Cooter is BACKKKK! I finally got her back guys! She may not be my first dent or my last, but this old girl just always ment something to me and it always bothered me I let her go. I got her back and this time she's really not leaving I don't care if you've got to pry my cold dead fingers off of the steering wheel. I'm not doing it again.

So some of you may remember the old girl, some may not and some where not here when I had it. Cooter is my avatar. Now lets get in the DeLoran and go 88 miles an hour!!!


Whoooshshhswhwhshhhhhh


March 2011- I had just turned 18 back in November, and fresh from a license suspension after having two tickets as a minor. I was green man, real green. I was in country now... I could hear them man... I could hear then and I wasn't off the chopper yet. We went in hot, low and fast, the jungle was zoom by in a sea of green, the smell of jet fuel, and the thump, thump, thump of the chopper. Then I saw a Flash, BANG! SNAP! PINGGGG! I hit the deck realizing I just got shot at. The crew chief just grinned at me with a big wad of chew in his mouth and said "Welcome to Nam brudda!"
-Oh... Wait we aren't telling that story about that one time I was in Vietnam back in the day...

Any hooters, so I had just came off of my license suspension and was about to get them back, I need a vehicle so I searched and searched craigslist for days. I came up on my truck multiple times, but because it was 900 bucks I kept passing because I figured it would be in bad shape.


Now I was dead set on another old Ford no doubt about it. But at the time there wasn't many on craigslist. Don't you hate it when that happens? When you need something you get on craigslist and look for it any there really isn't any thing on there then as soon as you don't need it, BOOM, they are all over craigslist and cheap.

Well I decided to go what the heck and just call the guy. So I called him and found out he was the junkyard right across the street from my local dragstrip. Which was awesome because it wasn't that far. So we go down and look at the old girl. Mind you I'm about to **** myself in excitement the whole car ride down.

We get there and I still remember the day like it was yesterday. We roll up in the junkyard and I don't see it anywhere, till we come around the corner and I just see grill. Once we pulled all the way around I saw the whole truck. As soon as I laid my eyes on her I feel in love.

I just knew that that was my truck. Instantly there was emotional attachment to it. 800 dollars later we were driving her home. She was a pretty little girl, she had some cancer spots and faded paint but that's okay she's a diamond in the rough.

She was born as a Canadian in 1975, Febuary of 1975 to be exact. She's a F-100. I choose an F-100 because I knew it would be the lightest chassis and light means fast in the world of drag racing. She had 250,000 miles on her when I got her. But to date now it's 252,724. All 2,724 miles done by me. (more on that later)

She had a little heart but it was stout. It was a good old small block 302 with 3 on the tree. She has a 9 inch rear with 3.90 gears (perfect for street/strip).


So over the first part of the 2011 year I had her till July 12th of 2011, I only got to put 70 miles on her. Due to fuel delivery issues. She needed a new tank, sending unit, fuel line, fuel pump and carb rebuild. Now mind you I was working at the Mac Shack at the time and McDonalds doesn't pay well.

So I get the old girl going again and drive her all over, everybody loved her she was my pride and joy. I impressed a lot of people up at my County Fair that year. The last day of fair we got hit with a horrible rain in a 30 minute period. It was so severe that once it stopped raining at all spots in the fairgrounds it was mid-calf deep at all times (about 1 1/2-2 feet deep) certain parts was above your waist. It was crazy. Now our fairgrounds is an old WWII B-17 airfield, the hangers are still there and in use.

So you have the big runways which all the barns are on then you have fields for parking, and they just got plastered. So it was a mudding swimming pool soupy mess. People trying to leave would get stuck trying to get out, big old 4x4's would have to lock hubs to go through. But I wanted to move my truck out of that mess.

So I go over to her and they girl I was talking to at the time said "You ain't gonna get that POS Ford through that!" Ohhhhhh man I could a feel the Hillbilly anger a risin' up in me! I prayed to the lordy lord in heaven to bring mercy on there souls....

So I said "Get in the bed and watch this." So her and about 3 other very attractive females get into the bed and stand up. VAROOM!!! Is what was heard when I started up the old girl with it straight piped. I backed her up and away we went! Cooter went through like a champ! So we kept turning around an would mud through it! ( I converted a lot of people to Ford believers that day).

Now fast forward to August. Fair's over and I start racing the old girl at the track. Started out at high 18's and ended up down to low 17's. I could of went a heck of a lot faster but once again McDonalds budget. She may of been slow but I was make money because I was consistant. The only bad part about racing her is the 3 on the tree. It's fun and easy but you don't always make it into 3rd.

I missed the shift plenty of times. Well one day at the Buckeye nationals I was going rounds and was in the Semi Finals. I'm excited and had my adrenaline rushing. Now I would listen to the track announcer on my radio so I would know my times before I got to the ticket booth. Well Semi Finals comes up and I launch and I hear ("Oh man that old farm truck just cut a 5-Oh-oh!) So I knew I was on a good run.

Well I missed the 1st to 2nd shift AND the 2nd to 3rd shift. Save to say I lost that round. Well about 2 days later leaving football practice one day I was just pulling out of the parking lot and shifted from first to second then all of the sudden it just started running like crap! So I pulled over and couldn't figure out what was going on. But I had to go to work so I drove her home.

She drove home at 55 like a champ, I pull in the driveway and pull the valve cover. I was surprised at what I saw. She snapped the cam completely in half! I had never seen that in my life. That was September 9th of 2011. So down she went again till Christmas time of 2011. I had a dodge ram to drive in the mean time while I was getting everything figured out with the truck. Originally I was just gonna replace the cam with a nice one but I didn't have the money of the correct tool to change the valve springs at the time too.


So I searched craigslist and found a HIPO 289 short block with D2OE heads on it. Snatched it up for 170 bucks because the guy didn't know what he had and dropped it in. Drove her till the end of January of 2012 then it started to knock.

So she got parked again well I had the dodge again and my parent's made me sell the old girl to pay for what I owed them on the Dodge. But they failed to tell me I could of kept Cooter and just put another engine in and just gave the Dodge back.

So they sell her for 500 bucks in the end of Febuary of 2012... And I had to leave because I couldn't watch her go. So months pass by and I traded the Dodge for a 1984 Cutlass and made a bad *** street strip car out of it, well the engine blew in that due to my friend driving it and over revving it and going ***** to the wall even when it was dead cold.

So I just had a little S10 at the time to drive while I got an engine together for the car. Well January of 2013 rolls around. My buddy was going to work one rainy morning and had a one of the craziest single vehicle roll over accident I've ever seen, now bear with me I've seen a lot of bad accidents being a fire fighter but this was the worst.

He had my old 1979 F-150 I sold him years ago because I knew how much he loved these trucks and how he didn't have any money. So I sold her to him and he drove her for years. Well him and his brother shouldn't of walked away from that accident. It's a miracle the did. They should of died. But if it wasn't for the fact they were in that strong of a truck they wouldn't of. And that's when I just knew it, I needed to get an old Ford again. Not only because I loved them but from a safety stand point.

So that very day when we went to the scrap yard to look at his truck and get his personal stuff out of it I saw Scooter. My 77 F-150 on the lot for sale. A week later she was mine. Well I drove her for months and loved the truck dead reliable then one day my friend told me, the he knew were Cooter was at.

I dropped everything I was doing and called my best firend and we went up there. We roll up and Tyler said I don't know if that's yours or not. I said it was mine. I knew right away that it was. I knew every little detail about the truck, every knook and cranny. I even knew the mileage it had when I got rid of it.

Well you ever in that situation were you need pen and paper and you don't have it? Not this time by the grace of God Tyler had these in his truck. Well I wrote my name and number down and said I was very interested in the truck and put it under the windshield wiper.

Later that night I get a call from the guy and found out that he was in the market to sell it and that he was asking 1,200 for it. Well I explained who I am and how much the truck ment to me. And he remembered me. He said that he would sell her to me for the price he bought her from me. 500 bucks. I didn't have the money at the time but I promised him I would figure out a way to get the money.

Well June rolls around and my Buddy who wrecked, his brother finally got his claim settled with the insuance and got some cash to put in his pocket. Well there Dad really loved my red truck So he came up with an idea. He knew how bad I wanted Cooter back so he said he would buy the red truck off of me for 1,500 and I could go buy Cooter back.

So sadly I had to sell Scooter, but I know he went to a good home and is going to get taken care of plus I see him almost every day because I'm always at my best friends house. Well I went and bought Cooter back and showed up the next day with a trailer.

Hauled her home and had the tranny out within an 1 hour of being home. I had pulled the engine and tranny enough out of the old girl I had it down to a science. So I went and bought a 1984 302 out of an HO mustangs and did a quick rebuild on it. I took the D2OE heads off of the 289 and took them into work to clean then up and throw a quick bowl blend on them.

I didn't do really any kind of port work other then a quick bowl blend because there's really not much flow to be picked up with these heads. Now if I could ever swing a set of our heads or the Z heads from work or a set of GT40's then heck yeah!

But, I basically threw a small Summit brand cam in it, a factory aluminum 4 barrel intake on and the heads. Basicially just something thrown together quick so I can get her on the road and then build the nice engine.

Well needless to say this 302 I "slapped" together moves out pretty darn well!

SO, I bet a lot of you are asking why is the truck called Cooter? Well Here's why, The old girl looks EXACTLY like Uncle Jesse's 75 f-250 but when I the old girl it had all this towing stuff and CB stuff all over it. So one day my friend was over and we were discussing it and she called it Cooter. We chuckled about it but it stuck. Everybody just liked it for some reason.

I have never had a vehicle that I've gotten such an emotional attachment to. Cooter is more then a truck, she's a part of me. And there's really no special reason, it wasn't a family members or famous persons or anything. Now I've got a CRAP ton of pictures up loadng on photobucket so the pictures will be in the next post. My fingers are tired so the story shall continue.

 

Glad to see you got her back.
I can sympathize with the emotional attachment, that's when this hobby gets REAL expensive (ask me how I know ).

 

Oh I know Mike I know lol.... This is why most of us are in debit!

 

July 2011 This is how the old girl looked after the whole muddy fair aftermath.






At fair with my best friend Tyler's truck (red one). That's my old 79 he rolled back in January.







August 2011- This is the day I was turning my truck around and didn't see my back tire went in the ditch. Needless to say I had to get pulled out... Lol












September 2011- This is the cam I broke in half.












Nov/Dec of 2011-

Pulling out the original 302 that snapped the cam



The old 302 and the new 289 together.







The 289 almost in at the time






During the engine swap then I found a factory GT Bar on craigslist for a short bed for 25 bucks, well I was going to modify it to work with a long bed but never got around to it.













The 289 when I got it finished.












Now let's fast forward to June of 2013.




Hauling the old girl home on the trailer!!!







Going through the D2OE heads at work real quick to make sure they would be okay to use for the time being.







Yeah not going to be making crazy power with these heads lol






After cleaning and some machine work they are home and painted.






Me wrenching away on the old girl getting the engine and tranny out.





About to pull the short block out then everything can start going in again.









Now this is the 1984 302 HO I picked up off craigslist. Went through and checked everything over in the short block it all checked out okay and within specs and tolerances so the new parts went on!





Sand blasting the original valve covers that came on the new 302. I really liked the look of them and they are pretty much the same valve cover you could get out of a Jegs magazine for 200 bucks.







As you can see I had to deal with a lot of nasty stuff on this new engine. It took ALOT of elbow greese.




Yayyyyy NEW PARTS!!!!!!!!!!!!







Almost back together










And the old engine is out!







Finally down in the hole! Just had to put the tranny in and hook everything up.







My friends and I's trucks

 

Nice story. Isn't it great to have friends with Fords.....

 

Yes yes it is lol. The only bad part is when those friends came over to help with pulling the engine and tranny their version of "help" was standing there B.S.ing while I did the work lol.

 

Nice! cool pic of you and your boys. BS happens in my garage too when the "help" arrives!

 

So who's ready for some serious truck **** bling?

Been working my *** off and finally pulled it off, so ready to see some pretty things for my 302?











BOOM! Ford Racing Z Heads












Just got them today and put bronze valve guides in them. As you can see from the valve box I ain't messin' around only good stuff on this. I probably won't be valve jobbing them tomorrow due to I'll probably be at the track with my Grand National. But you guys are in for a treat your going to get pictures of the whole process of what it takes to take a bare casting and make it into a nice assembled ready to run head.

Basically this is what I do in a nutshell, I'm going to take you through the steps that the head has to go through before its packed up and shipped to you.


Also as a side note for anybody interested or considering using Ford Z heads. You will need a offset rocker arm. FRPP offers them but they are over 440 dollars. The set I will be getting are from Scorpion for a little over 300. The offset required is .150.


So that's a little update on my progress of the truck, still have the 76mm turbo in the works and everything else. Trucks down right now due to a leak in the radiator. But in the like 3 or 4 weeks I've had her on the road I've put over 700 miles on her and to my surprise am getting damn good mileage.

Also one more FYI the quality of the pictures are going to be somewhat down right now I broke my phone and so I'm on an older style phone now. I took the pictures of the Z heads with that phone and as you can see aren't bad but it ain't no HD. I'm working on it guys to get you better pictures.

 

Alright boys and girls update time! So I was going to just stick with just valve jobbing my heads and back cutting the valves but that didn't work out lol.

So I started porting them, I've finished porting out the exhaust ports, all the need now is the bowl blend. But there is no point in that since they haven't been valve jobbed yet so there is no throat. But here's what they look like!


(Sorry for the crappy cell pics)