Hey yall, just thought I'd introduce myself and give a little backround on me and what I'm doing. First off my name is Jeff, 26, Dad passed away when I was 15 and wasnt into mechanicing at all till Jr year of highschool. Been wrenching since Jr year of highschool autotech(actually worked and payed for summerschool between jr and sr year to free up schedual room for another year of auto tech)south of Dallas. Since then I went to on to Texas State Tech. College (TSTC) of Waco and started my Diesel Technology classes. My goal was to grow up to be a train mechanic. Times were tough, long story short money and schedualling made me have to drop out and my mom and sted dad (now living in new mexico) bailed me out, moved me to NM(basicly middle of nothing, IE the closest walmart is 80 miles away... there is NOTHING here), there i had a job within 3 days working for a rather large "mom and pop" shop right off I40 in a nothing little "villiage" near Texas state line. They specialized in 24hr towing and roadside service/tires for auto, diesel, and commercial. There I learned to wrench on commercial trucks, get to learn first hand at wrenching for living on a WIDE variety of things, and all at $30an hr flag rate. Was there a couple years, then moved on to Liberal, KS for a job offer with Frieghtliner plus lots of family there. A few bad chapters in an autobiography later, I had many "female mishaps" that set me back and now moved from Frieghtliner to a tire store down the st. and busted car and truck tires daily and on road service, and then a service mechanic for a local oil company chain owned by the mayor. Then end up moving to Colorado chasing a femaile with a guarenteed job with the chevy dealer there long before I moved from KS. Chevy lasted 6 days (long story), ended up getting on at a local tireshop owned by Bridgestone. Worked there for a while still with the gal I had chased up there. The rest of the Colorado experice turned out to LITERALY and I cannot express this enough, THE WORST CHAPTER OF MY ENTIRE LIFE! I could write an entire book just based on my yr and a half there. At one point I was (and had been) unemployed, living in a motel room, and had my truck break down on me (engine knock). I gathered my w2's, filed my taxes as soon as I could, got my return, "shade tree'd" my truck back together (hoping the repair would hold) and I hauled ***, bound for home in Dallas. The engine lasted 60 miles and left me stranded on Rabbit Ears Pass. Parents covered a uhaul to thier place in NM, which I had to leave my truck in Colorado and later arrange for it to be towed to a storage complex. Few weeks later I got the idea to start my own business. Buying and flipping vehicles. Got a job wrenching and helping for a farmer/rancher through a family aquaintence that had known my family and had even bought some long liniage land passed down. He had an add on craigslist for a GRAVEYARD of 150yrs worth of vehicle and equipment they were selling off. I called him about possibly working an old chevy off, and we worked out a deal where I got the truck and a regular paycheck.

From there, I bought a factory 72 chevy K10(that was in rougher shape then i originaly thought but ran and drove) for $600 and a few months later sold it for $1200 just as i bought it... That was my start! From that point on, I had just been making plans on how to go about the business, and figuring out all the fun little details of the "ins and outs", But this past Jan, I got layed off and have been unemployed since. Jobs here are HARD to comeby and so I decided to take the risky plunge and decided to finaly quit talking about the business I was going to start, and start acting! Since then I've managed to aquire a few vehicles to turn on a large profit. As of now I'm still struggling to get things off the ground, givin that I am NO WHERE NEAR where I need to be in order to be set up to do the things I need to do. I'm working in a dirt/sand/stickers driveway with no concrete, no (convienient) way to pull engines or do large jobs, no lift, no air, etc. BUT I'm making do and slowly building towards my goal of having a successfull shop.

Basicly the business has 2 main parts. The first half buys vehicles on the cheap, fix em for cheap, and sells for a profit. The other half, turns out higher end stuff like the vehicles I've customized and modded. Through all the years of moving around and meeting people I've aquired a network of contacts, and learned where to find good deals (IE I have 5 vehicles to work on right now and did not pay for a single one, 2 of which ran and drove) and with that knowlege of knowing where the deals are, Ive recently decided to add a third part of the business and contract that out to customers needs for parts/vehicles. Over the years Ive aquired various parts (sorry Ford guys, mostly Chevy stuff for now) and if somebody hits me up about a part they need like engines, trany's, axles, such or even vehicles. If I have it, I'll make ya a deal on it, if I dont, I might can find you one. I get a small percentage on the price of the item for my labor, and most of the time deliver to your door for a fuel charge. I am here to make money, but I'm not out to screw anybody either. All in all my goal is to gain a very respectable, trustworthy, honest, reputation with my customers. This day in age, all you have is your name... once its gone, your done.

Hoping things take off, becuase I have built a plan for the time I'm 30. It entails buying land in the Colorado Mountains with a house I built, and my large shop.

Im close to come back from an almost entire lifetime of failure, trials, tribulations, hard times, bad luck, and very cloudy days, almost like a curse. And its a really good feeling. I still have a LONG LONG LONG way to go, but in my mind, I cant fail again. The majority of my strenght to keep my head up has been used up these past years. I dont think I can take another big let down. I already struggle enough with my ADHD as it is which makes things harder to do, and goals to reach. So I'm going ***** deep kind of like a "last stand" sorta thing to make sure I dont fail. I refuse to have another failure!




Anyway, I joined becuase of some of the vehicles I own and intend to fix are Ford, and I am a born and raised Chevy guy. My knowlage on Ford is SLIM (hence my need for knowlage from here). Plus I just happen to have my great uncles (mostly original) 73 Ford F100, and a running and driving 99 Crown Vic police interceptor. The F100 is getting the entire Vic powertrain, harness and PCM. The plans for the 73 are pretty badass, cant wait to get things going on it.

 

If the F100 is 2WD, do some measurements and you might be able to swap in the IFS from the Vic. Keep seeing people talk about it in the 80-86 forum. Also, what engine is in the F100 now?

 

Originally that was the plan, then upon teardown of the crown vic, I discovered the removable K Member, must be later years becuase this one is built jnto the frame. Rather than mess around with doing frame graphing, ill just source out the right fromt end