Welcome to the "gearhead" part of my world!
I started this project in the winter of 1998, and finished the bodywork in mid-June of the same year. As you will see from the "before" pictures, the truck would have been considered a lost cause by many people. However, with some used body parts and many hours of work, a tough old truck once again looks as good as it works. As of October of '98, the truck had just over 162,000 miles on the powertrain, and was still running just fine.
For those of you who are interested in such details, the engine was a 360, and the transmission a 3-speed standard (not very common in a '75 model). The gear ratio is 3.50 (as near as I can tell by counting turns of the driveshaft compared to the rear wheels). Since purchasing the truck in the summer of 1995 (for a whopping $400), I have fixed a few odds and ends such as brakes, rear springs, and clutch. When I first bought it, I also had to pull one of the heads and replace a couple of valves, and touch up a couple of others. After an additional 50,000 miles , it was still running fairly well in the spring of 1999 (but leaking a steady stream of engine oil, which made an engine job a ncessity). Overall, the truck has proven itself to be very reliable, and I have never hesitated to take it on long highway trips, or to severely overload it for shorter trips. It has lived up to the reputation of being "Ford Tough" many times over.
Below are some links to pages featuring photos and explanations of various stages of the project. Please be patient with some of these pages. They are mostly photos, so they may take a moment or two to load.
Click on any of these links (as they become available) and enjoy!
Page 2 -Fixing up the replacement parts
Page 3 -The naturally air-conditioned cab
Page 5 -Rebuilding the engine (spring and summer of 1999)
Page 6 -Swapping the 390 for an Olds 455 Rocket (summer and fall of 2007)
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