My first truck, but not my first ford.










Its a 1995 F150 XL. 5.0L with automatic, short bed with dual tanks. It shows 202K miles but seems to run well with no smoking and good oil pressure. That is, after I found where someone had spliced the starter solenoid trigger wire with a WIRE NUT, causing a bad connection an preventing it from turning over. Its badly in need of some tires. The PO parked it about a year ago after a bad u-joint took out part o the drive shaft flange. There was enough left to stick another u-joint in it to get home, but it really needs a new drive shaft. Also seems to need an alignment and probably a minimum of new tie rods, maybe a whole front end rebuild, as the front tires are much more worn on both edges than the center. Needs a few minor things (driver's mirror mount broken, can't open driver's door from inside, ex.) But the a/c seems to work, it has a good CD player, a bed liner, receiver hitch and the body is completely rust free with only a few very minor dents. For $600.... I couldn't help myself. More updates coming soon.

 

Nice, looks promising. I'd buy that for $600 too!

And not to put a damper on your happy thought or anything but be advised that if you're judging oil pressure by the factory gauge, then you are being fooled. That gauge is on a switch. Oil pressure above ~5 PSI will make it read "somewhere" in the NORMAL range. Anything less and the switch drops out and the gauge takes a dive into the red.

But don't fret, you can do the conversion to make it a real gauge!
See this thread:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-question.html

 

Congrats, looks like you got a nice truck for the price. I wish I could find one that clean in the rust belt for $600.

 

Great find!! Good truck find!

 

Hey Congrats! Nice find. Hard to beat that 5.0! Great price too.

-Pete

 

I gave it a quick bath and polished the headlights. Looks a heap better already. Its wet in these pictures, so the paint looks better than it really is. The clearcoat is starting to go in small spots on the hood and cab roof. I'm hoping I can just sand the bad clear off and spray new clear on the hood and roof and get several more years out of the paint job.









And of course on the way home the belt started squalling like mad. So I stopped at the parts store and spent $100 before I even got home. New belt, windshield wipers, spark plugs, cap and rotor and a can of Seafoam. Had the belt changed in 10 minutes and its running quiet now.

Of course, the check engine light has come on and then gone out immediately a few times. Code 122 TPS voltage low. Got to looking around under the hood, and about 2" of the insulation is gone off of the wires right at the TPS, looks like they are probably shorting together. No wonder it has a code. Also have a KOEO code for the canister purge solenoid, so I'll grab one of those too.

Still need to buy plug wires, O2 sensors, fuel filter, change all the other fluids and filters, and set the timing. I think this thing still has the original plug wires on it, so I'm just going to do the full tune up first thing.

 

Well I pulled the drive shaft out of the truck to find out what actually happened with it since I had been told it was rigged temporarily. Turns out the front u-joint had failed and taken a chunk out of the u-joint flange on the drive shaft tube, but there was enough left that they just stuck another u-joint in it. I also noticed a dent in the tube, I guess where it hit the ground. So now I need a new drive shaft. No problem, off to the pull-a-part... except that the way they pick up the trucks with forklifts either turns all the truck drive shafts into boomerangs or breaks them completely in half! **** I called a bunch of places today, only one of which told me they DIDN'T break all their truck driveshafts through carelessness. And that place doesn't have a truck with my exact drive train combo, but hopefully they have one that will work. Of course its three times pull a part price, but if he actually has it...

Not much luck at the junkyard.

No drives shaft, no mirror, no dash pad, no good instrument panel trim.

I did get the window cranks and passenger door handle from an 80-86 truck since they are the nice chrome metal ones. Couldn't find a drivers door handle even though they had about 6 of those trucks.

Also pulled a TPS and POV valve. I checked the TPS on my truck and about 2" of the insulation is gone from the wires at the TPS, so they are shorting together. No wonder its giving a code. Haven't had time to install the new one yet.

The only thing that redeemed the trip was I found a '94 pickup (that was mislabeled by the yard as a 92) that had the optional tach. I almost passed it by because I needed a 94-95 for it to be a plug in swap, just happened to look at the door jam sticker and see it was a 94.

Since it was only $30 and came with a bunch of 194 bulbs and I was pulling my own cluster to change bad bulbs anyway....

I had read on here that the speedometers are the same (and where the mileage is stored) so I took both clusters apart and swapped speedometers to keep my speedometer and the correct mileage reading for my truck. I plugged it in just to see, and the wrecked donor truck turned out to have had 268,000 miles!

 

A little custom touch. Back to the future with 80's door handle and window crank.

 

Someone kept trying to open the driver's inside door handle too much and actually tore the sheet metal loose. This is after I bent it back. I'm going to put a large fender washer and regular nut instead of the stock spring clip behind here to support it. Already have new door latch cables on order.

 

Looks like you did very well. I'd have bought that for $600 (and promptly swapped a 5-speed in it)!

 

Congrats on the nice find I just got a 96 xl 4x4 long bed i6 300 for 1700. How hard was the gauge cluster swap. I could really use a tach since mines a manual. Mine was a work truck so you got me beat on interior. That thing is clean!

 

X2 on the instrument cluster, I didn't know they could be swamped and you could keep your mileage

 

Its really easy to switch and a worthwhile investment too in my opinion. I was able to find one at the junk yard that was in better shape than my stock cluster. Just take your time when doing it to avoid breaking a needle or other component.

 

The gauge swap is super easy. Here is the thread on another forum that I followed. Factory Tach Install 1995 F-150 - FSB Forums The pictures in it are no good, but the text instructions are pretty straightforward. A few post down some one lists the compatibility, the tach cluster has to come out of almost the exact same year. The one I used came from a truck with a 08/94 build date and my truck is 06/95.

 

subscribing to see what happens.
Trav