Fair question! When I first bought the truck they were mounted this way, and I never really though to flip them. Also this picture shows a bit of the transformation, so even if it still doesn't look all that great now, certainly looks a heck of a lot better than it did before.

 

Hey y'all. Been a good long while since I've been on here. Some of y'all followed the road trip I took this summer. Thanks to all of you for being a part of that. It was certainly an adventure.

These last 6 months or so have been pretty rough for me, but they've also given me the chance to plan out this next part of my build. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I've decided to go an.. interesting direction with this truck. Pretty much the completely opposite direction as what I had originally planned, actually. My first introduction to the world of auto enthusiasm was off-roading. I was in a club in the mountains of Virginia and we had a blast. Somewhere along the way, I discovered KOH and ultra-4 racing out in Johnson Valley, CA and I caught the bug. This truck build is inspired by those two elements.

SO, here are the plans.. and yes, I know I'm doing this the hard way, so there's no need to remind me.

I picked up a 2004 F250 Dana 60 front axle today. That's going to go under the front. I've also acquired a trailing arm kit for the rear and am looking for a 3-link kit for the front. This will give me what I need for a rather large amount of travel. The hope is to be able to hit the trails and run through Moab and other such places. I'm hoping to support this suspension with some king coil-overs. I'm also going to swap out the original, very tired motor (think I've lost compression in a few cylinders, so she needs to go to the machine shop to be rebored and rebuilt), with a fuel-injected Ford 300. I'll have to replumb all the brakes and upgrade to a more modern brake booster and master cylinder. Somewhere along the way, a small bed cage will happen, mostly because I need to mount the coil-overs somewhere. I'll be getting a 4wd transmission and t-case, though that probably won't happen until next year. My bank account is going to have to recover a bit before I can think about re-gearing the front axle and new driveshafts.

In order to make all of this happen, I've mapped out the parts I need and weighed the cost. I'm also setting a somewhat loose timetable to have all the parts ordered in the next month. I'm also doing everything I can to map out the disassembly and reassembly before I start so I can anticipate the roadblocks that might come up. I'm trying to think about it like a monthly car payment, and that makes me feel a little better about how much it's going to cost. But, I'm also telling myself that doing what I love and using my creativity to make something wild is well worth it, especially considering the people I'll get to meet and build relationships with along the way.

I'm hoping those of you out there who are purists will forgive me, and perhaps hop on board and enjoy the ride. It's going to be a wild one.

 

Good and happy trails. Will be an interesting build.