Hey guys and gals. This is my truck, not my first ford – for sure not my last, but is my biggest so far. Sure there is big in the lifted way, but this thing is just big in the general way. Crew cab, long bed, dually – demands the lane as it cruises down the street.

I am hardcore into drag racing and love hotrods! I bought this truck solely to be the tow rig for my racecar and the summer family camping trips. When I bought it I was driving a little sporty turbo Subaru, then had my daily commuter and my racecar, adding this truck made 4 cars in the driveway… well racecar in the garage, but you get the point. This truck pretty much sat un-touched for some time, then I realized I didn’t need all these cars, I can only drive one at a time. Sold my subie – leaving this truck as my only backup car, so figured it was time to put some money into it and enjoy it more than I was.

So this will be my build page. I will list out projects, pics, issues, questions, Do’s and Don’ts.

My rig: 1986 F350 DRW with a carbureted 460 to C6 trans.

I really wanted a non-computer controlled vehicle. Simple-Basic, less wires the better and only what it needs to run. This truck being the last year they were carbureted from the factory – it hit the bell for being a perfect starting platform. Except all the emissions junk under the hood. But took care of that first off with a large parts order and some nights with buddies.

BlueBruiser - Its two tone blue and I plan to add back interior goodies, so black and blue theme the idea of bruise came up. Then with the meaning in urban dictionary for Bruiser "Someone who's tough and doesn't get taken down easily" seemed to make sense for this rig. Hence the user name

Being into hotrods and fast cars - I plan to hotrod out my dually. Nothing crazy over the top - no air bags or notched frame, but functional, cool, and loud! I don’t need it daily so gives me lots of time to tinker and dig deep into projects.

-Cheers and chime in freely as you have questions or insight.


-BlueBruiser

 

Here she is:
Bought locally off Craigslist. Guy was asking 2K but talked him down to a selling price of $1,500. Basically had a view issues that helped with negotiation, but I’m good at that anyways. I think I got a good deal.









I started a list of things to repair or modify, make it my truck.
Not at all toward the top of the list, but was a good deal so couldn’t pass up….
But the truck had poor tires when I got it. They held air fine, but had nasty looking cracking on the side walls.



Since I was going to be towing my pride and joy at roughly 10K lbs with everything, I really wanted to replace the tires. Locally 6 fresh rubbers out the door was just under 1K. Dragging my feet on rubbering up the factory steel wheels or stepping up to the wheels I want. But the wheels I wanted with tires cost more than I bought the whole truck for. I had a hard time stomaching that. Ended up finding a sweet deal on some used wheels with new-ish rubber (they only had about 250 miles on them). Got 6-16” aluminum wheels and the barley scuffed rubbers for $1300. So they way I see it with how good of shape the tires are in, I only paid $300 for the 6 wheels. That was much easier to swallow even being not exactly what I wanted.
Sure I wanted bigger, cooler rims and prolly wouldn’t have bought these if the deal wasn’t such a good deal since they aren’t MY style…. But they are aluminum and way better than stock. Plus they give it that hotrod look or at least not like a farm and field truck now.


I wanted a tight fitting center cap... as you can see this one barley fits as the trucks hub slightly dented the rear center caps. better this then what was there.



Now I can do burnouts without worrying about blowing the cracked tires. I know, I know, shouldn’t be doing that to the truck that’s what the racecar is for… but it’s in my blood and I really like doing them. Pics on that to come later I’m sure; just haven’t snapped one yet.
-BlueBruiser

 

Nice looking truck. I like the wheels. Looking forward to seeing what you do with it.

 

Look forward to seeing what you do with it.

I've got a stock 460 with a C6, weigh 10,000 lbs and often tow 3,000 lbs. I certainly don't set any speed or MPG records but I do okay.

I've come to believe the stock heads are the limiting factor and am curious to know if you're going to change heads. Also curious to know if you can run a roller cam and lifters in that block or if you have to stay with flat tappets.

 

Luckily for me I don't care about MPG. Being this is a limited use rig doesn't bother me if it costs some coins to get her down the road. I'm sure I will figure it out just to know though. I'll be sure to post when I do.

Also, for now no plans on the heads. Being performance minded I will probably do a head swap eventually, just not on the list for now. Again with the cams and lifters prolly wait until the head change. Just dont see a need to mess with the stock ones at this point.

For the mean time I will be fairly budget friendly - keeping changes realistic. Just like the wheels... I almost dropped 4K for a setup that I really wanted... luckily the little guy on my shoulder kicked in and gave the wants vs. needs speech. Hence the realistic wheels, but way better than the steelies to me at least so I guess a win win.

I'll tell you its hard for me though to keep scaled back. I've dumped a ridiculous amount of money into my racecar, so I'm no stranger to spending money on what most would cringe at or disagree with. haha.
-BlueBruiser

 

I see you have changed your mirrors or mirror heads? What did you do here and how are they working out for towing. I need to do something with the obnoxious looking west coast big rig style mirrors on my dually.

 

Yeah, sort of a not done yet thing. So its just the mirror head. I purchased the tripod style mirror thru LMC truck (part no. 49-6581 --> 35-5820 in the pic here). My factory mirror head was broke so needed a quick fix. I say quick fix cause my buddy gave me his tow style mirrors off his 08 f250, but thats going to take some fab'n down the road. So when I got these I didn't have much time before I needed to use my truck so I just mounted the mirror head from the kit on the factory bracket.
The view area has improved tremendously! So I love the size of them. However, on the factory bracket the weight is a bit much, they bonce around a bit more than I would like. I know they would work better on the bracket they came with, so I'll get around to mounting it I imagine, since I'm not sure about my buddies mirrors yet.
Those western style mirror are expensive new... LMC gets 200 for them... I'd say if you don't like them, they have enough re-sale value you could prolly get different ones for little to no money out of your pocket.


-BlueBruiser

 

When I bought the truck, the previous owner told me the motor had been rebuilt at some point but he didn't have any records. At the time of purchase since it just ran okay, I was skeptical, but didn't care at the price I was paying.
Also when I bought the truck I had intentions on simplifying the engine bay right away. So I starting removing parts one by one and bagging and tagging everything. Sorting out what I would re-use, garbage, sell, etc.. I knew I wanted to delete the smog pumps and all emissions related components. I also knew I wanted to eliminate the factory duraspark ignition and go with a standalone setup. Figured that would clean up most of the mess. So just started pulling parts trying to get down to a long block.











Now you can start to see the actual engine.


Upon doing so, as I dug deeper it was obvious the motor had been rebuilt like the PO said. It just looked like they topped it back off with all the factory parts. In several locations I could see use and over-use of the same gasket sealant, fresh gaskets, a few stripped bolts, even new bolts and washers in places, two heli-coils. After pulling the valve covers, I noticed all the lifters and rocker arms were marked and numbered (another sign someone had gone through it).
Seeing this made me feel pretty good, knowing I was going to tear her down to long block and top it back off with new parts. Thinking I’d have a fresh engine made me feel good about the money I was investing ($1500-truck, $1300-wheels/tires, and $1000-fresh parts) $3800 total so far for a pretty dang solid truck. And another 3K miles and she rolls over to 00,000.0 on the odometer. So will be cool in theory, to have the engine closely match odometer reading.
Doing the overhaul wasn’t necessary, but I wanted to do. Sure it didn’t run the best, but I wasn’t trying to fix anything by replacing what I did. I wanted to eliminate things which required other parts, but my goal was to minimize and simplify. I figured with the components I was replacing it would help make it run better than before – which it did, so I was thankful of that as-well-as its looks!
Here are some pics of the overhaul:













When I was putting parts back on I would tape things off and paint the original parts/engine bay area – just so when it was done everything would look fresh.









Even made a make shift paint booth with some old blankets.. haha, hey did the job.



Here it is with new parts going on.









Big air cleaner cause…. M’erica not for any performance gains..



Then I decided to go the header route with dual 3" exhaust. I really wanted the piping to travel down both sides of the truck and exist just infront of the dually flares. But there is a gastank on the drivers side, so did dually exhaust down the passenger side. Still looks really good I think! Not overly loud unless I stand on the loud pedal and let that 460 roar!






-BlueBruiser

 

Can you post some more pictures of the exhaust under the truck? I want to put headers on my new truck, and I keep getting the feeling that the driver side header and pipe, will get in the way of the trans axle, or the crossmember.

 

I will snap some tonight and post tomorrow, dont have any of the piping handy.

 

Thanks for the feedback on the mirrors. I think I will go with the tripod style on mine, like the 38-5818 in the pic above.

Your engine and exhaust looks great! I'm in the process of doing the same to mine except I'm going to hold off of on the headers for now.

 

Good looking truck you got there! I do wish I could have spent that on my rig and got one half as nice.

Are you going to keep all the emissions stuff or trash it? I could use some of it if you are going to get rid of it.

 

I noticed you took the AIR pump bracket off, what did you do for an alternator bracket?

 

Wow, that looks really great! I'd be very interested to see the parts list for what you put on it, but I seriously doubt headers would fit in my van chassis!

Curious to know what you did with the gas tank vent system (EVAP). Is there a way to control the fuel tank vapors with your set up or is now just vented directly?

Most important of all, how does it run compared to stock?

 

Here ya go, These pics show the route my exhaust guy ran the piping and muffler placement.