You're a man of vision! Alaska is the last frontier and there is talk (idle talk) of seceding from the Union. It's a land of individuals who are able to live on the basics and enjoy every bit of it.

 

I spend my summers as a charter fishing captain out of Seldovia and am pretty familiar with Alaska. However, I have never spent a winter there. Homer/Seldovia is kinda the "tropical zone" of Alaska. It doesn't get much below zero, but it has a lot of snow. We are moving to Seldovia in the fall of 2015. There is one gas station in town, no auto repair, one post office, one bar, two restaurants and one grocery store. That's it! No other retail businesses! And no stop light. With about 300 people, a person needs to be resourceful and able to fix their own equipment. That is why I want to keep my vehicle as simple as possible while still having it very reliable.

 

I dont know about driving that make and model all the way up to Alaska but i can tell you it will do you well while there. Take care of the truck and it will take care of you. I had no issues in the winter with mine when i was stationed there. It got around great and all was good. I never took it on long road trips due to the MPG factor but otherwise we were good. I did use mine for a daily driver, and all around work truck. If you must drive that truck then see about the ferry in washington to Seward. you can get there until September otherwise you can only go to Haines I beleive it is. Call early and reserve a room on the ferry if you decide to go that route.

Just my .02

Tim

 

Temperature is relative. People in Fairbanks will call everything south of Cantwell a tropical paradise in the Winter. Really that's how it feels though.

It still gets pretty cold in the Southeast though, and it's a very wet cold. I've known people in Fairbanks who'll say they'd take the static -70F 0% humidity temps you can find around the interior over the 0F and wet temps the coastal cities get. There is something to be said for that (although when taken to that extent I disagree).

It's easy to say it doesn't get much below 0, but when it's 10-30 below (which it will be for at about 1.5-2 months) and wet, that's still pretty cold.

When it's cold carburetors tend to be more problematic than simple EFI. Had I not picked up the truck with the IDI diesel I would have ditched the Holley 4160 I had on the 390FE for one of those simple EFI conversion that have the same form factor as a carb, bolts right in place of the carb, and hooks up with just power, switch ignition, ground, and an o2 sensor.

You could always yank if off and bolt the carb back on in 5 minutes if it failed. With an i6, or even a small v8 that may get you close to your mileage goal as long as you've got a high enough final drive ratio.

Do you have a place to work on it during the winter? You said hauling building materials and Seldovia so I'm guessing you've either bought a cabin/lodge, or are planing to build one. Does it have a garage?

I spent years in the bleak, freezing darkness of Fairbanks turning wrenches to help keep my friends trucks alive and it is a very different ball game than working in warm temps.

You can't feel your fingers, rubber turns to plastic, steel bolts turn to glass, oil turns to syrup, fuel burns you like acid when a drop hits bare skin, gaskets turn to tissue paper, thin wires and hoses become dried spaghetti noodles, and heavy gauge cables and large hoses become concrete. It's unpleasant.

Also, if it is a cabin you're building will you have reliable power there? If you go with an older truck you'll need to keep it plugged in.

Will it be the only vehicle? If it takes too long to start and runs the battery down where is the nearest other truck you can jump it off of?

Not trying to be discouraging, or to disparage older trucks but this is a hard place for them. It's important to plan accordingly.

 

2500AK: so are you saying that old trucks don't or won't work in Alaska, or not reliable enough to handle the winter there ? I for one would say that most older trucks are tougher and more reliable than newer trucks. True the parts can be harder to get and find which can make a break down that much more expensive, but with a good running older truck that is taken care of I would say it's more reliable than newer trucks are, just for the fact that they were built tougher back then than they are now days. So what would you say needs to be done or added to a older, 1979 F 250 4x4, 300 I6, 4 speed ?? I for one was working on rebuilding the truck currently before heading up to AK in the spring.

 

This...

Grew up in SE AK, went to college in Fairbanks... It's a whole different animal, even within the same state!

 

In some regards yes, in some regards no.

Gear drive transfer cases are a good example. No manufacturer makes gear drive transfer cases for production vehicles that I am aware of. A Dana 20, or an NP205 is certainly stronger than say an autotrac transfer case.

There is also the matter of complexity. However things like carburetors are not a solution to electrical complexity, they are substituting mechanical complexity for electrical complexity.

In a lot of regards the technology has not changed much, and the issue is simply that an old truck will likely have very old parts which will need to be replaced, and which may be hard to find.

Relative to other places you see fewer older trucks in Alaska during the winter. Part of that is because we have a high cost of living, and an extremely high median income. You see lots of new trucks.

The other part is that if your vehicle breaks down in the lower 48 you call a tow truck and it's a big inconvenience. If you break down up here depending on where you are (say somewhere on the Parks Highway or the Glen) you stand a pretty big risk of dying. Either from exposure, or CO poisoning, and a whole host of other things.

Our roads are extremely dangerous. Every year there are about 1,000 collisions involving moose alone annually. If you live here you will become part of that statistic at some point.

Older trucks in particular ones with manual master cylinders and front drums have less effective brakes. They also tend to do worse in collisions with regards to keeping the people in the cab from dying. If you don't at least have a shoulder belt you're going to suffer some pretty bad internal organ damage, a head injury when you hit the wheel etc...

Older trucks don't have crumple zones. The bumper technology is just a plate of steel. The cabs do not hold up well to roll overs. The glass turns into knives when it shatters.

The way the roads work up here is that they dig deep ditches to either side to shove the snow into. Every year dozens and dozens of people catch a tire in the snow ditches, or swerve to avoid a moose or a Subaru with bald tires and roll. It's a pretty common thing.

Everyone in Alaska either drives a truck of a Subaru. That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. If you hit another vehicle, the size of an older truck, which is what gives it a modicum of tank-like safety is a nullified.

Our roads are ice for about 2/3 of the year.

When it's icy in other places everyone slows down because "Oh my god, it's slick!" here everyone gets used to it within about 3 weeks, and settles into a sort of "combat driving" which is pretty terrifying. Getting used to it is good in some regards, but people still do 85-100 MPH at 7:00AM down the New Seward through 3" of fresh powder and a blanket of partially sanded ice.

If you are driving an older truck you'll be going below the speed limit. You won't have OD, so you won't be doing 65 unless you've got 3.08 gears and a high winding motor. That makes for a big speed differential.

Like driving at night? It's always darkest before... actually it's pretty much just dark. Try driving in Fairbanks in the winter. Less that 4 hours of what some people might optimistically categorize as a basterdization of dawn and dusk. The sun never makes it above the mountains.

The southeast is better, but you're still down to about 5-6 hours of light at the worst of it.

Old trucks have poor headlights. In the 70's they didn't even have halogens. The route the supply wires into the cab, through the switch, and then out to the lights which ground to the rad core support. The light output is the color of beer.

Also, every idiot and their grandma up here has done those awful re-based HID conversion kits in an attempt to create synthetic daylight. It's really really bad. Especially because we're talking about mostly trucks so the lamps are high off the ground. It's almost safer to wear sunglasses at night.

I assume he'll be going to Anchorage at some point. The Seward Highway between Girdwood and Anchorage is one of the deadliest roads in the US. It's a winding, single dotted line, 2-lane road that snakes around with a sheer cliff face on one side, and a plunge to ocean/quicksand on the other side. There's also high traffic train tracks parallel to the road on the ocean side. Blind curve every 1/4 miles. Beautiful drive in the summer. It's also always shutting down due to rock slides and avalanche in the winter. They had to install a reader board in Anchorage that gets a lot of use.

In the winter you really want to use 4wd 100% of the time unless you're pulling into a tight parking spot. Hubs aren't ideal for this. Basically you just leave them locked in and deal with the hit to MPG and u-joint wear.

A large number of the pre-1980 trucks have 4.09 front gears, and 4.11 rear gears. This is actually beneficial off road as it gets the front to dig a little faster. If you hit a patch of traction though the old truck will wind up a lot faster than one with matched axle ratios.

I'll also talk a little about carbureted engines in the winter. A carberator needs vacuum and flow past a device called a venturi to meter fuel into the engine. It also needs vacuum signal to distribute the fuel, and it needs the motor spinning over the keep the float bowls filled.

When it is very, very cold and you try to start the engine the fuel will not evaporate. You close the choke to get more fuel out of the venturi. The motor is not running so there is no vacuum signal, air going in has been restricted, and the fuel runs down into the cylinders as a liquid.

The engine may or may not start while you're fiddling with the clutch and stepping on the gas. It will however go down into the cylinders and wash the protective layer of oil off the rings and the walls. It may even contaminate the oil if it floods.

This washdown will wear out an engine very quickly up here. This is why carb engines always need to be plugged in, and EFI engines not so much. EFI feeds the fuel in under pressure and atomizes it at any RPM/vacuum/flow.


79 probably has front discs. If it doesn't I'd find an axle that has the open knuckles and spindles. Maybe a dana 60, add in a proportioning valve. If you've already got front discs change the rotors, calipers, hoses, pads, and fluid. Better shocks like the ones Billstine makes is another worthwhile upgrade.

The next thing, although expensive I would convert it to EFI. In retrospect that was the first thing I should have done to my 71.

Lights. Up north even the cars have lights bolted to the front of them. Lightfoce seems to be really popular. You can adjust the beams on them like a maglight, but they're expensive.

I've been having good luck with Hella 550's (the wide square ones), but I use Hella 500's (the round ones) on my GMC and I like those as well, except they only really throw well with 130w bulbs, while the 550's have a better, wider beam at mid-range with 55w bulbs.

For what a lot of people up here call "moose lighting" I like those rubber housing Grote lights that go for about 9$ with the flood pattern. Aim them off and to either side of the road. They're diffused enough they don't bother other drivers and they let you see either side of the road out to the edge of your low beams.

These are also great for reverse lights, and it's so dark everyone up here should have aux reverse lights, even if you just tie them into your trailer harness.

Headlight relay mod. Get 4 relays, trigger them off of the + lead from the headlight beam supply wire, one relay/breaker for each beam. They'll be a lot brighter. You may also consider switching the sealed beams for something with the discrete bulbs like the 9007's.


This:

Is a really great invention. I have one on my 71. It warms up the entire block, heater core, and rad. With this you get warm air from the heater before you even crank the engine up.

It also has one of these:


Which will get the cab up to about 50F when it's about 20 above. May not sound like much, but it really does make a big difference. You wire it out and plug it in with your other heaters.

Having a good battery is pretty vital. I've had good luck with Optima Reds and Blues. They don't seem to feel the cold like other batteries. Never had one freeze down.

I run two batteries in everything. If you've got, or can get a second battery tray you should too. Alaska eats batteries. If you wire two 800 CCA batteries in parallel you've got 1600 CCA the batteries pushing together will keep the load from the starter from damaging either one of them.

In my GMC I just have them in strait parallel. - to - + to + same as the diesel Ford.



On my 71 I have the + separated by a continuous duty solenoid canister.

Solenoid continuous 4pole 12v carbide, 24213, Cole Hersee - Ryder Fleet Products



Then then the alt charges both separately via a diode isolator.

kind of like this one


The switch in the cab is labeled EMERGENCY STARTING POWER and I can switch it to have the winch battery jump start the truck. Used it once or twice, was sure glad to have had it.

A really big brushgaurd, or off-road bumper. Something with a lot of weight to it will play to the strength of an older truck in pushing things like moose out of the way.

Don't run a 50/50 mix of coolant. Run a 70/30 mix, colder than -45 a 50/50 mix can slush up. Also, if you change your thermostat make sure it has the 1/8" hole in it to burp air. Some cheap stats don't have this, and it can lead to them freezing shut. I've had this happen, and it's not fun. Lower rad line froze and the Engine overheated at -78F. Make sure the stat is the highest temp stat made for the application. (sometimes there'll be a 180F summer stat and a 195F winter stat).

Block off the rad. Even if you just have to zip tie cardboard to it. If you've got a fan with a clutch make sure it works. One without, I'd remove it and put in electric fans.

Backflush your heater core to make sure it's clean. Running a coolant filter isn't a bad idea.

Synthetic fluids in everything. At -50 syn 5w-30 is about like maple syrup. Conventional has to be added via spoon.

Blizzaks or studs. I say studs but some disagree. A/T's are marginal at best. Street tires won't cut it.

Keep a few bottles of HEET in the truck. If you get bad gas and your fuel lines ice up it will clear them. If your engine won't start you can try pouring a capfull down the carb choke open, should give you about 3-4 seconds of running.

Convert the choke to manual choke. Most electric chokes stop accounting for colder temps at about -30F, at Fairbanks temps you'll want to be able to keep the choke closed to prevent the motor from stalling.

Run grounds to everything important. I like to use 2 gauge welding cable, ground to the firewall, ground to the block somewhere near the starter, ground to alternator bracket, and a ground to the frame. A cab to frame ground, and a battery to radiator bracket ground are also good ideas. Get the resistance from everything to the battery as close to 0 ohms as possible.

Get the biggest alternator you can find and run it. Not sure if the classic trucks can take the 3G alternators, but if they can then I would do that. A bigger alt keeps your batteries from charging and discharging as much.

By that same token, biggest, beefiest battery cables you can make or buy from the batteries to the starter solenoid, to the starter itself.

Mechanical oil/temp/oil pressure gauges.

Use quality lockouts hubs and don't over-grease the splined collar, when the grease gets cold it'll cause it to stick.

CB radio is good to have, you can use them to flag down truckers or more often the plow drivers if you're out on some lonely stretch of highway with no cell coverage.

That's about all I can think of modifications wise. Other than just being sure that the engine is fresh, has good compression, nothing leaks etc...

 

Running down the road at 60MPH while 30 below and a windchill of -20 and you have nothing blocking the radiator will stop the truck dead cold... Good luck trying to start that!

In addition to what you do to keep the vehicles running, you keep a sleping bag rated for 20 below, extra hat, jacket, bunny boots, gloves, ski mask, ear warmers, insulated pants, socks, food and always bring fresh water.

You never know when you'll get stuck in a snow storm because your vehicle died and you have to ride the night out. There's been a few times people have been found frozen to death after being caught in a snow storm less than a mile away from a house/gas station, etc...

You don't mess around with nature up there, she'll turn you upside down and spank the living life out of ya, literally!

 

Thank you AZ F250 and 2500AK for all of your helpful advice. I will make sure that I do as much as I can to the truck before spring.

 

This is a very good point. If I was to make an Alaska Survival Kit and market to people in the lower 48 top two things would be merino wool thermals and bunny boots.

The merino wool is too expensive to keep a set just for the truck, so I leave an old set of polypropylene thermals and my bunny boots under the seat. Hat, and a few pairs of gloves too.

Water is also good to have, but it will freeze so I usually have a few bottles of Gatorade rolling around. Dehydration makes the onset of hypothermia a lot worse and a lot faster, and the electrolytes keep the bottles from freezing. Unless your in Fairbanks, then they'll freeze anyway.

One last thing I forgot to mention. Recovery points and a recovery strap. You don't want to just be looping your recovery strap around the bumper or a leaf spring perch.

Shackles are a good solution. If you have a hitch keep a hitch pin in your glove box. They way when someone goes to pull you out you just slide the loop into the hitch and pass the pin through it, then slide in the cotter pin.

Under no circumstances should you get a tow rope in this capacity. Tow ropes are marginal for towing and downright dangerous for recovery. A recovery strap is longer, slightly elastic, and has loops at both ends.

Something like this


or this


The tow ropes have hooks, and people get killed every year when the hook breaks loose and goes flying through a windshield. Chains are slightly safer, but still not very safe.

Tow rope for comparison

 

more people comming to alaska!!! its turning into california!

 

Well they drive Ford trucks, so at least they're the good kind of people.

 

that is true! we got to many "other" drivers, i welcome ford drivers.

 

No, it's becoming Washington, which is full of Californians.

Wow, when we lived in Fairbanks we had a '72 Cutlass and a '74 Ramcharger. The only mods were studs and block heaters.
The Cutlass made three round trips Friday Harbor/Fairbanks via the Alcan plus a winter run or two to Anchorage.
We moved back to WA in '76 and Dad traded in that pos Ramcharger for the '77 that I reacquired (in a very round-a-bout way) recently. It has spent a few winters in South Eastern and the South Coast as well as Fairbanks, again with only studs and a block heater.
It's a wonder anyone ever survived.
I do remember one thing though, EVERYBODY had a cb radio. This was back before the Smokey And The Bandit craze and that stupid CW McCall song that inspired it.

 

It seem impossible that anyone lived very long before EFI and all the other stuff on vehicles today. To hear some people tell it, the only real safe vehicle is a snow cat. I'm with you: a good solid vehicle with minimal stuff to go wrong and some common sense. True, if there are new inventions to make your old truck better and safer, why not add them. Otherwise, I'm sure an older truck will do just fine.