Sweptline.ORG

Hey everyone, I'm looking at buying a 1970 W300 EX-Volunteer Fire Truck. It has just over 12K original miles on it and has no rust on the body or frame. It's 4wd and comes with a plow set up and all of the original lights and sirens. It starts right up and drives fine. The only thing this truck should need is a fresh coat of paint and a new muffler. what are these trucks valued at in the condition described? Also, it has a 4speed manual trans, but the guy that's selling it says he's not 100% sure what size motor is in it... how can I tell what it has?

On the size of the motor, if its a slant six its pretty easy to tell. On the V8s, if the distributor is in the back of the engine, its a small block V8 (more than likely a 318, if the valve cover has crease on top of the valve cover and it comes to a point in the middle its more than likely a "poly" 318...they were also originally painted orange.....regular 318s had solid, flat/no design valve cover and were blue, and i think some were even red), if the distributor is in the front of the engine, its a big block (most big blocks in these trucks were 383 i believe, some may be 361 or 413....dont recall seeing or hearing alot about the 413s though but they do exist)

Sounds like a pretty sweet truck, most of the rust issues with these trucks are with the rocker panels (door step pads), and the cowl areas (firewall). Finding a rust free truck is a pretty awesome feat, but the bigger trucks are usually easier to find rust free, or with less than regular rust and they usually have lower miles....especially the "service" trucks like forrest ranger trucks and firetrucks and graintrucks.

Pictures would be a good help on determining value, other guys will be better at determining value on the bigger trucks than me. Also, before you buy it, test the brakes. With that low of miles, and being that old, that trucks has had alot of sittin around time.

$5k-$10k depending.

Don't be so quick to paint, it may polish and wax up really well. I would love to find a nice W300 on this coast one day. Consider the fact that everything we find over here is usually rusty. Getting that same truck across the country in the same condition would be much more expensive to ship. If it's close by, do your best to get it assuming you want it.

Pictures!

start with the data tag, and provide or examine the details from it. Does it have 4.88s/5.87s?

SRW or DRW, 9ft bed or fire body, 1000 holes drilled everywhere, wiring splices, etc?

Finding a truly rust free Sweptline is nearly impossible. Post some photos, and the info on the data tag....

Sound nice...fire trucks usually are but also come with some of the above mentioned

AAA

uknowwho wrote:Hey everyone, I'm looking at buying a 1970 W300 EX-Volunteer Fire Truck. It has just over 12K original miles on it and has no rust on the body or frame. It's 4wd and comes with a plow set up and all of the original lights and sirens. It starts right up and drives fine. The only thing this truck should need is a fresh coat of paint and a new muffler. what are these trucks valued at in the condition described? Also, it has a 4speed manual trans, but the guy that's selling it says he's not 100% sure what size motor is in it... how can I tell what it has?

If possible, take some pics and post them up. Also, get the information from the
VIN tag which should be affixed to the driver's door frame. You'll
want to lift up the floor mats and thoroughly inspect the floorboards for rust. There
are a few other hot spots for rust such as the cowl area, inner & outer rocker panels,
front & rear cab mounts, bottoms of fenders.... and the list goes on. Being a "retired"
VFD truck, it was probably washed a million times and water eventually finds its way
into the cowl vent boxes, roof line above the visors and under the rubber floor mat
to be "captured" and held in the jute insulation. We've all seen "Very Minimal Rust"
Sweptlines...... but I doubt a "No Rust" example exists. The one you're looking at
will hopefully prove to be clean with that amount of miles on it. I'm thinking that the
engine [V8?] would be the LA318 [distributor behind carburetor] or the 383 big block
[distributor in front of carburetor]. It'll likely have the NP435 4 speed tranny and 4.88
gears in the axles. With 4.88s, you're not going anywhere too fast. These trucks
were meant to be crawling around in brush/fields, etc. and were geared accordingly.
The good thing is that it will be equipped with 8 lug drums which still exist in the parts
aftermarket, last I knew.
John

Hobcobble wrote:

uknowwho wrote:The good thing is that it will be equipped with 8 lug drums which still exist in the parts
aftermarket, last I knew.
John

NOT the front drums.

PwrWgnDrvr wrote:

Hobcobble wrote:

uknowwho wrote:The good thing is that it will be equipped with 8 lug drums which still exist in the parts
aftermarket, last I knew.
John

NOT the front drums.

im curious to ask this, but would replacing the outer hubs on the front axle with Chevy disc hubs work? I've seen it done on a 44 and a mechanic i know said its the easiest and the parts are cheap. What do you guys know bout it?

PwrWgnDrvr wrote:

Hobcobble wrote:

uknowwho wrote:The good thing is that it will be equipped with 8 lug drums which still exist in the parts
aftermarket, last I knew.
John

NOT the front drums.

Good to know Terry!
John

Seff wrote:
im curious to ask this, but would replacing the outer hubs on the front axle with Chevy disc hubs work? I've seen it done on a 44 and a mechanic i know said its the easiest and the parts are cheap. What do you guys know bout it?

I know it works on a Dana 44 like you mentioned. I guess someone would have to compare axles.

Obviously, the dana 70 front axle tubes, hubs, shafts, etc, are much larger dia, so stuff that fits a 44 will not fit a 70.

Don't forget about International 1 tons
axle has ujoints very heavy duty
but it's a dana 70

Seff wrote: im curious to ask this, but would replacing the outer hubs on the front axle with Chevy disc hubs work? I've seen it done on a 44 and a mechanic i know said its the easiest and the parts are cheap. What do you guys know bout it?

Here's Glenn's answer. There is hope for those who are looking for a
W300 or already own one.
John

if it has power brakes it will stop that beast on a dime. wihtout power brakes it will stop great too if brakes are adjusted correctly but with heavy loads it might take lots of pedal pressure. I would not spend the money on the disks I would just ad power brakes and be done. I thinkthe fronts are 14.125 and rears 13s. not small brakes by anymeans.

Keep in mind that Dodge used that Dana 70 front through 1974, on all W300's & select (usually winch equipt) W200's. Same drum set-up.
Kaegi is correct, drums can be just as effective as discs, they just don't have the ability to make hard stops repeatedly in a short period of time w/o being allowed to cool.
I even was able to avoid an accident last week in my drum equipt giant W600.
Discs brakes have sorta spoiled modern drivers. We're used to driving a vehicle 3-4 yrs w/o thinking about brake maintnance. Back before the 70's brakes were routinely looked at same as spark plugs, oil changes & points replacements.
bucky

712edf wrote:Keep in mind that Dodge used that Dana 70 front through 1974, on all W300's & select (usually winch equipt) W200's. Same drum set-up.
Kaegi is correct, drums can be just as effective as discs, they just don't have the ability to make hard stops repeatedly in a short period of time w/o being allowed to cool.
I even was able to avoid an accident last week in my drum equipt giant W600.
Discs brakes have sorta spoiled modern drivers. We're used to driving a vehicle 3-4 yrs w/o thinking about brake maintnance. Back before the 70's brakes were routinely looked at same as spark plugs, oil changes & points replacements.
bucky

no wonder why drivers have been getting worse and worse im 20 years young and i know how to work on disc brakes, but ive seen drums torn down, but what is the difference between drums and disc?

Drums heat from repeated use & expand, moving AWAY from the shoe (pad), thus the brakes fade.
Discs (rotors) also heat & expand from repeated use, but move CLOSER to the pads. They don't fade but can overheat.
Bucky

disks tend to be lower maintenance too. but if the drums are the right size they work just as good. if they didnt work good the semi trucks would have converted to disk 50 years ago yet most still run drum. many older cars had too small of drum systems. like chevies, pontic, ford, dodge. but when you look at the old Chrysler, Buick, cadiallc, Lincold brakes those drums were huge and worked really well. Chrysler even offered disk brakes from 1950 to 1955 or so but they were too touchy for the drivers of the day. and they had alot of parts and were expensive to work on. they like an old aircraft ineternally expanding set up. the pads pushed out against 2 rotors instead of clamping down on one like most disk brakes. Very simliar to the Kinmont disk brakes of the rat rod world.