Hi all,
I haven't posted on here a lot, but I'm a big car nut and one of my most serious projects the last few years has been my '77 F-150 Ranger short box stepside hi-boy (I think it's a hi-boy anyway!) 351W auto.

I bought the truck about 4 years ago from the original owner with 83k miles on it, and I just rolled over 89k this weekend. The truck was somewhat stock when I bought it though it did have a few different things:
1. 6 15" alloy racing wheels (two spares!)
2. Floor shifter - Not a good one, one with a hole punched through the floorpan between the brake and gas and a metal rod poking up so you have to shift entirely by feel.
3. Roll bar with lights
4. Industrial looking square rear bumper of 3/8" steel

Since then I've done a lot of maintenance items including:
1. New plugs, wires, distributor and ignition (had the 30 year old original parts in there when I bought it)
2. New manual fuel pump (old one failing)
3. New rear brake cylinders (including new fluid)
4. Various wiring fixes including most of the lights, trailer connection, and 12v socket
5. Carb tuned up
6. New 3 row radiator (including coolant flush)
7. New 140 degree (30 degree cooler) thermostat and auxiliary electric cooling fan
8. 10k pound winch custom mounted to front - Bumper cut, Class III trailer hitch cut to have a shorter tube and mounted upside down to the frame rails with 4 x 1/2" grade 8 bolts!
9. New tires - Firestone Destination M/T 31/10.5-R15 (both spares have older M/T tires on them) - Would have gone to 33" but the tires are already rubbing at lock, but see below about that!
10. Lots of tools including jacks, shovels, gas, all fluids, any tool you can imagine for fixing the truck, straps, chains, ****** blocks, you name it I have it if it's a recovery or repair tool!
11. Rust converter sprayed on most of the truck and black primer color now (was a gray/green/brown crazy design of a factory paint job before!)
12. New steering arms - Bent the old ones really badly on something!
13. New radio and speakers wired in
14. Both side mirrors replaced with plastic stick-on "bubble" mirrors - Gave up on replacing them with glass because I broke them every time I went off-roading!
15. All other fluids not mentioned above replaced (diffs, oil, etc)
16. New tranny cooler - also relocated up to in front of the radiator
17. Custom 2.5" single pipe exhaust that exits under the step plate on the stepside behind the driver door
18. New oil pan - Bent the original one pretty badly off-roading
19. New rear shocks

The truck currently has a couple of problems:
1. It overheats on long uphill off-roading adventures, or short uphills after not having a downhill to cool down. The 30 degree cooler thermostat and radiator were an attempt to fix this, but the problem is the radiator doesn't get enough airflow over it. So I put in the electric fan on the back of the radiator, but I haven't had a chance to wire it up so I can use it. My solution for now is to pull over and let it cool. I carry about 10 gallons of water in the bed and I just dump it over the engine block and radiator and a few gallons at a time and 10 minutes of sitting and it's good to go for another 15 minutes of intense uphilling!
2. Vapor lock related to the manual fuel pump and above cooling problems.

Other than that, I've replaced or fixed everything else. The other mods that are in the future that I haven't gotten to yet are:
1. 33" or 35" tires - Once the current set wears out I'll go up to a larger size with wheel spacers so I can maintain my ability to turn sharply without the tires hitting the trailing arms or other things.
2. Rear bumper (stock or similar)
3. New rear hitch with 7 pin trailer connector (only have a 4 pin)
4. Wiring for rear-mount winch - Front winch is on a hitch so I could pull it off and put it on the rear if the wiring was there.
5. Finish wiring cooling fan
6. Paint is something other than flat black - Open to suggestions, maybe yellow or orange?
7. Rear Yoke skid plate/protector - Ordered today
8. Front and rear diff skid plates
9. Possibly a few other skid plates and guards including for the driveshaft and a few other things.
10. ARB air locker in the rear
11. LSD in the front
12. Rocker guards - Can't find any anywhere!
13. Repair bed with new wood and hardware
14. Custom jack, gas, water, tool carrier in the bed
15. Better stereo!
16. Fix the "floor" shifter
17. (Someday!) - Either fully rebuild this engine or put in a crate motor

That's probably about it for now! I'll post some pictures tomorrow when it gets light out. I do have a couple of questions:
1. Can somebody point me towards instructions for wiring the electric cooling fan to just a manual switch? It's pretty easy but I'm just trying to figure out if there's a really easy way I'm not thinking of!
2. Should I upgrade to an electric fuel pump?
3. What are the best power adders? Just do a carb, or should I do intake headers too, or what?
4. What's the largest size tires people have been able to run on a stock suspension?

 

Looks like a really good build so far. Glad to see you posting since you've joined in 2008 haha.

One thing is for sure, that 351W is NOT the stock engine, but it's a DAMN good one to have under any hood. I've got one myself, 1972 Galaxy 351W

If you're looking for power adders, do your exhaust (think you said it was already done), intake, headers, upgrade your carb to a 600 cfm or around that.

In order to add power, you need to let your truck breath better. Carb, intake, headers, exhaust, and heads are all ways to do that. But they basically all need to be done to get the maximum amount of airflow.

If you've got the money, spend your money on some aluminum heads. They flow very well and shed heat better because they're aluminum.

While you're doing the carb, you may as well get an electric fuel pump to make sure that it gets the fuel that it needs.

On a highboy, you can run 35's, but since you're big into offroading you may as well go with 33's so that they don't rub so badly when you hit the rough stuff.