When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
Gents.
I've just acquired a '78 F250, 4 speed, 44/60.
Still need to pull plug #1 and measure.
She runs good, pops right to life and holds an idle, clutch grabs good, hubs lock real smooth, and it finds low range without a fist fight.
It's got a decent paint job, great in some spots, not great in others. It left the factory green, was a red brush truck for a bit, and is mostly gray now.
The previous owner re-worked the bed, I guess it was loosing the battle to rust so it's redone. It is what it is. I might have done it different, but no better or worse I guess.
This isn't a pristine OEM survivor, but it's far from gone, and I'm going to be helping it fight time for at least a little while.
I'll be mostly just lurking around, but wanted to get a post up to track progress if things get too crazy (like the 5.3L wrangler behind it).
The "fix"
Decent enough inside, but the seat is trashed.
It already had a vynil re-skin, so I'm going to enlist an upholstry shop to re-do it completely.
The carpet can't be 2 years old.
The trailer got real small real quick as I lined it up!
My Pop's 1500 did a good enough job pulling it home.
Congrats and welcome to FTE. Don't be afraid to ask questions and post your mods. as we all like to share ideas that others have done to their trucks in the past. There are plenty of knowledgeable guys here is you happen to get stuck on a project. And that has definitely got to be one of the better DIY bed rust repairs I've seen yet. Can't wait to see more of this truck.
No clue what I'm doing. This is the worst part of it. So I made it a splint.
Then tied it up with chicken wire to get all the springs straight. I'll go over the wire with fabric, then foam, then the heater elements, & then a new replacement vynil coming from LMC.
And then I was pretty sick of all that so I rolled the spare over from the TJ. That's a hummer BFG all terrain on a 17x9. I think I might just get the same wheels for it.
edit: Also worth noting that most all of that nostaligic barn smell is gone with the gutting/removal of the seat. Pretty sure it was the base layer of burlap. So if you want to ditch that smell, it's mostly all in your seat.
The craigslist deal panned out and I got some 17s with the right number of lug holes.
And some 35s, but only 2 of them are worth a salt. One will eventually end up a spare for the V8 TJ.
They'll tell me what clears or not though. Looks like a little bit of inner fender trimming, but not much else to clear them.
Headliner glue & fabric from Joanne Fabric (sp?). Not my usual go-to parts store but whatever. I wish I had bought new backer board because it's all wavy, but the board was $90 and the fabric and glue was only $30 so I'm just rolling with it.
Got the *** warmers in. Yep that's 1/2" pipe insulation. Foams expensive...
The headliner trim was white, so that got the rattle can treatment.
Hopefully the vynil relaxes in the heat a bit and the last few wrinkles come out. All in all I'm pretty happy with it, could be better but would have been 2-3x the cost to have somebody that knows what they're doing, so...
A couple hundred more bucks and I'm at the sellers asking price! I better put the LMC catalog down...
Are the D60 pinion yokes shimmed or crush sleeve?
...can I pull the yoke & replace the pinion seal without monkeying with the pinion depth?
Yes it is shimmed, should have no problem replacing seal. Make sure your vent for axle is open, when it gets warm it will push out fluid if it is clogged. Good looking truck.
