1953 ford conversion

[guitarsam326]

Just scored a 53 ford pickup and i want to convert it into a big job or f800, whichever you wanna call it, but i thought you had to widen the fenders? If theres a topic already on this could someone point me in the right direction? Thanks fellas!

[Superpeterbilt]

I want to say that Jimb posted some pages on a article that Even Hermel built.Maybe it was posted in the aftermarket section. Hopefully he can post it again.

[Atmobil]

I got similar plans myself. I did find a page somewhere where someone did make a conversion but I can't seem to find it anymore. However, one needs to widen the front fenders and make the wheelopenings bigger (bigger radius). I don't have the measurements here I'm afriad. I was thinking of using the frame from the AMT Ford C-600/900 kit with maybe also the suspension from it. Not sure where to take the engine from as the C-series kits have a much newer engine.

[guitarsam326]

Thanks guys, i saw a lot of discussion on widening the 50 ford fenders to make a heavy duty out of it but i wasnt sure about the 53 model.

[DRIPTROIT 71]

Sam there are 53, 54, and 55 Sales brochures on E-bay if that will help.

[Jim B]

You mean this one:

http://public.fotki.com/modeltrucks25thscale/model_magazine_articles/scale_auto_enthousiast/sae_2000-2004/sae_2001_12__december/

It has been notes that the grill bars should be wider.

[guitarsam326]

Yes, thats the 50 model i remember reading bout, but i thought there was somethin on a 53 model, maybe no though?

[Ace-Garageguy]

This is a conversion i've been wanting to do as well. I've collected several reference photos of the 800 cab, and it's pretty obvious the fenders need to be widened outboard of the grille opening, as well as having the wheel openings opened up considerably. The width of the grille appears to be the same, judging from the relationship of the headlights to the hood shut-lines.

F-100

          

F-800 / Big Job cab & fenders

           

Edited August 2, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy

[guitarsam326]

Thanks Ace, those are good ref pics, i guess you could widen the fenders till they "look" good on a class 8 chassis, without getting too technical.

[Atmobil]

That is about what I have been thinking of doing aswell. Just adding a strip on the inner edges of the fenders with sheet styrene.

I guess that if you can find a good detailed pictures that is dead on of a F100 and a F800 you could print them out in scale and that would show you the difference.

[Ace-Garageguy]

That is about what I have been thinking of doing aswell. Just adding a strip on the inner edges of the fenders with sheet styrene.

I guess that if you can find a good detailed pictures that is dead on of a F100 and a F800 you could print them out in scale and that would show you the difference.

You can scale from the pix I put up.

Measure the headlight diameter in the photos. They're standard 7" sealed beams.

On my monitor, the upper one is .481". The lower one is .787".

Divide 7" by .481". That will give you about 14.5, making the upper photo about 1/14 scale.

Divide 7" by .787". That will give you about 8.89, making the lower photo about 1/9 scale.

Now measure the distance from the center of the headlights to the outer edges of the fenders.

The upper is .485". multiply by 14, to get approximately 6.79" in full scale.

The lower is 1.61". Multiply by 9 to get approximately 14.49" in full scale.

That tells you the Big Job fender is roughly 7" wider than the F-100.

7" in 1/25 scale is around 7mm, or about 1/4 inch.

I'm sure this is a close as Revell gets most things these days.  

Of course, if you think carefully about the parallax effect of the slightly different angles the photos are taken from, and you hold your math to tighter tolerances than I just did, you can get more accurate results.

 

Edited August 2, 2015 by Ace-Garageguy

[guitarsam326]

Thanks Ace! This is really helpfull! 

[Atmobil]

Yes, thanks a lot Ace