1986 F150 4x4. She is in love with it and we are going to wrench on it together.


I picked it up from a co-worker for $400 with a bad engine. (More on that later)

 

 

nice truck and welcome to the fte

 

I envy you southern guys with your rust free metal. Nice looking truck, very straight body on it. If I could find clean, rust free bodies like that around here for that kind of money I'd be in heaven.

 

It is straight as can be.

Anyways the PO had this truck with a 351w, it leaked oil pretty bad and he locked it up. So he rigged in a 300 that shook it's *** off, mostly because he used the 351 flywheel. Anyways he got it hot, took out the head gasket.

So he replaced headgasket, water pump and thermostat. Well he stuck the thermostat in backwards and 7 miles later got the engine so hot the cyl with the most compression is sitting at 35 psi.

He had 2x4s under the motor mounts to set the engine in there. He did take them out and weld up some brackets to the frame that I now have to cut out to mount everything back correctly.

Tomorrow I'll go out and get pics of the pvc pipe rubber hose monstrosity that is the lower radiator hose, the throttle cable, solid wire, bailing wire job he did on the carb, and the engine mounts.

 

I was just thinking the same thing... I was going to say "you south west guys suck".

 

Lol wow...sounds like a real mess under the hood. Hopefully you'll get it sorted out.

 

Me too! That is one clean looking body. I love that two tone look with no trim.

 

I'll sort it out pretty easy and quickly, I have been in this business for 20+ years, although the daughter, who is 17, will be doing the work with my supervision, and me doing all the heavy lifting. After this cold snap passes we are going to get the engine out, pull the tranny and transfer case, then she can start tearing down the front end.

First up on the list of things to do is new brakes front and rear, rotors, rubber lines, wheel cyls, master cyl. Also fix the stub axle leak on the front diff.

 

We were trying to decide if we are wanting to replace the trim, or if I am going to weld up the holes left by the trim being removed.

 

I'm in western Washington and I went to the local junk yard yesterday. Every truck I was under, 25-35 years old, no rust at all. Only about two of them looked like they belonged there. It's not just a "southern rust free" thing lol.


On another note, the truck looks good!

 

Here are some quick pics of his hack job.

 

Good solid base to work with

I love the bodgy transplant on a bright note I bet that once the engine is plucked, one good hit with a mash hammer or sledgey and those tacked on mounts will pop straight off.

Then again if you have a decent engine crane the mounts might just pop off and come out with the donk.

 

Yeah I know a local guy who restores '67-'72 Chevy trucks and he buys a lot of stuff from Oregon and Washington. I'm in northern Iowa so everything around here gets destroyed by road salt unless you store your ride during the winter months. I'm more used to seeing southern metal from Texas and New Mexico being used for restorations around here but I know there's good stuff out west too.

 

Very nice start. I am waiting for one in about the same condition to hit the jukyard by me. It is in the staging area as of friday.
Gonna try to grab the tailgate and anything else of use.