Right now this is the only video of the exhaust that I have. I will try to take a better one soon. I just took this on my phone (Galaxy S4), so the quality is not the greatest. It sounds much better in person.

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Well I finally got my new fan shroud put in and I also put new brakes in the front. I put new brakes on the rear axle a couple years ago, so now the truck has entirely new brakes. Not gonna lie, those front calipers were a B**** to get off. I guess parts that has been assembled for 35 years don't want to come off too easy. Anyway, I put all new calipers, brackets, and pads in the front, and the rear already had new wheel cylinders, springs, and shoes. The truck has very strong brakes now. Better than my 97 actually. All that's left is to do a little fine tuning and also to figure out why I have lighting issues in the rear.

New front brakes:


I know the shocks look terrible, but I'm going to get new shocks when I put on my 4" left in a few months, so I don't want to buy a set of shocks since I'll get new ones in the lift kit.

I also got the rear diff fluid changed. It definitely needed it. The fluid was getting very dark.


Lighting problem: All my lights in the front of the truck work flawlessly. I have brake lights and rear turn signal lights, but I don't have running lights in the rear. (when my headlights are on the lights in the rear of the truck, including corner lenses, are dark) I do have brake lights and the rear tail lights flash with the turn signals as they are supposed to. Anyone have any ideas or a wiring diagram I could look at?

 

Looks good man. We will have to meet up soon and drool over how our trucks sound with our "new" motors!

 

Absolutely! I need to put license and insurance back on the truck and it's ready to go. I've seen your new Eco-Boost, but I'd love to get the chance to drool over your 78.

 

Got a lot done on the truck this past weekend. I adjusted the timing (no more detonation), fixed the rear light issue (I now have all my driving and brake lights), lightened the choke on the carb (still needs to be lighter), and I switched out my pushrods to some that are .060" longer. I was very pleased to find that the slightly longer pushrods cured my valve train ticking. I will hopefully be ordering my lift and tires within the next couple weeks.

 

For your lights, turn is just interrupted brake. My guess is that somewhere on the frame headed back the regular running light wire is broken if ALL the lights are out. I think it is the brown wire. Does your license place lights work? They should be the same wire.

 

Yeah I got it fixed. The brown wire was broken somewhere once it came out of the harness near the back of the truck. I had power to the harness (where it came out behind the rear bumper) but not up to the light socket. I just ran a new wire about 2ft long and it solved the problem. All lights are good now except for reverse. I still have to look into that one. I think it's the switch in the transmission but I'm not sure. I'll look into it this weekend.

 

On a side note: I got my lift ordered yesterday. I decided to go with a Rough Country 4" lift because it was a good value. I wanted to go Skyjacker but it cost almost twice as much. If I really hate the Rough Country lift I'll put it on one of our other trucks and get a Skyjacker. The truck isn't going to be a daily driver, so ride quality isn't a huge concern. I plan on ordering tires this weekend. I'm going with 315/75/R16 General Grabber AT2s. I have them on my F-150 and love them. I have family that works for Continental Tire, so I get a huge discount on Continental and General tires. Hopefully the truck will be lifted and sitting on new tires in a couple weeks.

 

Well my lift kit came in yesterday. This weekend I'll be installing it. This weekend I'll order my 315/75/R16 Grabber AT2s, so hopefully by next weekend I'll be sitting on my new lift and tires.


I got the Rough Country N2.0 Shocks also. They are a nitrogen filled shock so they should perform a lot better. Especially in cold temperatures.

 

Nice ! Good upgrade That will keep you busy for a bit and out of trouble

 

Looks good Mike! Looks like you and I are on the same exact path with our red F250s. Only difference is mine is a '78 and you have a '79! How much did that lift run you and where did you get it? I need to start looking for springs as well.

 

Thanks! I got it directly from Rough Country. I think I paid $610 for everything. That includes shipping ($65) and the optional steering stabilizer (I think was $35). No where else I looked was any cheaper. I did notice that I'll need longer front brake lines. They just barely work. For mall crawling they might be alright, but any articulation will probably snap them. I want to replace the original rubber lines anyway, so stainless steel braided lines will be a nice upgrade.

 

Well, I've been very busy this weekend. I started installing my lift and I'm almost done. I'm fortunate to have a very well equipped shop to work in. I couldn't imagine doing this in a driveway with jacks and hand tools.


Lucky for me, my uncle has a big pneumatic lift. We just placed it under the bumper and it gave us plenty of room under the truck to do what we want. It was nice to be able to adjust the height of the truck and use floor jacks to position the axle.




While everything was apart I took the time to wire-wheel the frame and shoot some undercoating on there. Not only does it look better, It should also help prevent corrosion.


It took my uncle and I about 4 or 5 hours to remove the steering arm off the knuckle. The kit included a steering block which lifts the arm about 3 inches so that it can clear the large leaf pack, as well as correct the drag link geometry. Heat, penetrating oil, pneumatic hammers, and a lot of patience were the key to getting the arm off.

Fully assembled drivers side suspension with raised steering arm:



Raised front, with stock rear:



Doing the rear is a breeze since I'm just adding a 2" block. The truck has heavy rear springs with overloads that I didn't want to loose. So I opted for a rear block.


I have one more rear block to install and then I'm done with the lift, but that will have to wait till tomorrow. I can't wait to get my 35s on the truck. It definitely doesn't look right with the small wheels. More to come soon.

 

I finished up the lift yesterday. I'm fairly pleased with the overall stance. I hope the front end settles down a little bit because it's slightly higher than I'd like, but after taking a tape measure to it I noticed the rear sits about an inch higher. The truck looks pretty ridiculous right now with those small wheels, I'm just waiting for my 35s to come in.

 

The truck looks great man. The front end should settle some and with the bigger tires that'll make your stance look great. Can't go wrong with 35's/36's and a 3 or 4" lift. Keep up the good work!