Hello all,

this is my 78 150 custom I picked up last weekend



this is my first build thread, i figure i should have enough time to document it since i plan on spreading the work out, unlike my last project.



The new truck has a straight six with a one barrel motocraft sitting in front of a 4 speed
its supposedly a 1983 engine rebuilt about 30xxxx miles ago.PO put it in within the past year when the 400 that was in it **** the bed

I have my doubts, it ran yesterday after new fluids and sounded good. today however it wouldn't start, and was making a horrible racket

Thankfully the built 390 from my 76 is gonna be swapped in once i get the rest of the work done.


so far the plan is to strip it to bare bones, and start with a clean por 15 chassis.

this is gonna be a long term project that is going to be defined a lot by the budget but the good news is that Ill plenty of work to do before i have to go spend money and i Already have a decent pile of parts to work through the suspension and brakes.

Ill post more pictures tomorrow I'm gonna spend the day drooling over my 4x4 and investigating the noisy 300

I look forward to this thread as i have always used these forums as a resource but haven't participated to much, hope to change that

 

so i got some stuff this weekend, I figure i can't do a proper job if I'm working under a tent as i have been forced to in the past.... so heres the start of my new shop

and some more pics of the truck. i think the flywheel broke or lost some teeth i will be pulling the engine once the roof is done so we'll no more then

 

Looking good! Jealous of the 4x4 and the new shop as well.

 

Finally got around to the truck today after a busy summer.

So now I have a roof over my head


And a day off work making helped me get started on the tear down







Some beautiful engine mounts



bye bye to the old 300


previous owner boxed in a couple sections of the frame... not to sure about the quality of the work..... you can see one of the jackleg mounts a little better in this pic





interesting number written under passenger side fender, i am the third owner of this truck. its never been to a junkyard so i am curious if thats a factory mark?


I'm going back out tomorrow to start cleaning things up, maybe ill get started on gutting the cab.

 

so I didn't make back out to the shop last weekend
but I did get to go on a drive and get this baby



1970 351 cleveland

the end goal is a 393 stroker 10.5.1 CR rv style cam

 

good job on the truck but, im more interested in the building structure. Is that a 4x4 on top of the 4x4 walls the header? What state? Im in Mich and here we have to have a 2x12 on each side of the wall stud, corner studs are 4x6. I know codes are different in every state plus we can get a lot of snow, not bashing just different to me so im just wondering is all. GOOD LUCK with both builds.

 

Watching how this build goes. Was thinking about a Cleveland motor myself

 

I wanna watch too...

 

Have a 78 I'm about to start myself, will be cool to follow along.

 

Nice truck! As for the mark on your firewall, I've seen a few in life, and on FTE. I used to assume they were junkyard writing and the truck had a cab swap at some point, but it seems a lot of people with original trucks are seeing them also. The consensus is, it's some kind of line count for the assembly workers.

 

I just picked up the same truck. Excited to see how yours progresses.