How many of these were made?
 

I spoke to a gentleman today about a
Ford truck he has that he wants to sell me. Can anyone tell me how many of these tandems were made? I wanted 1 of these trucks for along time to make a rollback out of. Is this military? Thank u for any help or any pictures of the same truck that maybe some here might own. He couldn't tell me if it was air brakes? Would someone know possibly the weight of this monster? Many thanks

Re: How many of these were made?
 

Nice photo. Do you have one of the truck also?

Re: How many of these were made?
 

if its military, they all came with a data plate, usually on the glove box door or on the dash. data plate will give weight, load capacity, government ID #(g number=for parts referance) and related manuals. you dont give much of a picture to guess off of. most tandems of that size in that era will not have drive to both axles,but again hard to say from the photo. crawl under it, drive shaft to both axles? air brake lines (hoses and air chambers), or regular hydraulic lines?

Re: How many of these were made?
 

Air brakes i doubt. The ones i have seen were aftermarket conversions. The last one i looked at had a tag from a company called Truckstell . Not 100% if the spelling is correct. For the suspension between the drive axle and the ad on tag axle there was a large roller chain and a sprocket fixed to the frame rail. The ends of the leafs were the shackle would have been is were the roller chain was fix. There were a few different types.

We had a 54 ford F600 that started as a single axle and was converted to a very odd full screw tandem with a 2 speed power divider. We also had a 55 ford T750 which was a factory tandem with Hendrickson suspension air brakes. 5 and 4 transmission with power steering.

Re: How many of these were made?
 

Here's a thread with good info. For one thing, no factory tandems until '54.
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/14...-toy-home.html

Re: How many of these were made?
 

When they are military, you can always tell. They have tags for everything. The G8T had military style instrumentation (separate gauges), guards over the headlamps, blank stampings on the fenders where the park lights go on civilian models, and very long windshield supports so it can be opened all the way up plus a lot of other sort of spartan comparisons to civilian models. They were also all 6-cylinder models hence the "G" in the model designation. It might also stand for "Government" but the sixes were also G models. Ford made the big twin engine jobs that were on a COE platform for pulling really heavy loads like B-24 parts. One of those would be neat to have but they didn't have many of them made up.

Re: How many of these were made?
 

It could be a Thornton drive rear end?

Re: How many of these were made?
 

Agree, that or Warford Sextette, provided it is a twin screw. Could be a tag axle, either commercially made or homegrown. As to the comment about military Fords having separate round gauges, that only came into play in 1942 when Uncle Sam wanted to standardize things. Prior to that, military vehicles came with the manufacturers own dash.

Re: How many of these were made?
 

The G8T was first manufactured in 1942 model year. Prior vehicles were different models for lend lease so I agree they didn't change them much.