Truck is looking great, just keep pecking away at it.

 

I can't believe I went all of 2014 and 2015 without an update. Time flies! Two years and tons of unforeseen circumstances later, I'm just getting ready to hit the road. I'll add updates from the last two years in chronological order as best as I can remember.

 

I found a guy on CL who had a nice flat bed for a good price. He delivered it and called me back two days later to say that it was his dad's and he needed it back because his dad was mad. Fortunately, he had a buddy with a bed that had been sitting around and wanted to get rid of it.
It ended up being more work than I bargained for but it worked out. I found another guy on CL who had a new bedside sitting in his barn that he was willing to trade for an older laptop I had.
I wish I had a better pic of the final product but you can see how well the bedliner took in the last pic.

 

Semi-finished...

 

I replaced some wires and added new connectors to the stock wiring harness but continued to have quirky issues. I decided to bite the bullet and order an American Autowire kit. In addition to a new updated fuse panel, this kit has so much potential for future additions. It was well worth the money and fairly straight-forward to install. I added a Ford 3G alternator as well. Pics to come soon...and then I will get into the real trouble; and light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Truck is looking good. Don't feel bad about how long it takes, I've been pecking away for 4 years now. Main thing is you're making progress.

 

body lines look good...nice work

 

I thought I had updated my engine issues but I haven't been on in a while. What I'm about to tell is a hard lesson learned!
I was hearing some engine noise. Since I was taking the truck into the shop for a "once over" by a professional before really hitting the road, I thought I'd have them check it out for me. The news was terrible. I had installed new valve springs at the wrong height and ended up rounding off several lobes on the cam. This was of course, a complete tear down and rebuild

Though expensive, there was a silver lining. I went with the 400 crank (my engine is a 351M) and TMeyer pistons to bring my compression ratio up to about 9.3:1. I lightly ported the cylinder heads while apart as well. This brings my CID to about 409, I believe.

 

should run way better with a little cam/int/exh/straight up timing set...400ci.


my old one made 240rwhp/355rwtq on a mustang dyno with a crazy small cam....peak was at like 4500 and my heads were as-cast.

 

I went with the Crane 133042 - 272/272, Lift .524/.524