This project started out around spring 2012. A buddy of mine said "hey, this guy parked his F100 at my house a couple years back and now he wants to sell it for $500". He shot me the pics below, I wrote a check, and the project began. That was all I knew about the truck.

When I actually put my hands on it, this is what I found. 1971 Ford F100 2wd. Someone pulled the 302 with a manual transmission out of it and dropped in a 460 with a C6. Near as we can tell, the 460 is from around 1977. The C6 leaked ATF about as quick as you could pour it in. The power steering didn't work. The brakes were baaaaad (even for drums). Prev owner nailed a deer and fixed the headlight with zip ties. The belt pulleys, when viewed from the side, varied from almost ok to 1/2" off from the crank. Heater core shot & plugged. No radio. Wiring harness spliced in more places than I could count.

And with this.... the project began.

 

First, we took the front clip off and pulled the good stuff out. The radiator was junk. Most of the grille is trash. The previous owner also had an electric fan.... hooked up to a switch.... with speaker wire. Binned that too. The 460 ran pretty good but I wanted to go through it top to bottom & do some upgrades while we were at it.

Next step was to tear everything apart - sadly, I don't have pics of this. I swapped phones right after these pics & when I ditched that phone, the hard drive containing everything cratered.

C6 was rebuilt with a kit from Monster Transmission.

I'm going to add now - the budget for this build has fluctuated over the course of the last 3 years.

Pulled the 460 apart and didn't really find any issues. Water pump was trashed, the original Ford carb was.....well, original, intake was rusted up, but all in all, not too bad.

Decided to go with a cam & lifters from Comp Cams, Demon 750 cfm 4 bbl carb....anything else that was replaceable, got replaced. The crank was fine, heads were good, block was good. Everything else is new.

I decided to get a Painless harness for the truck. The old one was junk & figured I should give Summit some more money!

From when the prev owner nailed a deer, the frame was tweaked. While the engine & tranny were out, I took the truck to a local shop and they straightened the frame.

On to part 3...

 

Part 3....

At this point, we are about 2 years into this project.

All our effort has been focused on the 460 & C6. Both are now rebuilt and put into the truck. Those with a sharp eye might notice that the truck is at a different house. When I began, the truck was at a friend's house. Long story short, he moved, so the truck came to my house. We had a slight problem of the cherry picker belonging to the company I work for being a massive POS. So I annoyed my neighbors and brought home a forklift to do the heavy lifting.

One of the casualties of the move was the drive shaft. In the haste to get the truck over to my house, we somehow missed it. There was a shop that builds those sort of things so for a few hundred bucks I got a new one (that was much nicer than what came out of it).

At this point, the truck runs & drives. No power steering, the brakes still suck, limited exhaust, and the wire harness is still in its nice package.

Part 4....

 

Got new rubber for the truck.

Shortly after this, we were running up and heard.......something. Something not good. Tore the engine back apart to find that the camshaft wasn't in one piece anymore. Ordered a new one & new lifters. In the first post, I mentioned the fluctuating budget. When this happened, I had a little more spare cash, so since everything was torn apart we went with oversize pistons. Also milled the heads down a bit to bump up compression. From a prior project ('88 GT Mustang) that is no long with us, we took parts & pieces to convert the 460 to serpentine belt from the v-belts.

As the truck sits now, the engine is in and the cab is off. Paint prep is in process. I still need to find a front clip because this one is pretty much trashed. The left fender is good but that's about it.

Things left to do:
replace front clip
paint
wire harness
bed liner
brakes
power steering
install a/c - I'm thinking Classic Auto Air
interior

Once the next step comes & goes, I'll post another update!

 

Sounds like your typical $500 bump, actually better.

Glad to hear you're bringing it back to life.

Wheels/ tinted windows make it look great! Wheels make or break a vehicle, and yours definitely makes it!

 

Watching this project.

 

Great start so far on it. That 460 should be a healthy runner now. My favorite color on these old fords is yellow. Are you keeping it or going with a different color? Good luck on the build subscribed for more.

 

interested to see progress, these are great trucks

 

Can't beat a nice clean bump for 500 bucks! Nice work so far, awaiting more!