I picked up a '77 F-150 supercab last Saturday. Some backstory of how I got this truck, I picked up a '86 F-150 a few months back for $60 and put about $200 in it and had it running and was ready to put it on the road. I got the truck from someone at work who's father passed away. I kept asking him for the title and he was unable to produce one for me. I wound up taking the brand new fuel tank out and putting it into a '94 F-150 I picked up for free. That truck did some with a title and is on craigslist for sale. I put the '86 on craigslist to part it out and the plan was to keep the 302/C6 for my mustang projects then, scrap the remains. Someone contacted me wanting to buy the whole truck for $500. The new owner picked it up Thursday about 9 pm. I was looking around on craigslist Saturday morning not expecting to find anything and stumbled on this truck for sale. I've been wanting a 70's Ford truck for a while and when I saw this one I had to have it. I rented a car dolly here in Augusta and drove up to Charlotte to get the truck bought. I paid $525 for the truck.

This truck has A/C, side tool box, cruise control, 400ci, c6, and sliding rear window. The seller told me he owned a exotic repair shop and someone was paying to store the truck on his lot and stopped paying at some point, when the seller contacted the owner he was unable to pay the storage fees on the truck and turned it over. I was told it drove into the lot about 5 or 6 years ago. I'm pretty excited to work on something that isn't a Mustang for now. The first thing I noticed when I opened the door was the floor pans are in need of replacement. I think I'm missing part of the A/C pulley assembly. The bed floor also needs attention and the windshield is cracked. Some other concerned were the sagging supercab windows, the rear window is about to fall out of the track, and the roof has some rust just above the rain rails. I also wanted to try and get another front seat since the one in the truck is torn. I looked for info on replacing it with one from a 90's truck but didn't find anything using search.

The first 3 pictures are from the sellers ad, next is from when my wife made me take her to a mall in Charlotte with a truck in tow and last one is when I got the truck into the yard:

 

Looks like a solid score. Congratulations!

 

I just got a SC myself and learning. I read somewhere that a seat up to 94 will interchange if I remember correctly. Looks like a nice project coming up. Welcome to FTE>

 

I put in a split bench from a 96 in there. Bolts right up to your existing rails. Way more comfortable as well

 

I've had some time to spend with the truck. I rebuilt the carb, and replaced the fuel pump. The truck fired right up but had a terrible lifter tap, or so I thought. I got a short video of it:


I pulled the valve cover on the passenger side and found the rocker arms closer to the breather rusty. I found the push rod on the number one exhaust valve bent. The valve was stuck up, I'm trying to get it loose.





The body has a few spots I'm concerned with including the floor pans. Both supercab windows are sagging in the hinges

 

My 351m kept bending pushrods like that. Turned out the valves were so gummed-up with varnish they were getting stuck.

Check the stems and seals the best you can. Might be time to rebuild the heads

 

4) D5FZ-73302A12-A .. Plastic Retainer-Quarter Window Hinge / Obsolete

1975/79 F100/350 Super Cab / 1975/80 Pinto/Bobcat Station Wagon.

CARPENTER NOS OBSOLETE PARTS in Concord NC has 1,239 = 800-476-9653

 

I got some time to get back to the truck after the holidays and a cruise earlier this month. I tried to spray the valve down with pb blaster and tap it loose almost daily for 2 weeks to no avail. I decided I'm going to pull the heads and clean all the valves up. This gives me the perfect opportunity to check the pistons and cylinder walls over. I'm planning on replaceing the lifters, push rods, and valve seals. I'm unfamiliar with these engines, is it normal for the intake gasket to be rusted or did it have a leak?

EDIT: I didn't notice until I posted it here, but it looks like the middle water jackets were leaking on both sides.

 

I managed to man handle the heads off the engine. The cylinder walls all have cross hatch on them. I'm pretty concerned about the valves looking burnt. The stuck open valve doesn't look so great looking down the runner.




drivers side:




passenger side:



stuck valve:



close up of the most concerning valve:

 

Looks like the valve seat is wasted. Any decent machine shop should be able to make short work of rebuilding your cylinder heads. Make certain to have them magnafluxed to text for cracks.

 

I forgot I had a thread going for this. I did get the truck running again, runs like a top. I had issues getting the timing set correctly, my valve cover sticker is torn where the timing is marked, tried setting it at 12 degrees, too much, turned it back down to 6, too little. 8 degrees was the sweet spot. I put new tires on it and taking off normally in the neighborhood I've accidentally chirped the tires.

I plan on getting out to get a few things done with it this weekend. Still need to tear out the carpet and see what I'm working with on the floor. I replaced the upper radiator hose, sending unit, thermostat, and flushed the system. Only gauges I have working are oil pressure and temperature.




most recent picture of the land yacht

I did finally sell my '94, I was hanging onto the money to spend at the Charlotte auto fair but I stumbled on a '61 unibody with a 351m in it, showed my wife and she told me she wanted it for herself. Now I have 2 trucks to build.


This is the only picture I took of the unibody.

 

where your heads usable and what work was done and final cost?


They looked pretty rough to me.

 

I was able to use my heads. I can't remeber how much it cost me but they got shaved, 3 new valves, 1 guide, 16 valve stems, 16 push rods, 16 lifters, new head gaskets, new valley pan gasket, and new valve cover gaskets.

 

I wanted to start the floor pans a few weeks ago but got busy. I started Sunday morning but the water heater went out so I didn't get as far as I hoped. I have another busy weekend ahead but, I'm going to try and at least finish the passenger side this weekend.


Spent a lot of time trimming the floor to make the new pan fit well. Ignore my ugly welds, thankfully I have a good number of grinding discs.

 

"Igore my ugly welds, thankfully I have a good number of grinding discs."

Hey. Those are YOUR welds........... and they'll be under the carpet. So you can't go wrong

Great place to practice/get started.