Without a doubt, Ford’s 9-inch axle assembly has been the No. 1 choice for a performance rearend for a long time. The reasons were obvious enough—they were strong, plentiful, and affordable. A wide range of gear ratios was available, and the Hotchkiss-style dropout center section made gear changes relatively easy, especially when compared to axles that used integral carriers, like the Dana and 12-bolt Chevy.

Tony Brothers is a truck guy. When he’s not building a truck for himself, he’s horse trading for trucks he likes. Buying a truck and making a few changes can be a rewarding way to own some really cool hot rod haulers. His most recent acquisition is this 1981 Chevrolet C10, and much like Tony, we are impressed at how well these ’73-87 trucks take to some pretty traditional hot rod tricks.

Father’s Day is coming up fast and while there are a lot of options on what you could go out and get him, if your dad is a gearhead, you might want to take a look at Eastwood’s Father’s Day Gift Guide. This year Eastwood’s Father’s Day Gift guide will be featuring over 90 items from tools to restoration paints. Items range in price from $25 to $100.

When Samuel Washington decided to build a vintage F-100 he had a pretty good vision of the finished product. Being a fan of the Ford F-150 Harley-Davidson trucks of the recent past, Washington couldn’t help but wonder what the Harley-Davidson Special Edition might have looked like were it produced in 1966. In particular, the Night Train Harley Davidson was appealing, and so after locating a good 1966 Ford F-100 Samuel set about completing his vision.

Floridians rejoice! You did it. The bill to eliminate the Ethanol requirement in fuel was passed by Florida Governor Rick Scott. The law was signed into legislation to repeal the requirement that all gas in the state contain a percentage of ethanol. This is much better for cars because the corrosive effects of ethanol over time are damaging to engine components. Life span of vehicles that do not take ethanol fuel can be dramatically reduced. We want to thank you all for your participation in helping this go through.

This mid-'50s "down in the weeds" Ford F-100 was spotted on a road trip to Northern Michigan near a small town called Onekama (pop. 647). The town's name comes from an Indian word for portage. The truck is just off the highway, sitting across from a house with a carport that protects a fishing boat, Onekama having two lakes and in close proximity to Lake Michigan. The Ford was shot with a 300mm telephoto lens, from a distance. It's a nostalgia thing for me as our family's first new farm truck was a red 1953 F-100, for which we paid $1,500.

The 1947-1987 Chevy & GMC Truck Show & Shine is known for fun, food, live music and sweet rides. This year at the 15th Annual 1947-1987 Chevy & GMC Truck Show & Shine, the show will revisit the Canyon R.V. Park in Anaheim, California on June 30th, 2013. All Chevrolet & GMC models from 1947-1987 will be accepted into the show and you can register Here.

For Hilton Vail, it all started on the family farm, where he got his driver’s license at age 14 and owned his first hot rod—a ’40 Ford two-door sedan—at age 15. Ten years of fast street cars were followed by 28 years of oval track modified race cars. When Hilton stopped racing in 1990, he had amassed a pretty good collection of serious go-fast parts, the perfect fuel for a lifelong gearhead who loves to design and fabricate “things that vary from the norm,” as he describes it.

After getting our ’64 Chevy home and checking it out from end to end we were convinced it was a solid truck. Sure, the floors need some work, and it has the usual assortment of small dings and dents old trucks collect. And then there was an odd little rust hole in the front of the hood, but it didn’t appear to be too serious. Since fixing the hood appeared to be the easiest repair to make we started on it first, little did we know what was in store.

Whoever said, “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry,” might have been working on a custom truck project at the time. In fact Charlie Lewis, the owner/builder of this ’48 Chevy 3100 ½-ton, might have said it a few times during the course of the project. From start to finish, the truck changed shops, changed owners, and changed direction.

Growing up hot rodders, there are certain “rites of passage” we all undertake, and at some point, we all delve into George Lucas’ masterpiece about a bunch of kids, cars, and cruising: American Graffiti. Although there are several iconic scenes from the movie, perhaps none is better than when the Pharaohs show up. For any hot rodder, the Pharaohs personified who we wished we could be, and more importantly, what we could get away with! Yet, for guys like Dennis Reeves of Oklahoma City, it was just another reminder of a chance encounter more than 50 years ago.

People are turned on to hobbies and pastimes in all sorts of ways. Through some sort of explainable and not-so-explainable osmosis, the idea of something implants itself into our brains and takes hold for good. For those in the hot rod community who prefer beds to trunks, the source often stems from fathers and grandfathers.

I’ll be the first to admit that I take any and every chance that I get to tease, berate, degrade, embarrass, or otherwise humiliate my coworkers when it comes to their projects ’round the tech center. But having said that, I’m usually not the first, nor the meanest when it comes down to the friendly badgering that takes place regularly in the shop. I am also not immune to being on the receiving end, rest assured! It usually starts off friendly enough until one of us is yelling at the other about being thrown under the bus, not knowing how to do something, or worse yet, doing something half-, ahem, heartedly.

There are a number of arguments as to why it’s a good idea to move a stock, cab-located fuel tank to an alternate location. Safety, comfort, and space probably being the top three. But there are a few other things to consider as well that just might convince you why it’s not just a good idea, but a great idea.

We all know hot trucks are cool. On the other hand, trucks that run hot aren’t cool. There’s nothing worse than steam coming out from under the hood of your prized pickup while boiling coolant pours onto the ground. Overheating can be an inconvenience or a catastrophe depending on when and where, and to what degree (no pun intended) overheating takes place. But the fact is, with a properly designed cooling system, overheating should not be a problem.

Some of the biggest complaints from any truck owner still utilizing the stock suspension components are likely to stem from the steering system. The old worm and sector boxes under many an old truck are especially susceptible to poor performance given their requirement for regular maintenance and adjustment over the years, which was seldom performed. This results in a box with a ton of play, tight spots, and an overall unsafe situation. Over the years, the options were few and far between. Either you replaced the box completely with another used box or you did what a number of other truck owners had done and simply lived with it. Neither option was really a solution as the replacement box was likely just as bad as the original and that’s if you could even find one as the sources dried up over the years.

While having a nice weekend ride is good, it’s always nice to wake up in the morning and have your good ol’ reliable daily driver at your side to get you from point A to B. Folks who have newer cars would have been able to appreciate Colorado’s new legislation that was approved by the appropriations committee and moved to the senate floor, however, bill S.B. 257 in Colorado failed in the House after the legislature adjourned for the year.

OPTIMA Batteries will be teaming up with Golden State Foods and partnering with ChumpCar race participants to give children the bike building experience of a lifetime. On May 26, 2013, Build-A-Bike will be taking place at the Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona Beach, Florida.

The Eastwood Company just celebrated 35 years of high performance DIY-auto restoration! Eastwood was started in 1978 and pioneered the DIY-auto restoration world, which allowed home-builders the accessibility they needed to get tools and chemicals.

The use of alternative fuel – like Ethanol - is on the rise and gaining popularity. However, if you’re current project is not equipped to handle this unconventional fuel, overtime; the fuel can corrode metals, plastics and even rubber fuel lines. Fuel systems and even internal components need to be upgraded in order to handle the different fuel efficiently. Currently, Florida is allowing an Ethanol-blend of fuel (9-10 percent) at a majority of pumps. To ease pain at the pumps, SEMA has announced its support of a new bill (H.B. 4001), which will help eliminate Ethanol and other alternatives from its pumped-fuel.

Parked alongside the road in Niles, Michigan, is this late-’50s big-window Dodge ½-ton pickup. Surface rust abounds and no glass is visible in the windows.

I’ve hauled giant sacks of gravel, enough lumber to build a patio, rolls of sod for the entire backyard, and bags of concrete too numerous to count. An E-Z Up, two bikes, an ice chest, a foor jack, every tool in my toolbox, and enough luggage for two grown men for a week (that’s two pairs of underwear, an extra pair of socks, and whatever shirts were on sale at the SCTA booth!) all ft nicely back there on the trip to Bonneville; even had a little extra room to bring home some souvenirs. And the fact that my truck had an 8-foot bed made most of this possible.

The older you get, the more you cling to things from your youth. Sometimes it's enough to sit down and watch a movie from your childhood that came on TV or hang out with some friends from high school and reminisce about the mischief you used to get into. Other times you want to have something tangible. Many of us regret getting rid of a car or truck from our youth, be it whether it was by obligation or choice at the time, and later start thinking about what it'd be like to have that vehicle again and do the things to it we couldn't when we had it originally. Jim Stone of Alto Pass, Illinois, is one of those guys who wanted to catch up with his youth and relive those good times once more.

Shortening the frame of a longbed truck down to the specs of a shortbed isn't exactly a new idea, in fact, we've even done just that in years' past. But with the availability of shortbed trucks drying up or going for big dollars while longbed trucks can be had for pennies on the dollar, it's a good thing to revisit from time to time to remind people that there are other options than spending $12k on a starter truck.

When it comes to updating the front suspension of Chevy pickups there are a host of options to choose from, so we thought long and hard about what to put under our latest acquisition, a '64 C10 Fleetside. As it often happens, the more we thought about what we wanted, the more we wanted-a sentiment echoed by readers responding to our thoughts on such things in the January issue of CCT.