Hello everyone! First time poster, long time follower. This thread will be where I chronicle the restoration of my 1979 F-150 4x4 shortbed. It's been in my family since new and it has a name: Rufnek.

This is a love story.

My aunt purchased the truck new in 1979. She was driving by the dealership and saw it perched up on ramp in all its glory. She wasn’t really looking to buy a new car, but fell in love with it at first sight. She pulled a U-turn and went inside and bought it on the spot. As she was signing the paperwork, a man from the service department came in and said "Hey, I was going to buy that truck." My aunt said, "Well, tough, I just bought it!". The man said, "Well then at least let me take you out on a date since you just stole my truck". She agreed, and they married soon after.



She had recently finished her nursing degree and decided to get a personalized license plate: "RN". When my grandmother saw it, she sarcastically asked "What does that stand for? Rufnek?". My aunt decided to change the plate to that, and the name has stuck ever since.


When I was a small boy, she would make an excuse to take me away from my parents and we’d go for rides in and around the nearby mountainside. I would stand behind her as she sat in the driver's seat with the seat belt around both of us. Hey, it was a different time back then LOL. I have the coolest aunt ever

My aunt loved that truck and the two were inseparable. When she had a son of her own, the two of them would go four-wheeling and cruise all over Tucson, AZ. As you can see from the pictures, the truck has a very distinct paint job and screams 70's!



To my surprise, when I turned 16 she sold it to me. Her 8-year-old son (my cousin) wasn't very happy about that, but she needed something newer and more reliable and it just kinda worked out. So this truck was the very first vehicle I ever owned. I made many memories with that truck and, as you can imagine, was the envy of most my high school.

When I started my own family, I needed something more reliable with more seats. You know the story. There was no way the truck was leaving the family, so I sold it back to my aunt who gave it to her son (my cousin) who was turning 16 soon. This was around 1996. My cousin loved everything on wheels and learned everything there was to know about trucks, engines, etc from his dad (the Ford service guru). For the next 20 years the truck became his playground as he modified it in several ways to accomplish his vision for it. When he started a family of his own, I asked if he would ever consider selling it back to me and he replied "Never. I'm taking it with me when I die." We both laughed and I said "Fair enough, I understand that better than anyone". Below is how the truck looked while he owned it. It’s not my cup of tea, but he was very proud of it and it did look really cool!



As my cousin took on more projects, his prized trophy sat idle beside his house and not much was done to it for a long time. He worked for the Sherriff's department, and in 2019 he tragically died when his firearm accidentally discharged as he was retrieving it from storage. He was 36 and left behind a wife and two sons. My aunt and uncle were devastated, as was my whole family. My cousin was like a brother to me and I miss him more than words can express.



As his wife began to sell off his project vehicles, I approached her about buying the truck. She didn't want it to leave the family either and agreed to sell it to me. While I very much wish it could have been under different circumstances and I would give anything to have my cousin back, I am nonetheless thrilled to have it home and looking forward to restoring it with my youngest son (21) and building lifetime memories with him.


The truck has never been in an accident and has lived in AZ its entire life so there is no major rust. The body is laser straight with very minor dings here and there. The biggest “problem” with the truck are all the suspension modifications my cousin performed. He was very handy and fabricated all the suspension components himself using any scrap metal that he could find when he was younger. Fortunately, nothing was welded to the frame and it looks like it will all bolt off. The hood currently stands 6ft in the air even though it’s on tiny tires!

I guess you could say this will be a resto-mod. My intention is to maintain it's unique, classic look while upgrading the features, comfort, reliability and performance so it can be enjoyed by my family for generations to come. It will be a frame-off restoration and will include a Coyote engine swap. I am a purist at heart, but I’m also a realist and I just can’t see the 400 engine being long for this world with its low horsepower and poor fuel economy, especially as emission standards and the price of fuel continue to rise. It will have a mild lift, but still needs to fit inside a standard garage so nothing crazy. As far as aesthetics go, I am not a car show guy but I want it to be car show worthy, if that makes sense. Every component, nut and bolt will either be replaced or refurbished to new condition. Right now my plan is to repaint it to factory color, and then use vinyl decals to replicate and improve upon the accent stripes the dealership put on it. Everything is subject to change of course, but that’s the plan as of right now.

I have a very demanding job and many personal responsibilities, and my son (primary helper) has a full-time job and now lives two hours away, so this is going to take a while!!! I think it will take two years, but it will be interesting to read this two years from now and see where I'm at I will post pictures of progress and will probably need to lean on this forum for advice quite often. I have never done anything like this before, but I am pretty handy and up to challenge.

Meanwhile, if anyone is interested in the parts I won’t be re-using feel free to PM me with questions or offers. I’ll try to identify what I don't plan to use along the way but don’t hesitate to reach out if something grabs your attention.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy going on this journey with me as this love story continues to write itself.

 

My deepest condolences on the death of your cousin. That is a tragic loss. Keeping his truck alive and in the family is a great way to honor his legacy and would be a fantastic thing for his children to experience when they are old enough. Having the ability to share "Dad's" truck with them is something that cannot be duplicated at any cost.

Your plan for the truck sounds very similar to mine on Ol' Snort, and with both of our trucks living in the desert their whole lives, trust me, the restoration will go pretty quickly. The fellow motorheads in this forum are an incredibly valuable resource for parts sourcing and technical experience, especially with regard to adapting modern upgrades into an old truck.

I wish you the best of luck.

 

thank you for sharing this amazing story. I look forward to seeing your progress. Good luck.

 

This might be the best first post I have ever read on this site - welcome and thanks for sharing.

 

No kidding!

Good luck on this one, and I hope it comes out better than expected!

 

Welcome to FTE!

Have you thought about a Godzilla swap at all?

 

Thanks for the well wishes everyone! I've made a little progress but nothing worth showing pictures of. Just got everything in front of the radiator off, moving onto the quarter panels next, then into the engine bay. Bagging, tagging, and snapping photos of everything. Oh, and I assembled and stood up a gantry crane from Harbor Freight before I tackled the front. Gonna need that bad boy soon.



Yes, I've been looking at that! It's fairly new, which has me a little skiddish, but if the swap kits for the 73-79 have matured by the time I get ready to buy the engine I just might do that instead!

 

Great story with the truck! Glad it could stay in the family. Sorry for your loss, I know the truck pails in comparison to your cousin but Im sure he is smiling down on you happy to see you make this truck your own. The song "Riding with Private Malone" by David Ball came to mind. I know your cousin will be with you at every turn in this truck. Look forward to watching this build progress!

(I too had grand timeline plans... its scary to think I started my build thread in 2016 and Im still not done LOL. Good luck tho, it will be a labor of love for sure!

 

Was able to make a little more progress yesterday. Engine and transmission removal is next!

 

And a little more progress! Amazing how long it takes to get to this point, and how little things can completely consume your day and slow progress. Parking brake cable, stubborn body spacers, 4WD lever, building wooden cradles, etc, etc...
Before you know it, we'll be setting our tools to "righty-tighty". So far they've been stuck on "lefty-loosey" LOL

 

Am I seeing that right, the coil buckets are turned upside down? Of the 3 shocks, 2 of them are attached to the radius arm. Did they drill holes through them or weld brackets first then bolt them on? How long was truck driven with the coil buckets like that?

 

Ya, pretty sketchy. The buckets are upside down. The radius arms were fabricated from scratch and he never threw anything away so I'm hoping I can find them in storage somewhere.


Which reminds me, does anyone have a nifty way of filling frame holes? There are several drilled holes in the frame that I would like to fill in before painting. Most are 1/4" to 3/8", with a few 1/2"ers. Filling them with weld using a copper backing plate is the best method I've found on the youtubes. Any sage advice or suggestions for a Harbor Freight priced welder would be much appreciated.

 

Re filling holes in the frame, the copper backing plate is a good part of an effective solution. If you have a good metal punch system and a bit of 1/8" flat steel you can create the right sized plugs for those holes. Failing all that just fab a steel backing plate or find a few knock out plugs from an electrical circuit box and do a rosette weld of the hole leaving the backing plate in place.

Loved the back story of this post. Inspirational!

 

Thanks flowney! As of today, the frame is completely bare and I'll be taking off the suspension/axles next. Feels really, really good to finally get to this point.

 

Been a long time since my last update, but I've been keeping busy. Can only work on it an average of one day per week, so it's frustratingly slow progress, but I just keep chipping away.
Frame is finally primered! Need to filler the side rails here and there, then re-primer and paint it satin black. But it does look pretty good as-is if I say so myself Took waaay longer than I thought to wire wheel and spot blast the frame clean to my OCD standards. If I had to do it over again, I would've paid for someone to come out and wet abrasive blast it. I don't think I'll ever hand-clean an entire frame again for as long as I live

Found out my rear axle was twisted and the third member cracked, so I ordered up a new Currie 9-inch with Truetrac posi. Dana 44 is getting rebuilt with 4:11 gears to match. NP205 transfer case is being refurbished. Should all be ready in about 4 weeks, then I'll have a rolling chassis again!