Need to bone up on '57-'90 Ford C-800 COE.....

[Bob Paulin]

I'm looking at buying a 1960 Ford C-800 COE former fire truck C&C which I would like to convert into an RV hauler.

Supposedly has 24K on the clock, but has been sitting in the field for a while.

Truck has 360 with a manual five-speed and a single speed, low ratio (7:1) rear, but deal would include another two-speed rear with a higher (5:1) gear ratio for better highway speed and mileage.

Anybody know of any websites dedicated to this series of trucks?

It seems as though there were about a half million fire trucks based on this chassis, and I distinctly remember every Roadway Express truck I saw in that era as being a C-Series Ford.

The deal is just too good to pass up - even if I build it to sell.

As a matter of fact, there are enough parts to build at least two, maybe three solid trucks - if I was interested in buying everything that is there.

But, I would really like to study up a bit on the particular quirks of this truck.

Can anybody help with some more info on these trucks or some website addresses?


Thanks!

B.P.

[GPster]

There is a Roadway truck in the Henry Ford Museum on display. It's one of those Fords. We saw it there on our field trip for the last BBQ re-build day and Frank informed us that he had worked on it. Now that he's retired he probably forgot. I'm surprised he didn't reply. It's too hot to mow, no matter how many clothes you don't wear. GPster

[enjenjo]

At one time Roadway had the largest fleet of C seies Fords in the world. Over the years they had over 40,000 of them.

Quirks huh?

It probably has Eaton Hydraulic brakes, if it does, they were used by several manufacturers into the 90s. Parts are available, but some are hard to find. The weak spot is the shoe adjusters, they like to freeze up from rust, and are very difficult to free up.

The up side of firetrucks, they generally have low miles, so the chassis are in great shape. The down side, the engines run a lot without the truck moving, so it may be worn out engine wise. I had a firetruck with 5,000 chassis miles that was on it's scond engine.

The down side to C seies Fords, when Ford sold their heavy truck business to Freightliner, Freightliner was not interested in carrying parts for the C series, since they were not manufacturing them. And Ford agreed not to do heavy truck parts for a cretain number of years. So all the C series parts Ford had, were scrapped, there are no new parts available unless they fit other models. There are a ton of used parts out there though. The aftermarket has stepped up with some crash parts though, fenders, doors, and so forth.