1954 Ford F100

Nemesis

Brothers Bond
The award winning “Nemesis” F-100
By Rick Federmeyer
From classic trucks magazine June 2005

My brother Michael was my best friend, and we always shared the same interest in cars, especially street rods and customs. I can remember when we used to walk to the bus stop in the morning for school; we used to pass a ’53 F-1—in front of a guy’s house that mike just fell in love with. He always vowed to someday have a truck just like it. High school came and went, and mike had some really nice cars. It seemed like his were always super clean, while mine were never even close to finished. Mike continued to have nice cars, but finding the right F-100 always eluded him. That is, until he bought this truck in 1990.

Mike called me at my shop in eastern Washington and said he found a clean ’54 and all it needed was paint. He wanted it to be pretty much stock looking except for the drive train and its stance. I talked him into a Volare front end and a few other mods, but nothing really outrageous. He insisted that I do no body mods or fancy stripes. Well you know what happens when those creative juices start to flow. Every time he came to visit from western Washington, there were some new mods to the body and he actually liked them – frenched antenna, third brake, smooth running boards, and lots of little things. The truck was finished in 1994, and he loved his F-100 until I went back to work with Chris Odom and the crew at Extreme Metal and Paint. We had been working on a ’51 Chevy truck that became known as “Talon.” We built a really cool box for that truck and did some other mods to the body. Mike was always stopping by the shop and watched the project to its end. He asked Chris and me what it would take to make his Effie stand out from the rest. We said, “A lot of money and about six months.” He didn’t know if he could be without his truck that long, so he said he would think about it.

The next thing I knew, Mike was gone. My parents thought that the only person who could take care of his beloved truck was myself, so I started taking it to shows in memory of my brother. I think a year went by when Chris and I took the truck to work one morning and I stopped to get some coffee. As I was pulling away from the coffee stand, I ran over a curb and crushed the right front fender bottom. I had planned to fix the fender and keep driving the truck, but Chris and some friends talked me into totally re-working the whole truck.

I never cared for how fat F-100s looked, so I started cutting the truck cab down to a slimmer size. I started with suicide doors and a 4-inch slice out of the body, and then the hood got a 5-4 wedge cut from it. I built my won tilt hood setup and modified the grille and valance to give it a more aggressive look. Most F-100 guys can’t believe that I cut up those deluxe grille bars and installed the turn signals in them, but I think they look factory. After the cab was back in one piece, I chopped the roof 4 inches in the rear and 5 in the front. The rear window area was cut 3 inches above the window and 1 inch below, which lined up the rear glass with the rest of the cab glass. The big reason we sectioned the cab and dropped the rear window was to thin down the area below the rear window and above the box. I left the seam in the roof above the rear window; this made the top look lower than it actually is. I also split the cowl side louvers in half during the section job – just to lend to that “where-did-they-cut-this-thing” look. Chris and I really tried hard to make everything look as factory as possible, and I think we nailed it. The firewall came next; I cut out the original and bent up a new one our of 16-gauge steel, and I ended up with 4 inches of extra legroom. This helped with the usual loss of space when you section and chop a truck.

The dash was kind of a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants deal. I knew I wanted it to wrap into the door, so I curt the dash our and moved it away from the windshield 5 inches. I t grew in width about 3 inches as it came back. As I was holding the passenger half in my hands, Chris saw that I was holding my half at an angle and decided that was pretty cool-looking, so that’s where it stayed. Making the compound curve in the middle of the dash was a little tricky; thank God for the English wheel and blandishing hammer. The gauge insert is from an Acura Integra. After a little cutting, I go it to fit the F-100 dash and managed to make all the gauges to work with the Ford gear. I made the console, which houses two air pressure and one oil pressure gauge, the Lokar shifter, and the Pioneer head unit. Eight momentary switches running across the bottom operate the airbags. The power brake booster and mast cylinder are under the dash. I designed my own bell crank system that puts the master cylinder right behind the glovebox. The glove box was built by my younger brother, Patrick, and is almost as big as the original despite the proximity of the master cylinder.

We didn’t like the way the stock F-100 box looked with the new cab dimensions, so I looked for something else. I found the ’02 F-150 Supercrew flanks and gate at the nearby Monroe swap meet for 75 bucks. Chris and I figured that for that price, if it didn’t work, we could throw it away. Well, it took two years of wok and research to pull it off, but I think it makes the truck definitely stand out from the rest. In short, the original F-150 wheel opening was moved back 4 inches to center it on the bed, and the frame of the F-100 was cut and moved forward to cent the wheel in its new wheel opening. Then a buck was made for the F-1—fender blisters and grafted to the F-150 flanks. I built my own roll pan; Chris blended everything together and presto! One ’54-02 Lightning box! I built the inner panels out of sheet metal, and the bead rolls match the design on the firewall exactly.

I built the front suspension using my own crossmember and Heidt’s control arms and spindles. The rear-end is a Lincoln with attaching points form the triangulated four-link, fabbed by myself. Little details in the frame are small iron crosses in the motor mounts and sway bar mounting points in the rear end area. Most of the frame was checked infav0or of 2X4 and 2X3 tubing. The frame was also Z’d 2 inched in the front and rear, and then ‘bagged using the same ’84 Lincoln components. It will lay on its running board braces before the body can hit the ground.

After everything was put together for final fit, we had Mike Lavalee from KillerPaint.com come to the shop and give us a hand with the stripe design and where colors would go. We then took the whole thing apart and started the final body work and panel fitment. I started work on rebuilding the 5.0 Mustang motor. It was built with the same specs as Ford’s GT-40 crate motor only with a little warmer cam. While I finished work on the drive train, Chris got the body painted. We had mike Lavalee come back and do some trick faux wood and iron cross airbrush wok on the doors and firewall. Mike made it look like the iron crosses are floating inside the sheet metal. He also painted the “Nemesis” name plate on the tailgate and the iron cross I made in my brothers memory.

Showing up Friday night at Goodguys was the most remarkable thing I ever did. As soon as it entered the show area, it was swamped with spectators. I think my brother would have been proud. It was always a dream of his to have the truck that would cause such a ruckus, and I think Chris and I pulled it off. So, I guess this is my little “thank you” for being such an awesome brother. Thanks Mike, and I hope you like your truck!