I bought a new SWB F-100 4WD in 1977, fitted with the 302 V8 and a 4 speed manual transmission. It had no power steering, was fitted with 10 x 15 cross-ply (bias-ply) tyres and was the worst thing I'd ever driven.
You could hardly hold it on the road at speed, it would tramline all over the place. I cannot believe Ford Australia would release a vehicle that drove like it.
I ended up getting Ford to fit power steering to it, and I changed the tyres to Goodrich radials - all of which made it a far better vehicle to drive.
I suspect Ford also increased the front axle caster when they fitted the power steering.
It was very capable off road, with great ground clearance, and it could carry a surprising amount of weight.
I took off to the city from where I lived 285kms out in the Wheatbelt, to go pick up a new, full set of track shoes for one of my Cat D7's. The Cat dealer loaded them on, and the F-100 sat down quite a bit!
I made sure the pallet was right forward against the back of the cab, so the load was spread evenly between back and front axles.
I took off late, near dark, and got home late that night. I unloaded the next day, and then started thinking about exactly how much weight I really did have, in that full set of track shoes?
I went and looked up the specifications for the weight of one 22" extreme service shoe, and multiplied that weight by the number of shoes on the tractor - and I was stunned to find the F-100 had dragged home almost 2 tonnes (4400lbs) of new track shoes in that little load!!
She never really felt like she was overloaded, she handled well at highway speed, and the tyres handled it just fine. I guess spreading the load really helped.
en.wikipedia.org
