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Hey all! I have owned my 65 for several years now and have been mostly just collecting parts. I've always wanted to do a build thread so I'll be catching this up with parts ordered and work done before moving forward. Most of the pictures will be screen grabs from my Instagram at first, then progress to updates etc.
Starting around 2009, I began my career in a small city of about five square miles in NY. As a car guy, I got to know what cool car or truck belonged to who or what house they sat behind etc. One such gem was a 60's "F100" that sat behind an old vintage house, being used to hold wet leaves . I got to know the owner a little who also had some muscle cars and an old Jag as well.
Several years later after I had transferred to a larger job, and while activated by the national guard, I set out to purchase a project truck with some of the military money. After originally searching for a bump side, I saw the above pictures on craigslist of a f100 with no year listed and the owner asking way too much money. I recognized the truck and tried the number and e-mail in the add but both were wrong. That same day, I swung by the house to see what the details were and found out the owner hadn't really wanted to sell any of his vehicles but his wife was making him cull the herd by two. We had a beer and talked for a while. The truck was originally a sand shell beige 2wd 1965 F250 custom cab that someone had farm painted green and white (even painting across the light reflectors with just the lenses removed!) and added f100 badges I'm guessing due to the 65 F250 emblems being one year only. It had dodge chrome wheels, dealer installed bumper guards and rust issues. Drive train was a 352 FE with a NP435 four speed/granny low and a 4.10 dana 60 locking rear. The truck was originally owned by an apple farmer in NY and then bought by the second owner who used to to haul large beams from a mill for his house restoration. It had been parked for about 10 years and started on the first try every time. We reached a price 1/4 of his asking and I drove it 40 miles home Roadkill style on a major interstate with one bad brake hose.
I didn't have a garage at this point and the truck still lived outside, except on gravel with no leaves in the bed (Did i mention how bad the bed was/is? It's bad) We used the truck as a mobile work bench around the property including working on our bee hives.
During this time, I started hunting down original steel wheels. The 62-65 8-lug steelies that take the larger bottle center caps aren't the easiest to find. It took two years of looking to find 5 wheels and four center caps. Still not sold on the caps vs the open look. The wheels were powder coated in Ral #1013 Oyster White which was a match for Wimbledon White and wrapped in Deestone 504's.
Well as many of us know, working outside on a gravel driveway, away from a power source sucks. At this point I cut off both old bed extensions which had been fitted with marine looking reverse lights and lots of bondo. I test fitted repops made for a bronco and they fit well enough. I took the advice of John Glenn who has some of the coolest build threads on slick60's and on here and cut down behind the seam to take off the extension and then drill out the remaining spot welds. Not bad for my first time doing anything like this. Thanks John! (Metalwork Yoda)
In 2020 I bought a used Holley Avenger 650 off FB Marketplace for $200 and did my first carb rebuild in my basement using videos on youtube. Drew Pojedinec is a true expert and gave me lots of great advice during this rebuild including how to convert to the cobra style feed line set-up. He restores and sells Holley's on his AirFuelSpark FB page. I bought an Edelbrock performer intake at this time in black too. I painted the carb in Eastwood carburetor gold to get the look I wanted.
More basement bodywork! The tailgate was in good shape minus the important part on the bottom
Scrap To Art Metalworks has a great youtube video explaining how to take a piece of pipe with the same outside circumference as the stock tailgate bottom and replacing the whole bottom of these gates. This is the link:
I ordered a piece of 2" OD steel tube with the same ID (.120" wall) as the stock tailgate pivots from Industrial Metal Sales. I made locating brackets on the old tailgate so that the pipe would be in the exact same spot as the stock pivots.
After cutting off the bottom of the tailgate, I treated the inside with rust mort and then welded flat sheet metal from the tube to the tailgate on both sides. Eastwood cavity spray was used in every point possible. I bought two cans and made a double length hose to reach everything.
More tube with a .175" OD was used to set the side to side movement of the installed gate. I drilled the bottom of the tailgate/pipe and rosette welded the "plug". This pic was before finish welded and bodywork.
Eastwood SCT was used to strip everything down, not as good as blasting but I was and always am still learning.
Bodywork with eastwood products and sealed in 2k primer. Red glow was from tomato grow lights in the basement. Bodywork was finished on the gate and sprayed with 2K primer. It's still waiting on sealer.
At this point we started fostering and getting the house ready to sell. I was going to finally get a garage and we needed more bedrooms. That didn't stop the parts collecting though! PERFECT blasted and epoxy primed doors after a four hour drive to Greencastle PA ($400) to replace the rotted out pair on the truck.
A cab from a different part of PA for $450. This needs way less work that the cab on the truck which is rusted everywhere roof to floor. This cab had some crappy pan repairs and needs some love but everything was an area where I got patch panels from Carolina Classics and Flashback F100's. Foot pans, cab corners, lower door jams, and front and rear mounts have since been Purchased.
More parts purchased as we worked on the new house: Original pent roof valve covers from eBay, blasted and sprayed gold. I may powder coat them before they go on.
A 17inch steering wheel from Flashpower. Their quality is excellent but I'm not sure they are still in business? Not shown is a paintable tilt column from iDidit.
Gas filler from a metal artist on IG for my bed fill. Not shown is a 70 mustang 20 gallon tank for between the frame rails off FB marketplace.
Finally, the big purchase of a complete bed floor from sschassisworx ! Mine is in the crate so this is a picture I stole from their site. Not pictured is the front bed rail and rear wheel wells also purchased.
This is how the truck has sat for a few years now on pavement
More parts collecting, Roller rockers from David Dove, he machined down some of his HD style rockers to OE size so that I could use the spacer kit I had already purchased.
I had a local sandblast guy come to the house and blast the cab in the driveway. He was very reasonable and blew off each section as he finished so I could hit the bare metal with eastwood 2K primer (7 cans)!. The cab is now in my garage that I had insulated last spring.
This was a great find, 300 bucks for a 2003 King Ranch superduty rear seat! No rips and most if not all of the dirt and stains will come out. I want to find more material to reupholster my door pockets too but I'll make a separate post for that eventually.
You're making great progress. Very impressed.
I'm particularly interested in the King Ranch seat installation. I see them on the local CL occasionally; way cheaper than a re-upholster of the original.
Yesterday, I was able to get some work done on the "new" cab. Sand blasting had revealed some pin hole rust in three spots on the roof, with the worst being directly in the center.
I used a center punch to make sure non of the holes were raised.
I didn't take any pictures using the body solder but I found the best technique wasn't smooshing it into the holes but dripping it into the rain gutter and then dragging it up into the holes with the waxed, wooden spatula. I wasn't 100% that I got every pin hole so I used Marine Tex epoxy to seal every thing up.
After bodywork, which at this point was just a very light amount of filler. I'll work it move before sealing everything. This is sprayed in Eastwood 2K primer.
. I got to know the owner a little who also had some muscle cars and an old Jag as well.
It had dodge chrome wheels, dealer installed bumper guards and rust issues. Drive train was a 352 FE with a NP435 four speed/granny low and a 4.10 dana 60 locking rear. The truck was originally owned by an apple farmer in NY and then bought by the second owner who used to to haul large beams from a mill for his house restoration. It had been parked for about 10 years and started on the first try every time. We reached a price 1/4 of his asking and I drove it 40 miles home Roadkill style on a major interstate with one bad brake hose.
Bodywork was finished on the gate and sprayed with 2K primer. It's still waiting on sealer.
