I've been a member of ford trucks for awhile now and I have really enjoyed reading all of your guys' build threads! Lately i have been wanting to make one for my rig but couldn't find the time to type it all up. I have been promising y'all one for awhile now so here it is!

I want to start by saying thanks to all you guys out there who have taken the time to answer all of my stupid questions in the past and thanks to all those who will in the future!

A little bit about myself: I am a 14 year old country boy living in a little farm town in southern Michigan. I bought my first truck the day before my 14th birthday, a 1975 for F-350 supercab. I work on three farms as a farmhand and enjoy tractor pulling, ford trucks, farming, hunting, and fishing. I plan to got to college to be a heavy equipment diesel tech for either Caterpillar or John Deere. Everything I know about wrenching on stuff i have either taught my self or learned from the people i have worked with on the farm. With plenty of time before i turn 16 i am building my first truck so i will actually appreciate it.

I currently own three dents. My first is a 1975 Ford F-350 supercab. The truck has a really cool story behind it! I am the third owner of the truck, i bought it off my buddy's grandpa. He owned a service station at the time and did various kinds of work at his station. The truck came out of Arizona, a gentlemen and his family packed up and drove the truck from Arizona to Michigan. My buddy's grandpa had done some work on the truck at his station when the gentleman had first got to Michigan. One day the gentleman came to my buddy's grandpa and asked if he wanted to buy the truck, confused my buddy's grandpa said "This is a really nice truck why do you want to get rid of it?" Then the gentleman explained that his wife and kids had left him the night before and that he needed money to buy a plane ticket to fly back to Arizona. My buddy's grandpa bought the truck from the gentleman and parked it in his field where it sat for 7 years. I rescued it in February of this year, he was just gonna scrap it!!!. I charged the battrie, installed a new starter solenoid, put 3 gallons of gas in the tank with a bottle of iso-heet, turned the key, gave it 3 shots of either and it cranked times and fired right up! I payed $400 for it and drove it home! The beast has a 7.5L 460 big block with a C6 auto tranny geared 3:73.

My second truck is the truck that started it all! The 1973 F-250 highboy belonged to my uncle and was his first truck back in 88. He restored and built it to be his first truck just like I am doing right now. I remember sitting in it when I was a little kid and thinking I want this to be my first truck! I tried to buy the truck off my uncle twice and unfortunately he backed out on me twice. He gave the truck to me the night after I bought my supercab, I guess he saw that I was serious about building my first truck. The truck has a 390 big block with a 4 speed manual tranny. This will be my parts truck because it is in rough shape.

My next dent is a 77 F-250 highboy rolling chassis. I bought it this past Saturday for my 4wd conversion on my supercab. I payed $1000 for it, yes y'all are probably think I'm crazy for spending $1000 on a rolling chassis but I got a crazy deal on it! The PO had put a 6in Skyjacker lift on and sandblasted and painted the frame and axles. It's got a Dana 60 rear geared 4:10 and a Dana 44HD disc break front geared 4:09. With the chassis I got all the drive shafts all new bearings, seals, and gaskets for the axles, a brand new ring and pinion for both the front and rear. I also got a new set of calipers, rotors, and shoes for the front breaks. I got a steal!! The chassis is also rolling on 12.5 in wide rubber!

THE BUILD PLAN!!
So my crazy plan is to take the 77 highboy frame and axles and extend it to be able to put my supercab body parts on it. I will have to fab up custom body mounts because of the narrower frame rail width if the highboy. I will be taking the NP205 transfer case out of my 73 highboy and using other 4wd parts from that to complete my 4wd conversion. I will also be taking the 4 speed from my 73 and will be converting the supercab's C6 auto to a 4 speed manual. That is it for conversations...... For now!! I won't be doing much to the 460 just new gaskets and stuff because when I am college I plan to convert a 12 valve cummins into her! My other plans for my supercab are pretty simple, just restoring everything. I will be re-wiring the truck with a centech wiring kit. I will be painting the truck a really cool gold/silverish metallic with a black frame. For tires im goin with 35in BF Goodrich all terrain t/a's with 90's ford chrome super duty aluminum rims. All LED lighting, true dual exhaust, headers, a gooseneck ball in the bed and Firestone rear suspension air bags to handle any load farm work can throw at her. I'm sure there will be plenty more modifications, I just can think of them at the moment! If all goes as planed I will have a 4wd 1975 Ford F-250 supercab with a 6in lift and a 4 speed manual tranny!

I will be posting all of my progress here as well as my conversions because some of you guys have asked me to post about them. I have lots more to post because I have not even made it to we're my truck sits today! I just started my 4wd conversion yesterday so stay tuned!!

Hunter

 

Can any of y'all please tell me how to post pic using both the website and the app? I'd like to post some pics of my trucks for you guys!

Thanks,
Hunter

 

This question always comes up....

there may be better/easier ways but this is how I do it....

1) Get a Photobucket account

2) 'direct link' the photo of your choosing to your thread

3) open a beer and enjoy your visual feat!

 

Opt for CAT engines... they are more diversified (construction, long haul, mining) and job options abound. Moreso than Deere, IMO.

Kudos to you Hunter for goal setting, work ethics, and having practical know-how. Too many teens these days, in my opinion, are clueless when it comes to mechanical things and all they want to do is play video games. Oh yeah, **nice** pics over in the Ignore thread.

Subscribed...

 

Haha thanks Montana!

 

Lately I have been leaning more towards cat anyways, the programs are the exact same. 6 months on the books 6 months in the field training for two years at Owens Community College in Ohio. After the two years you earn an associates degree and a garented a job at your sponsoring dealer. I went to my local JD dealer when my boss and I were in there getting parts and they wouldn't give me any info on it! I thought wow that's a real turn off to JD. Oh well cat offers better benefits plus, like you said, they make a better diesel! I am not like most most teens at school, I get better grades and am maturer than most upperclassmen. Haha I too was having a hard time ignoring that thread!!

 

Like I said before when I first found the truck she had been sitting in a field for 7 years!



I got the truck started and drove it up to the owners house so I could do some work on it so it was safe to drive home, the gas pedal stuck real bad.

 

My buddy's dad had a lift in his shop at the house, I backed the truck in and put it on the lift.



Wile the truck was on the lift checked the breaks, the body mounts and all of the frame and suspension parts. Everything was rock solid!

 

Wow! Nice score on the supercab! Take good care of that. F350 sc's don't exactly grow on trees anymore. I started wrenching when I was 5 years old. My dad put a half inch air impact in my hands and told me to change the snow tires on my mom's '71 Cadillac Fleetwood. That was 36 years ago. I've been wrenching ever since. I have a hotrod shop now and build some pretty interesting stuff. If you stick with it, there's no telling where you will end up. Never be afraid to chase something better. Who knows, maybe you'll end up building monster trucks for Bob Chandler. Good luck and keep us posted on your builds.

 

Hey earthquake! Sounds like you and I are cut from the same cloth! Unfortunately my dad knows nothing what so ever about wrenching on stuff, he's a skilled welder. Sometimes I wish he did but I kinda like teaching myself stuff! I am really lucky to have two really awesome bosses to help me along the way and you guys here at FTE. This summer I had an experience like you and your moms Cadillac, my boss told me to go and fix a tractor an I found stuff that he didn't even know was wrong with it! Thanks for the words of wisdom, they truly mean a lot to me. I did a report on Bob Chandler last year for an English paper, he sure stuck with it!! Look at him now! Building monster trucks for him, the guy who made THE monster truck, would be one of those once and a life time opportunities! I will defiantly keep you guys posted!

 

* Nice find *

I wouldn't mind having one of those for a good clean shop truck.

 

Thanks! The truck is actually pretty clean, only 84,000 miles on it!

 

It was the day before my 14th birthday. I got out of wrestling practice and asked my parents to take me over to my buddy's grandpas house to go get my truck. After changing a few light bulbs and fixing the sticky throttle linkage and paying my buddy's grandpa $400 my dad gave me the green light to drive it home! My brother snapped a pic when I pulled into the driveway. It's one of my favorites! It's even got 1 of my 2 Rottweilers in it.



She was pretty dirty so I gave her a bath

Before:



After:



She cleaned up pretty nice!!

 

From the moment I got my truck I got right to work. The first thing to go was the plastic drop in bed liner. I got lucky and the PO had drilled holes in the bed for water to drain out.



The next thing to go was the 100 pound farm bumper. It doesn't look stock to me and i have only seen two of them. Does anyone know the story behind it? Is it stock?






I had no choice but to wire wheel it until I got my sandblaster.

 

Probably not stock but a popular aftermarket choice at the time. My Dad's '76 F250 has one just like it. These trucks didn't come stock with rear bumpers, they were added at the dealer or later by the owner.

Damn that cab corner is GONE!!!

What's the plan for it?