The Cluster Truck
1965 FORD F100 BUILD PAGE BY MIKE·THURSDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2017·
My first pickup truck was a 1966 Ford F-100 Custom Cab. That truck had a 240 cubic inch 6-cylinder engine, a 3-speed manual three-on-the-tree transmission, and manual everything-else. The brakes were worn out, the rear axle leaked, and the driver’s side window would occasionally fall off it’s tracks and into the door
. There was no air conditioning in that beast, making it a hot and sweaty ride during the 10 months of summer in Houston, Texas. Sometimes I would drive around town with the radio off and windows down just feel and hear every clunk it made. The steering was so vague that constant correction was needed to keep it in one lane of the road. Every part of this old truck had a nuance to it. The previous owner painted it a lovely shade of turd brown. The rear axle blew out. The brake drums were past their useful life. I had to rebuild the cylinder head - outside - during the coldest winter blast that I can remember. Then one day in 1985, I decided it was time to move on. I bought my first new vehicle ever, another pickup truck. A brand-spanking new 1985 Ford F-150 XLT. It had A/C! The old ‘66 sat there in the parking lot. I’d start her up every now and then, and one day she didn’t. A few weeks later I posted it for sale in the Houston Greensheet, and a few days later someone came and bought it for 400 dollars. It was kind of a sad day, but a new truck payment meant there was no money to fix an old truck. I drove the ‘85 for 17 years. In 2002 I traded the ‘85 for a 2000 Ford F-150 Super Cab, which I still drive to this day. Can’t be without a pickup truck. There’s things to haul and trailers to tow. Can’t do that with a car. Fast forward to 2014, I noticed that there were a lot of old trucks back on the road. In particular, old 60’s Ford F100’s. I have a ‘66 Mustang that I bought in 1997, and still own, but this old truck thing was starting to itch again. I had to have another old Ford truck. I searched and searched for about a year and found the ‘65 F-100 one day in a Craigslist ad. It didn’t run, it stunk, it needed everything rebuilt. It was hauled home on a trailer to begin it’s new life. I’d never named a vehicle. Thought it was kind of silly. Then I was reading something in a post or a blog one day and the question was “What did you name your truck?” I replied to the post with “Cluster Truck”. And so the story begins with a photo history and descriptions of what’s been done to the Cluster Truck to get her back on the road. Not a full restoration or anything new or that hasn’t been done before, but every build has it’s own uniqueness to it. Pieced together with parts from whatever worked. I consider it artwork. Automotive artwork. Enjoy.
