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Hey everyone this is my first real post to this fourm since I bought the truck (Black Betty) you see below. It's titled at a '75 but upon further inspection I think it's a '76 with a '75 cab. It has an open universal front axle, the support rod on the transfer case and obviously the '76 front grille inserts. It has a 400 and a 4 speed. When I first bought the truck in December it was almost undrivable. It would pop and bag out of nowhere and had little to no power. I immediately assumed the carb was at least in need of rebuilding. .since it had the original 2 barrel carb I oped to get a new Edelbrock performer 400 intake managed and a Holley 670 Street Avenger. Once I received all of my new parts I immediately started tearing Tito the truck methodically removing parts until I got to the intake. Once I removed the stock intake I found three push rods and two lifters laying in the bottom the valley. A trip to my local Napa ford that they only had one pushrods and three lifters. A roll check down the hood of the truck reviled that I only bent one pushrod. I put it all back together it fired up on the fist hit and idled like a brand new car. I can't complain. Sometime inbetween ordering my new parts and receiving them I was taking the truck out for a ride when I was down shifting for a red light when my reared locked up out of nowhere. I had it sent to my local 4x4 shop where they found that one of my pinion nuts had backed off and broke a couple of teeth on my ring gear. While they had it open I had them install a limited slip because I do plan on doing some light wheeling with this truck. My next project it going to be to rewire the whole truck because I'm truly afraid that I'm going to start the truck and it's going to erupt into a ball of flames. I Plan on buying a painless kit with switches. If anyone has installed this kit please share your experience. This is the first post of May with my long journey with Black Betty. Thanks for your time.
Black Betty had a child bam ba lam, damn thing gone wild bam ba lam. 71 hits and nobody has said welcome to FTE, not a bad looking truck, looks like some evil person threw a mud puddle on it. Hopefully your parts luck has come to an end and you can start really enjoying yer truck. Used to take a few black betties, then red roosters,.. purple devils.......green dragons.............etc
I wonder how many "black betty's" there are out there.
Black betty's of the world unite!
lol!
Our black betty is undergoing cosmetic procedures currently....
formerly dull black betty...
looks like you scored a great truck!!
My boys drive this truck to school (its my oldest boys truck) and the little brother plays ram jam's black betty over his ipad every day on the way to school.
Doing the wiring is a good idea, especially if your harness was hacked into like mine. I did not go Painless but I have heard good things about it. I went with American Autowire. Wiring the truck is very straight forward. I did remove my dash so that made it real easy to do the installation. You don't need to remove the dash but if you have the means, it makes the organization a bit better. OCD and all.
The AAW comes with all new switches and the fuse panel is good quality. It also comes with future wiring if you go electric fan, power windows, power seats, etc. You will need to go G3 on the alternator and find a work around for the duraspark.
Thanks for the welcome! I'll keep everyone updated as I go. I'm currently enlisted in the Navy stationed in nort western Washington I'm leave for school soon so all progress must be halted until I return from school.
I have a black betty in my collection. But being that mine is a 2011, she's the wrong generation to post a pic. of here. Lol. These are some sweet azz trucks.
The painless kit is nice, but be prepared to put all your own light sockets, connectors and such on. They come with very little already hooked up. The plus side is all the wires are marked every 6 inches where they go, so it's hard to mess anything up. I had a problem with one harness I bought from them. I specifically ordered a harness for an A/C car, but when it came, half the A/C circuit was missing and I had to build that part of the harness myself. I had the part that went under the hood to the A/C compressor, but the whole harness under the dash for the controls was MIA.
Since you're stationed in the area stop by the Washington Chapter and say high, we do a monthly meet and if you need parts just say something cause they are easy to find around here.
04-13-2015, 11:28 PM
