When I went to work at our city's fire department in '78,the department had four fire engines with these cabs,two were gas burners and two were diesels.They were very dependable,but the diesels were much better.

Hope to see you crawling soon, Steve!

I’ve always liked these. I remember seeing them often.

I bought some of these in1989 and made straight tanker trucks for dielectric fluid. It was a CT8000, tandem axle with a 3208 CAT. 2 liter per cyl x 8 cylinders. We had it for over 20 years.

I like the classic COE body style. Beautiful lines.

I still laugh when I hear left and right thread lugs, I remember my buddy snapping the third one when I asked, " you know those are left thread on the left side of Fords of the era "

That truck is in great shape. Definantly a keeper

Those commercial FE motors had steel cranks and were 331,361 and 391s.

My Dad drove one and as I walked to school I could time his route and sit in the cab for a few minutes to warm up in those cold Chicago winters

the windshield squiter was used in the early econoline vans, my 63 econoline pickup has it. Good Stuff Steve Mag! thanks.

Love the color too. We need more colors now a days!😀 I drove a similar cab over design fuel truck years ago at Ohare airport and always felt vulnerable sitting in front of the other 99% of the truck.

That would be a great truck to save and restore! Looks to be rust free.

As stated several times prior to my post. This cab was stamped by the Budd Company of Philadelphia. Several manufacturers used this cab. Ford, Mack, FWD, Thibeault (fire apparatus), and I wouldn't be surprised of others like Oshkosh and Sicard used them for some snow removal equipment as well. Thanks for including some trucks. Us truck guys can only see so many cookie cutter cars until we go away. Thanks

Love those old Ford Cab Overs!!! 👍👍👍

Steve I love all of your bite-sized videos, and as a longtime modeller I especially love when you integrate modelling stuff too. Please keep up the good work!

Beautiful job on this iconic piece of Ford truck history ! I own a '85 - C9000 with a CAT 3208.... When I got it, it had limited use as a farm truck after it's first life of fire duty in a small Nebraska town, so mileage is an actual 17,000 miles. They are a little stiff on ride quality until they carry a full load, and sitting directly over the front wheels means you enjoy every tar strip as it passes under your field of vision. Thanks for all your great info on a truck 90% of the public has seen but more likely heard as it awakened them at 4 am unloading their dumpsters in the alley

Love the videos. Wealth of info in that brain of yours 👍

I recall the dump truck in my hometown was one of these. It ran for years and years.

As a heavy duty truck tech worked on many C-model Fords. The one thing I always remember about them was that even brand new, the shifter was always loosey-goosey. Never sure if you got the right gear until you let out the clutch.

I believe that the C-series came with the FT (Ford Truck) version of big blocks. Almost identical to the FE but with a forged crank, different motor mounts and some other smaller differences. The displacements were 361 and 391.

Always love the information Steve has on such a variety of machinery. That would make a great forward control truck with a telephone truck front axle, a 3208 CAT and an Allison 1000 on 54s.

Thanks Steve, I am enjoying the channel!

Mack was actually the first truck manufacturer to use that style cab, known as the "N" series, between 1957-60, until Mack started making their own medium duty cab (The MB series). The cab was made by the Budd Company (the same company that makes steel wheels for cars/trucks & pass cars for trains. Nice to see you getting into more medium/heavy trucks, as there are some really interesting things to learn about (especially the GMC truck engine/transmission combos). Keep up the great work, as I enjoy watching your channel!

I learned the hard way that the free Tag-A-Long camper I needed to remove from a property ASAP had left hand lug bolts which I only figured out after day two when I bought my air compressor and big impact and decided to try tightening to break the rust loose which removed them. Just slightly embarrassing but I got it out and it's now restored by the group that bought it.

I first drove one of these in the Air Force as a de-ice truck. Huge tank on the back with a boom. Knocked snow and ice off of C-5 Galaxy in Dover Delaware. Joined the civilian aviation world and lo and behold...again C600 de-ice trucks.

AMT also offers that kit as a flatbed with wood stake sides and soon coming a c900 garbage refuse truck.

At the rear of the frame that is a hydrovac to boost the power of the hydraulic brakes.

Steve, I get cold just watching you. No jacket every time I watch you and yes I reside in Massachusetts also.

Military aircraft De-ice trucks had these cabs/chassis in the 90's and early 2000's. They were in mint condition as they got used a handful of times each year. I always admired how cool they were.

Get well Steve!!

This guy is so good he's got me watching Jeep and heavy truck videos and I don't even like Jeeps or trucks.

Even in light blue those trucks scream blue and orange Roadway! They are cool trucks

Very first big truck I was introduced to when I was a kid. My dad drove Coors delivery truck when I was young. His boss let him use the truck to move us from our first house. Always been a favorite truck of mine.

My uncles had a Ford cabover wrecker for their garage. I remember the shifter was more of a guessing game than a skill to master! It was a powerful truck, but I think the engine had less than desirable reliability. I can remember at least 2 engine swaps.

A subscriber from Scotland, some Ford transits with heavy duty axles had left hand wheel nuts on that side , up to about 1999/2000.

That truck would be a neat save. I could see it with a shortened wheelbase and an air ride rear suspension added to it, a 12V Cummins or a Duramax under it, and used to pull somebody's RV trailer around the country for vacations.

Thousands of these used as fire trucks back in the day in Canada and the USA

My grandfather's 1956 Ford F-600 also had left hand wheel lug nuts.

Ford FE engines are awsome!

Drove a c800 for a few years. Cool truck

Great info! My 63 Olds Dynamic 88 Holiday also has left handed lug nuts on the driver's side. The 69 Dart I had in high school had the manual window washer pump like that.

That would make a nice classic car hauler

I had a 1983 F350 chassis cab dually which had left hand lug nuts on the driver side rear axle. I also had a 1985 F350 crew cab dually which had regular thread lug nuts all around.

This is so interesting and really important automotive history. This truck would make a great custom project.

That truck would deliver your furniture or appliances purchased at a Sears store. 🤠

I had a 1994 Oshkosh/Gruman step van that still had left hand thread lugs on the left side.

Steve, great video!!!! Love the different cars and trucks you do videos on! One thing I would love to see you do is show us how you are going to protect the great patina on your police car. Myself and I’m sure many more KZfaqrs would like to learn how to go about protecting patina and how to stop a car from deteriorating!! For example my ‘76 CHP Coronet Police car is from CA and is rust free other than the floor plans that I replaced. My goal is to have the engine compartment, underside and interior in mint condition but the body I am leaving alone but I want to preserve the patina of the body. Anyway, thanks for the great videos!!!!

Man I love watching this stuff! Very informative! As always by the master of automotive history!👌😎👍

Love these trucks, I think it would make a great pick-up truck... It looked fairly solid....

My father’s 62 Ford F700 had left handed thread lug nuts.

That booster in the rear is a Hydrovac unit for hydraulic brakes.

I remember when you'd see these things everywhere on the road.

Love these Ford cab overs and the info Steve provided along with it!

Wish there was a junkyard crawl tv show. Each week a different junkyard for a hour. Sounds like pbs.... get Rick Steves to join you. Lol

Love me all cab over trucks, thanks Steve!

I need that cab ever since I saw the streetrod built with one of those cabs setting over the rear axle

We had a sign shop here in town that has one of those old ford cab bucket trucks, it is all yellow with 1960s style Tonka logo decals on the doors....I would smile every time I saw it.

At around the 2:05 minute mark, the sound on my viewing briefly dropped out. Anyone else ?

I’d love to run one of these as a daily - on a shorter frame with a Dually truck bed.

Steve, great video, the information and delivery is spot on! Loved the details on the power plant, would love to see this stretch to say 10 or 15 minutes, really dig into the rig! Awesome episode!

Talking to a big truck guy and looks like this was common (left hand thread) on bigger trucks of all makes.

Rambler & Willys Jeeps also used LH lugs on the drivers side. The lugs on that Ford truck are the Budd wheel system. Medium & heavy duty trucks had either Budd or Dayton type wheels. Budd wheels had 5, 6 or 10 holes. They all used the same nuts. Budds are not exclusive to Ford, all manufacturers used them. Check out the arrangement they used for the duals on the rear axle.

I drove a 75 C600 from 1978 thru 1982 delivering Coke to the U.S. Navy ships in San Diego. My company had a contract. My truck had a 2 speed rear end and a 24 ft box with diamond plate floor. It had 200 k on it when we got it. The shifter in those are sloppy but once you get the hang of it it was no problem. I routinely carried up to 20 thousand pounds which I am sure was overweight. I did only have to drive 15 min with the load though. I wouldn't mind having one now to rat rod.

Left hand threads were common before 1980. The theory was that wheel rotation would tighten the lug nuts.

Always LOVED the look of these Ford COE trucks - definitely an iconic design to kids who grew up in the latter part of the 20th century! One thing that jumped out at me when you opened the cab door is that the high-mounted emergency brake handle bears an eerie resemblance to the emergency brake handles that were found under the dashes of Dodge Sweptline trucks - I wonder if that is merely a coincidence or if there is more to that story……????

a band I worked with had a Ford cabover truck. We called it The Mauler. We painted the front of it to make it look as mean as possible... fun times!

You probably already knew this Steve, but my 66' jeep wagoneer has left hand lugs on the left side. Also keep up the good work. Great content.

I love the C-series trucks, you can easily identify the earlier models by the quad headlights which resemble those of '58-'60 F-series pickups.

Left hand lug nuts on the left or drivers side were a standard feature on all heavy trucks with disc type wheels. As Steve pointed out, this was to keep the wheels from coming loose if they were not fully tightened. In the mid 1980's the industry transitioned from the "stud piloted" ball seat type lug nut which centered the wheel on the hub (still used on most cars) to a "hub piloted" lug nut which have an integral washer built into the lug nut, and all are right hand thread. The 'hub pilot" hubs have locating tabs which center the wheel on the hubs. Going to the hub pilot system also eliminated the inner lug nuts on dual wheeled vehicles. These inner lug nuts used a smaller diameter inner stud coming out of the hub. In practice you would place the inner wheel on the hub and put the inner lugs on and tighten them, then place the outer wheel on and put the outer lugs on and tighten. For a truck with dual wheels using the stud piloted system you needed 4 different lug nuts to secure the wheels onto the truck, LH inner, LH outer, RH inner ,and RH outer. With the hub pilot system you only need the 1 type of lug nut as it is used in all positions. The wheels for stud pilot or hub pilot systems are different and are not interchangeable.

Steve you are awesome your so smart with cars and their history it’s awesome

Left hand lug on the commercial truck which used from late 30 to late 90

361& 391 was the truck motor

That’s not air brakes! Most likely a hydro boost system. I have a lot of miles in these, as a casual local driver for a Roadway barn in Lincoln, R.I. Where they were all gas powered up to the newer replacements, starting in 1985, that came with Cat V8 NA diesel. They all had 5 speed transmission with two speed rears, that were used to pull 28’-53’ dry box trailers, with up to 36,000 lbs of load. They were great as local pickup and delivery trucks, but had no power steering and was a bear to steer! Plus HOT as hell in the summer, with only a thin panel of metal and very basic pad of insulation between the driver and engine/radiator! A real bone shaker with no load. Even with the SD 500+ 4 brl V8 engine, with dual exhaust systems that were a short pipe, muffler and down pipe, sounded great! Had some real power and actually quicker through the gears than the Cat diesel. But got only from TWO GALLONS A MILE, to 2miles a gallon! So in a days local run, in Northern Rhode Island and nearby Mass, a long day was about 100-110 miles, using twin 150 gal gas tanks!! But the biggest issue? Was the shifting mechanism needed, that looked like an engineer’s nightmare, that also had to accommodate the tilting cab! So when new they were incredibly stiff, but as they wore out, became VERY SLOPPY! Where going into 1sr, 3rds and 5th, you had to use an open hand from behind the shift knob, to prevent from punching the steel dashboard, with the side to side gate ending up more of an accustomed guess!

That could be a sweet camper

Man oh man, that COE easily fetch $294K as it sits. Unreal

Fun Fact, the cab was not manufactured by Ford, it was contract built by the Budd company. Budd also sold that same cab to Mack trucks inc. and they used it on their line as well. The only difference is that the Mack version had dual headlights. Ford, incensed with Budd for selling them the cab, threatened to sue Budd and Mack to have them stop using it since Ford had used it first and was currently using it when that happened.

Another one of those vehicles that used to be everywhere, but now are few and far between.

I was watching a rebuild of a heavy truck on Pakistani Trucks and noticed that the lug nuts on the left side were left hand thread. I think it was a Hino dump truck with double rear axles. Seems to be still used on heavier trucks to this day. (I did have them on my '65 Polara)

Most older truck and over the road tractors that use modern one-piece disc wheel were lug-piloted and they are all like this, it does not matter what the make is. I still see plenty if Peterbilt, Kenworth, Freightliner, etc that use lug piloted wheels and if they are a bud wheel, a two-piece lugnut set is used. Hub piloted wheels have taken their place for the most part. The star wheel you mention is called a Dayton.

Love the tilt cabs. We had a GMC for a grain truck on the farm. Would like to find one again.

Morning Steve, the "star" type wheels you mentioned are called Dayton wheels.....

these had one latch in the middle of the rear and on each side up front coil springs so you could lift the cab by hand. had a driver tell me he got his truck from the shop after a service and appearantly the latch was not properly latched right. rode around most of the day then had someone pull out in front of him. laid on the brakes and the cab flipped. he was in the seat staring at the ground.

Hey dude, I smashed that thumbs up for y'all, I been watching you and Mike for years. Thanks for the video

Those are for left-handed geniuses

You know your stuff!!

That would make a nice car hauler.

The old Budd cab, also used by Mack, and I believe FWD. Wonder if that Brigadier in the background had a 2 stroke Detroit...

Have you ever noticed more modern trucks like garbage trucks, maybe even some busses have arrows on each lug nut, so at a glance you can tell if they're alright. I remember 30+ years ago seeing a school bus lose a wheel, it rolled right at us in a 1st gen Caravan/Voyager. It was low speed so no one got hurt but that wheel bounced off at least one car.

There's a LOOOOOT of misunderstanding about the body(understandably so) - it's a *Ford body* that was manufactured for Ford by Budd, and the body was licensed by Ford to some other manufacturers like FWD. Mack was a lil different because they bought the body stampings and assembled the cab themselves with their own floorpan. Iconic medium/big truck design from the Ford studios. Dreaming of taking one of these things, probably just putting the cab on a newer medium duty chassis, and building a race car hauler outta one - gotta be one of those extended fire truck cabs though, for the cool factor of course! Probably just build it into a flat bed tow rig and pull a trailer for the race car... but C-series ramp trucks ARE pretty sick, can haul the car on the truck and just tow a small box trailer for tools/pit equip. Custom suspension with air bags all around of course, we want it to 'look' old, not 'feel' old lol. Could go with a number of engine options, classic 5.9 Cummins of course, could go with a Cat 3126/C7 7.2l common medium duty engine, DT466 would work, a DT444/7.3l Powerstroke would be pretty cool to keep it "Ford", or the new 7.3l 'Godzilla', especially with the 10R140 10 speed, would be a really cool "all Ford" option. If we really wanted to get wild, 6.8l V10 baby(BTW, check out the 'Build It Yourself' channel, they welded 4v heads together to make a 4v 6.8l V10)! Might be the least logical engine option, but damn it it would be a cool ass combo!!! Manual trans is the most fun of course, but man is it hard to beat these newer big truck autos(especially that damn 10 speed, game changer).

When I work for N.Y.C. HEALTH & HOSPITAL WE HAD C-600. WITH INLINE 6CYL. 300 C.I.

I just LOVE cabovers. I know they’re not very safe and they’re an asspain to work on and all that, but I wish they were still a thing on any kind of scale. So cool.

Hey, the dip in the window at the front for the little adjustable window is a pretty cool design. I thought the Super Duties in the late 90s were the first ones to kind of come up with that look but in fact they were harping back to this

Hi Steve, I'm from Wales UK and I have recently discovered your channel and I'm really enjoying your content as I have been getting into American cars and trucks for a few years now, they have some really interesting vehicles in this yard and I really like the look of this FORD truck. I'm subbing to your channel and I look forward to seeing more of your great video's.

Mack and FWD used those cabs as well. That is a 361FT, based on the FE, but lots of differences for heavy truck applications.

Most trucks have left hand threads on the left side, right hand threads on right side

That's a nice ol' Truck. I've been seeking to purchase an ol' Truck project. Although, but just don't have the Funds to Haul it to Deep South Carolina. Then I need to look at a project much closer.

I think AMT also made a Pepsi Cola model version of this truck. the FT series of engines (ford truck) had the last digit of displacement changed to a 1 so they would be not confused with the FE (Ford Edsel or Ford Engine or FE for all the cast iron, take your pick). The other benefit of cab-over engine design is more cargo space in states where wheelbase is restricted.

I'd build that as a Ford Drag Team hauler. Imagine how many times a driver would stomp on the gas and instead cleaned his windshield.

And if you ever hit something head on it's sitting in your lap. I drove one of these for a number of years, a 78 model. We had it a pumper in our volunteer fire department. On that one we hall kinds of shifter issues with it and had to get rid of it because of it.

This would look great as a pickup!