The Slick as Daily Driver - an Experiment

[65 F100 CC]

My 65 is my daily driver and has been since I bought 4 years ago. I drive it 180 miles to knoxville every year to the F100 Nationals and plan on driving it wherever I need to go. My steering box is allowing some play which makes for some good white knuckle action, but am working on that by putting PS under her.

About the attention she brings....A girl showed me a picture she took of my truck using her cell phone, an elderly lady commented on it and nurmerous thumbs up reminds me that the Slicks are a good looking truck. Makes you proud to be a Slick owner, no matter what shape she is in.

Mark.

[blackagatha]

Rob, you should not put up with brakes like that in ANY vehicle, be it a daily driver or just a show truck. I can tollerate all opinions about gas tanks, seat belts, lights and steering.

But brakes should work. I agree with Iceman -- you don't need disc brakes, but you do need a good double pot master cylinder and if you are keeping the drums, you need to learn how to maintain them. Properly adjusted, a drum brake will stop just as fast as a disk brake -- once or twice till it gets hot. But all you need for normal driving is once or twice.

I drive my 65 to work now and then when one of the other vehicles needs a day in the shop. At first I was a little scared, but I've gotten used to it. I can lock all four wheels, with non-power brakes, on dry pavement. No ABS, but it doesn't whip around, so the proportioning valve must be about right.

Really, consider fixing those brakes -- it may not be YOUR backside that gets hurt if you are ever called upon to use them and they fail...... Other people are out there and they assume that you have modern brakes -- that might be dumb of them, but most places, the fellow that rearends someone else is at fault.....

I think this has been quoted quite enough already, but as far as I am concerned, the brakes are just about the most important part of the whole truck. It's great if you can go fast, but can you stop it?

I see no reason to install power brakes, I can lock the brakes too easy as it is. I would ONLY install P.B. if I could find some sort of ABS system that could be adapted.

Granted, these trucks are obviously innately hazardous, but as I learned to drive in it, I got over the hang-ups of it quick. WELL, I DID immediately install some over-engineered seatbelts, a dual pot MC, and self-adjusting brakes all around, then a few years later, front disks.

Sway Bars front and back make it handle pretty well, would handle better if it was 4-6 inches lower. Have never knowingly experienced bump-steer.

The front straight beam has about the most perfect alignment my dad has ever seen on anything...

PS is in the gameplan, but may be a few more years before it happens. grr. I'm not coming up with any simple methods. everything needs major alteration...