony motor) It is a cool truck, as you’d probably have a hard time finding an all wheel drive truck like this.
Check service records. Not unusual for these low milage fire rigs to never have had the antifreeze changed or oil etc. engines ( espesually the diesel ) could be rotting.
Remember that this truck will be 50 years old next year.
That means the pump is also.Try & find parts for it.Most fire –
engines are phased out after 25 years.
This would still make a really cool pickup.
I’d down size that front bumper a little take all that fire fighter fighter stuff off the back, mount a custom aluminum truck box, and install a 5th wheel unit I the back. I’d then be tempted to mount a turbo diesel under the hood. This truck could then be very functional for pulling anything from vacation trailers to stock trailers to flat deck construction trailers. It would haul in all kinds of road conditions with that 4 x 4 equipment on this rig the only other thing that may have to be done is regearing the axles to 3.50 to 1 gears.
Hi Mark. I can certainly agree with removing that stuff off the front end and putting the bumper back where it belongs. An engine like a 5.9 Cummins would really wake that truck up. I saw one in Whitefish years ago with a Detroit 4-53 in it; I’m sure you’d need to wear earmuffs in that one.
I tend to disagree with you on running high-speed diffs. Dad’s ’67 Ford 250 had 4:56 gears and that 352 took you and a 20 foot stock trailer loaded with cattle anywhere you wanted. I remember the late winter of 1970, and Dad had me deliver a load of heifers to a guy in Lilliston, ND. Coming back, I was headed directly into a Chinook wind that was blowing about 40+ mph. The truck struggled but held its ground. A couple years later I made a repeat run in Dad’s new ’71 Ford 250, only with 4:10 gears. Same trailer. That truck fought an almost losing battle maintaining speed and probably burned half again as much gas. I’m in the diesel service business today and I’ve found that it’s a lot more economical to run a motor above the torque curve and pull down to it than run below and try to work up to it. It’s like the first thing a plumber learns: $h!t runs downhill. Now let’s see if my good friend Howard, an experienced truck driver, agrees…
You might be right about the 3.50’s but the 4.56’s seem a little low to me. With a 5.9 cumins I wouldn’t go lower than the 4.10’s. Maybe the way to go is 5 speed manual one with an overdrive gear. What a beast you’d have then.
Yes the 4:56 gears are a real stump-puller thus not the greatest in modern freeway-type traffic, but they’ll take you to your destination. Dad bought a ’73 Dodge W-300 with a 360 and 4:88 (only ratio you could get with a 1-ton 4×4) gears. He could’ve farmed with that thing. 60 mph equaled 3500 rpm. 4:10 gears are nearly perfect for a Cummins 5.9, especially if you have an O/D feature in the transmission. I had a customer ask me about axle ratios. He made his living transporting RV trailers from the various plants out east and delivering them to points west. The local Dodge dealer spec’d out ALL their 3/4 and 1-ton trucks with 3:55 gears; their reason: slower turning engine–less power strokes=less fuel consumed; perfect on a perfectly horizontal plane with no wind resistance. This customer complained bitterly to no avail. He’d look at a hill and the truck slowed down to a crawl. I advised him to change his ratios to 4:10 which he did (at considerable expense) and the results were amazing. He was able to make better time on a trip plus his fuel consumption went DOWN 20-30%. He took his figures back to the dealer and told the salesman to take all those fancy engineering calculations and use them for a suppository. I don’t know if they took his calculations seriously but when he replaced that truck, it came with 4:10 gears…
Could be used by a farmer for water irrigation,and in this guise this could be used worldwide.This would also suite a Charity that digs wells etc in third world countries where petrol/or gas as you americans say is more abundant than diesel.Of course in this guise it would need some renovetion work but would probably have many years service left in the old girl !!
Looks aggressive. Here is 1967 f350 shop manual: https://fordmanualblog.wordpress.com/2019/04/22/1967-ford-truck-shop-manual-pdf-download/
That engine looks like a hundred and fifteen thousand instead of fifteen thousand ?