PROJECT: 1973 Family Truck
 

Finally getting-around to properly introducing myself. I recently found this site, and hauled home my dent side project last weekend. Been drooling over a lot of pictures that have been posted of beautiful trucks. (I love this site, but it's dreadfully slow, any suggestions on speeding-up the page loads?)

This old truck has served my family well since my dad bought it from the original owner in 1978, when I was only a toddler. It's hauled countless cords of firewood, towed the boat 1000's of miles between Federal Way, WA and the SanJuan Islands, helped many friends and family "Move," and was technically my first "car." It's served the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts on dozens of outings, and has only rarely failed us. It's a 1973 F250 4x2 "Camper Special", with a 360 and C6 auto. In recent years it's been neglected, and is in marginal condition. I hope to execute a moderate restoration, and have a nice old truck. I'm not customizing, and I'm not building a show truck. Gonna start with pulling the old motor (which started reletively easily after sitting for nearly two years) and put a new gasket set in her, along with some exhaust headers. I'll clean up the engine bay and the wiring while the motor's out. (The trans has already been rebuilt.) Gonna clean-up the interior, and find someone who can help me with the body work and paint. At least, that's the plan...

http://www.gamefishin.com/community/...e.php?id=16181

Glad to see your keeping it in the family!!! Good luck and enjoy it!! Good looking dent to start with.

That is one nice truck. Good Luck
-Lance

Yep!, nice looking truck to start off with, and its nice to see a truck like that staying in the family and getting passed along, and sounds like your gonna give it a freshening up!

I think its great you are going to keep it original, good luck and keep us posted from time to time! By the way, we love photos!!

Looks like a pretty solid truck that served your family well over the years.

Looks like a really nice truck project.

thats a beautiful old truck

first off welcome to FTE.com and too the Dentside (73-79) area,

looks like a nice truck, and nice to see it staying in the family, and best of luck with it! your truck looks like it has lots of potential and its a great foundation for what you have planned,

-Brent

Not much to report lately, except the motor is out. I've got the gasket set. Hope to get the overhaul done before the New Year. Then clean-up the (massive) engine compartment and reinstall. Then I'll move-on to the interior and body work.

Got any photos to share, we like to see rebuild photo, or even an empty engine bay!! Let us have a see at it!!

looks like you have a good base to start with.

Man I really need some encouragement. This project has been stalled-out for over a year, after little progress to begin-with. I was very gung-ho to work on this truck, given this history of its service to my family, and my long-time memories of it. Now it makes an oversize storage bin, rain gear rack, and garage obstacle. It's beyond my scope of skill and time allowances. I'm going to need to find some folks that can help me get this thing done.

Where are you at with it? Does it run? From the picture, it didnt look rusty, why not just clean and buff and drive it? Get the brakes and stuff working good anyhow.

I know how it is to get discouraged. The way I get myself motivated is to walk around the truck staring at it, dreaming what it could be like. Then I'll go spend an hour looking at pix of other trucks and vids on youtube of them playing. Then I'll go look through some of my parts catalogs for a while. After all that, I'm ready to work on it for a week. :)

It's easy to lose traction when you have a family to take care of. She'll get done when the time is right.

That's a good lookn' truck. It's the 2wd version of the truck my dad use to have.

Did you get the engine work done?