You know what’s wrong with all of your vehicle choices for post-apocalyptic future? They all need specific fuel. Sure, there will be military reserve depots to raid or maybe you could set up a biodiesel or ethanol setup, but these all leave you tied to a specific location. It’s only a matter of time before the democrats Mongols bondage-clad bikers Russians they amass a large enough force to take your fuel fortress.
Where am I going with this? The point is, you need a vehicle that can run on anything, man…
Such is the case with this 1949 Ford F6 pickup. It’s steam-powered, meaning all you need is something flammable and water to keep it running. The setup definitely has a post-apocalyptic industrial scraps feel to it. According to the seller:
They also removed the V8 engine cylinder heads, pistons, connecting rods, camshaft, valve lifters and valves and left the original Ford crankshaft in place. They then bolted an adapter plate to the top of each cylinder bank. To each adapter plate is bolted a medium sized vertical single cylinder double acting steam engine. These engines appear to be identical and were made by the E. H. Wachs Company of Chicago, Illinois most likely about eighty to a hundred years ago. Each steam engine has a large roller chain sprocket on the crankshaft with a chain running down to a corresponding sprocket on the front of the Ford V8 engine.
The original Ford V8 engine basically acts as a mount for the 2 steam engines and a means of adapting the power from the 2 steam engines to the stock Ford clutch, 4 speed transmission and the rest of the drive train of the truck. The man who did this conversion evidently realized that a fire tube boiler anywhere large enough to supply both engines would be quite heavy and bulky and I suspect that is likely why he started with a truck that was large enough to haul the pair of engines, the boiler, the boiler feed water pump, the water tanks, the fuel tank and all of the rest of the plumbing, hardware and controls necessary to make this beast run and move. I saw a Model T Ford that someone made a very feeble attempt to convert to steam power several years ago and this truck is light years ahead of that Model T in terms of engineering and design.
The vertical fire tube boiler mounted near the center of the truck bed was built by the Eclipse Fuel Engineering Company wherever they were located about 80 to 100 years ago. I am not an expert when it comes to steam power so I don’t have much more to say about this boiler. I have no idea as to what condition it is in and when it was last inspected by any state boiler inspector. It appears that the original grates have been removed and replaced with a steel plate with a pair of burners installed in the plate. There is a removable smoke stack about 10″ in diameter by about 4′ long laying on the back of the truck to the right of the boiler.
It goes on from there. Anyway, hit up the listing on eBay Motors, if you want to be among the living in they come…
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