I just bought this 1975 F250 Custom 360 automatic, I have wanted one for years. I learned how to drive on a truck just like this when I was like 7 years old, yessssss 7, different times and no, I was not raised in rural area or a farm...........I have been looking for a truck that was in drivable condition and good enough shape. I can probably figure out how to do most of the work but don't have time so have some friends that will help me thus will be limited to what I do to keep cost down. This will just be my weekend go to Home Depot and drive around truck but just so excited to have it. I have always loved this color, turns out is a Bay View green, now that I am down the rabbit hole, I know this stuff!!!. I will be giving "Tom" a tune up, new tires, breaks, new headers and exhaust pipes. I am getting the seat which is only slightly damaged in the middle of driver side fixed but otherwise "Tom" is all original so trying to keep him that way. I am 53-year-old man, no pronouns here, but my truck identifies as a Tesla, so we are environmentally friendly. I think the paint is in great shape in and out, but has a few major dents. So will have to try to figure out how and if I will fix that so will be polishing it soon and then see how costly that will be, but for now will drive as is.

My wife has had a Spanish song stuck to her head from her childhood about someone named Tomas and how ugly he was....She has been singing it ever since she saw the Tom part and thus baptized the truck with its new name. His name is "Tom" because the passenger side plate only says "Tom", his last name is Custo as the M fell out and I think that's a cool name for a truck. So, meet Tom Custo, my new truck.

Any advice or suggestions on "Tom" is appreciated.

 

Welcome. I think you’ll fit in well here.

Wow, that is a color straight out of the ‘70s. I think all of the appliances in my grandparent’s house were painted that exact same color. My grandfather used to say that he couldn’t tell if it was “**** yellow or puke green”. Despite his apparent disdain for it his ‘73 had the exact same interior color.

Are you doing all of the body work yourself? How extensive is the work you want done? If you’re farming it out and there’s a lot to do, start with that first. Body shops take forever. Our truck (once my grandfather’s) took two years to complete, and that was with me doing all of the sanding and stripping down to bare metal myself and removing each section of the body and bringing it to them.

If you disassemble yourself and take the parts to the body shop then use the time when you’re waiting to do the work on the powertrain.

I’d avoid whitewall tires since I think they’re horribly ugly, but that’s just me.

 

Do ALL of your mechanical work before you do body and paint. That way you don't have to worry about doing damage to the paint when you do mechanical work. Do the interior last, once the dirty stuff is finished.

 

Welcome to FTE

Nice looking truck. You are starting off with a lot better truck than I did.

Me I like stock "looking" truck but if you know the model you can see some things have been done to customize it.
I would go thru the brake system and replace anything that needs it.
Some say must have disc up front. I thin drums are fine as long as they are in good shape.

Now if you find you need drums, shoes, springs and bearing then I would look at the disc swap.
If you have to buy parts why not move up to disc right?
The same goes for any motor work. If you need to replace the carb maybe up grade it but that may also need a intake upgrade.
I dont like headers as they leak all the time and if it is not a race car why do you need headers?
Factory cast manifolds and if you want then dual all the way back to the rear bumper.
Could also go a little larger pipes and a performance muffler.

Once the truck is road worthy then I would look into the bodywork.
Dave ----

 

There’s a point to be made there, but again, it depends on the timeframe that the body shop can complete your work. If stuff is sitting in their shop for months at a time you might as well get something else done. I did a lot of work in parallel. Waiting on one thing so I worked on another. If you’re not doing a frame off resto and time isn’t a factor things change. In that case, yes, by all means do the body work last.

 

I did do a cab off frame rebuild all be it time was not that big a deal, 4 years.
But the mechanical was done first.
Well kind of as I did do floors, rockers, cab corners before dropping the cab back on the frame as to take up less room.
As a body panel went back on body work was done to it first then bolted on.
Paint was done last on a put together cab / nose then rolled out and the bed painted (flare side) apart then put together when it was put back on the frame.

I guess one thing that could be different is I did all the work, none of it was farmed out.

His truck body does not look that bad but being new to him he should go thru the mechanical and get some miles on her so he knows just whathe has andgo from there. My truck could not be driven safely and needed a lot of work to make it so and why I pulled it all apart for the rebuild.
Dave ----

 

Have to share this:

Last weekend I was taking a couch to my daughter's new house who is moving back to town. We are in a rural area in Central California. There is a famous donut shop in our town which is always very busy and were heading there to get some donuts on this beautiful California summer day.. On the way there, a car kept trying to get our attention and kept pointing to us. I was wondering if maybe I cut them off or something but paid no mind and pulled into donut shop, while that car had turned on a very busy street. A few minutes later we are inside the very busy donut shop and this older Asian lady came in and excitedly was asking "who owns that green truck"?. I hesitated a bit and told her I did and I had just bought it. She starts to scream at top of her lungs that "that is my Dad's truck"!!!! I am not sure where this is headed and tell her that I just bought the truck and my concerned face must have shown because she started apologizing and lowered her voice a bit as we were gathering a crowd. She starts to explain that when she was a little girl, her dad, a farmer owned this truck in the 70's. I took her to the truck and then she started pointing out how all of the different dings and dents occurred. This particular dent is from a cow that got loose, jumped and kicked the hood. She was so excited and kept telling me all the trucks stories from her childhood.
Anyway, I was planning on taking most of those dents out but now feel obligated to keep them as I now know the full story. Which randomly turns out to be very cool.
There was another donut patron who happened to own and have parked a few spaces next to us another 1975 F250 the explorer model. That truck was in beautiful shape and fully restored, this lady looked at that truck after she finished crying and sobbing and told me in a demanding, proud and loving proclamation, "this truck worked hard, very hard. This is a work truck, DON'T baby this truck, its a work truck!, Leave it as is!"
She hugged it out with my daughter, we took a bunch of pictures, she took pictures of Tom Custo and went on her way.

Tom Custo is legendary!!!!

 

Great looking truck, as I was reading down, before I got to your last post, I was going to say, just do the mechanicals and leave the external as it is, then I read your last post, and YES, leave Tom as he is!! Fix the seat, the headliner, having had a similar experience down in Fresburg at Lowes when I first got my 66 F100 on the road, it cemented my decision to leave Shrek as he was. He was a work truck, got towed behind a road grader who was building roads in SD. He is as bare bones as you could get, 240/T18, single speed wipers, radio delete, one outside mirror, no cig. lighter.

Your hubcaps are my favorites, no Smog **** to worry about, AND West Coast mirrors to boot!! Maybe put a nice glass pack on and enjoy! Nice score!

Where in the CV are you? I'm up 41 in Oakhurst if you ever need any help with the mechanicals, most everything you want to do is fairly simple, not sure if you have a muffler shop you use, I just went to A-Z muflers in Fresburg and was super pleased with them, I'll be going back down to them soon for my 77.

Welcome to FTE and enjoy Tom!

 

truck looks cool don't worry about the dents. drive it to home depot and don't get in a rush to do anything right away unless it wont make it to the donut shop. mechanics will rip you off. met a guy recently who took his truck in for oil leaks and paid 2000 for oil pan gasket and valve cover gaskets. thats a great stinky green and looks to be in great shape you got a survivor driver enjoy

 

I am in Modesto.
I have a friend who rebuilds mostly older European cars, (Vw's and Porsches), but he is a master mechanic and helped me purchase it. He has several friends that are hobbyist so after this weekend, a couple of them that have their own shops at home are going to help me with some of the potential work.
Going to make sure suspension is good, (has a ratle on driver side), Transmission service, then put tires, new breaks, give it a tune up (doing that myself), and fix a leak in the new steering pump (one of the lines is leaking). Don't think am doing headers but not sure and giving it new exhaust pipes and that's it.
Will buff it out and take some of the rust out and bring out the patina on that and that's probably it.
Not even adding a radio, just put a bluetooth speaker direct to my phone and maybe adding an alarm.