Ford Truck Enthusiasts Forums - New Dump Truck!!!!!

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New Dump Truck!!!!!

So, bought the 76 F378 dump truck yesterday. Got it towed to my in laws place. Got the completely full tank of old gas drained and putting on fuel pump today. Hopefully this will fix the fuel delivery problem so I can drive it the 120 miles home. Will see if I can post pics from my phone.

Well, when I got to the truck, I knew already it didn't run, so we brought some gas and a battery. It was very cold, single digits with wind chill below zero. Hooked up battery, filled carb bowl with gas. Turned the key and it fired right up, ran good till the gas ran out. So I bought it.

Had it hauled about 20 miles to my in-laws house. Driver took a picture of it on his flatbed. After realizing the fuel pump seamed to be working, tried a few things to get it to run, but finally realized bad gas, a possible weak fuel pump just wasn't running the holley 4bl. So we pulled the canister off the fuel pump and drained the completely full fuel tank of its bad gas. We didn't pack clothes to work in the cold, so it was a very slow process. It was dark before we got all the bad gas drained so decided to wait till morning to push it into the heated shop. Found out later that the inlaws had to do a church coffee club thing in the morning and wouldn't be back till noon.

The boy and I worked on removing the old fuel pump in the - zero degree weather all morning. Got the truck pushed in the shop when my father in law got back and put new fuel pump on. Put some gas in and she was alive.

Pulled it out of the shop and tested pto and hydraulics, all worked great. Took the truck for a short drive, got back and smoke was coming from the engine compartment. ENGINE FIRE!!!. Got it put out and found a completely missing chunk of exhaust manifold gasket, which ignited old leaves and and grease on engine.

Back in the shop and off to the parts store. Got gaskets ,plug wires to replace melted ones from fire, plugs, cap, rotor and new 3/8th ratchet since my father in laws was missing several teeth. Broke 1 bolt off manifold and the others had deformed so no socket fit it right. Got pissed, partially because my FIL has crap for tools, and it was getting late. So I cut up gasket, shoved it into the giant hole and started for home.

Got about 10 miles and it started over heating. Got out and radiator is bulged and leaking at the seam. So, back to FIL for water and to let truck cool off. Put in water, pull start it and drive it back to FIL and park it, then headed home.

Will pull radiator from 74 and order carb kit, also return cap and rotor for the right one and head back up in a couple of weeks. Hopefully I didn't blow a head gasket or worse. probably also invest into a compression tester. Will also take along some tools. Was really missing my gear wrenches.

Looks like it's time to build a tool kit for this ol' Work Beauty.

Maybe build a frame mounted box under the the dump for tools. ;)

Hope you got it for a good price as it sounds like a lotta work to make it reliable. Good luck!

What fun is getting a new project if you don't start the adventure when you pick it up? Great fun and glad to hear your son was helping.

Interesting story of revival. What are your plans for it?

Cool score! Good luck and keep us posted.

Great way to teach the kid.

Aren't inlaws great, tired of working on their crap. haha

Cool truck, I have the driver's side door trim piece it's missing...if interested shoot me a pm

Not sure on the forever plan. I bought it to haul rock for my driveway, and already have a few hauling jobs for it too. It needs a lot of work body wise. I really thing once I get all the little kinks worked out of the engine, it will be a strong runner. If I keep it, It will not be a restore job. It has some rust in some structure parts of the cab. Those will most likely just get reinforced with some ugly patch panels. I will fix it for strength and longevity, but not looks. My son is wanting to learn to weld, and this will be a good project for that. My neighbor is semi retired. He repairs heavy machinery for a highway construction company and is also a welder and machinist. My son has been working with him this winter a little and he has agreed to teach him to weld. Will hopefully have it home this weekend.

Going after it again tonight. Got a plan and hopefully it works out.

So, the saga continues. Got to the truck with some tools, parts and a plan. First was hoping it would start and the motor didn't get hot enough to seize. Success!!

Got it in the shop and started tearing out the radiator. New radiator is out of a 74 f100 with 302 c6 a/c. Everything measured out, 2 major differences, The transmission line connectors, dump truck is a manual, and how it mounts. The radiator from the dump mounts to a bracket toward the engine. The new one mounts to the radiator support direct, away from engine. Some slight cutting and moving clip nuts to the radiator fixed the mounting problem. Shroud from dump bolted right on and cleared well. Done for the night.

Sat morning I have a meeting till noon and pick up antifreeze and stuff for an oil change. Fill it up with coolant, change oil and filter. Off for a test drive. Pull it out of shop let it warm up so I can check coolant level, all good. Start up the road, go for about a 3 mile test drive, all seams fine. Get back, check everything out, no leaks all good. Now, up to the gas station to fill her up.

Gas station is about a 10 mile round trip. Get there fill er up all good. Start heading back all good till about half a mile to the house.It is missing and backfiring and won't hardly pull itself. Get it back and investigate. More of the manifold gasket is gone. My belief at this point is the plugs are getting to hot and fouling out. Decide there is no choice but to change it.

Since I noticed the gasket problem, I had been soaking with pbblaster. I had tried all the methods i could find on loosening these bolts. Well, nothing worked, I ended up busting all four top bolts. I decided to soak some more and not try removing broken pieces till morning. But decided pulling passenger side fender would be a good call. Someone made a nice set of brackets for front mud flaps. It is made of angle iron and bolts to the frame, it also has nice support bars attached to that. Only problem is it is mounted right center under the bottom bolt where the fender attaches to the cab. Very tired at this point so a BFH adjust it out of my way.

Sunday i run into town for some new bolts and various tools for removing broken bolts. The 2 bolts with threads left on broke off flush. Now the drill. After many hours of trying to remove pieces of bolt we redrill holes and tap it out. This really needed done anyway. For some reason, 3 of the top bolts were a different size than the rest, smaller.

Well the wifey is having some pain from what is believed to be a bulging disk, so it was time to head home.

Plan for next weekend is to clean old heat shield off of head surface, attach manifold, replace weeping frost plug and replace plugs and wires. Oh and of course reinstall fenders and hood.