That's an FE alright, but don't assume it's a 390. It could be a 360.

 

Here is a pic of the rear connector for the front leaf.


This pic is the shock tower. Does it look like it had a coil before and someone cut it off?


the underside with the t-case


Front shackle of leaf spring

 

More pics

 

THIS is your money shot!!! It WAS a coil spring front end, those are your radius arm rear mounts, it appears you have a HPD44 and someone wanted leafs up front instead of coils?!! Who knows, but I did grow up in Missourah in farm country, and you never knew the reasonin behind alot of things done by the old farmers unless ya asked em! And they usually had some pretty interesting ones!! And most of them use what they have layin around, so,,,,
Joe

 

The frame is clearly a 1/2 ton coil sprung design, and those shackles and hangers are not factory at all. I woud imagine this trucks struggles to drive down the road with any type of speed. The front swing shackle is a little scary. Appears to be from some type of International vehicle. The narrow spring would also support this.

I was mistaken when I menioned the inverted "Y" steering, it is clearly inverted "T". The tie rod is just bent so bad that it looked like "y" style.


Would you mind taking a couple pics of the driver side front spring where it attaches to the axle? This front axle never had a cast spring perch for a leaf spring, and I am wondering what the PO did to attach this.
Should be interesting.
The PO used some rear spring plates for the front, undoubtedly from the donor vehicle.

I wonder if the draglink hits the pass side spring during a full right turn.
You have your work cut out for you my friend. This can be fixed, and actually once a new set of buckets are installed, coils and radius arms can go right back in.

I suspect that the PO had either a coil fail, the bucket broke, or simply the radius arm bushings went south, and the "farmer engineering" came into play.
This was the result.

 

Sorry to hijack but....

Did someone say half ton supercabs have leaf springs up front?
So in theory a half ton supercab could have a Dana 60 swaped in.

 

 

Yes, the SC trucks will have leafs, and any truck can have a D60 swapped in, even a coil sprung truck / Bronco:
I know I am geting technical here. Notice king pins and large diff cover.


But any leaf sprung trucks fromt 73 to 79 can use a D60F from 78/9 and it will be a bolt in swap.

 

Thanks for the quick response man.
Holy cow that hurts my eyes. I think they are bleeding right now.
These U-bolts are in bad shape. You have to make this thing right. I am not criticizing you, know that. The farmer, and previous PO was an interesting cat. That fab work is,,,,,,,well,,,,,,,different.
On a positive note, at least the radius arm brackets and wedges were not tampered with, or destroyed. You can find some coil buckets, and radius arms, and make it stock again, or,,,,,,,,drum roll please!
Make some cool upper mounts for a coilover, and use a custom set of radius arms. Or buy a kit. This would be super nice. You will have to make a trac bar again, but this is little stuff, and is available in stock form, or you can consider the aftermarket. The aftermarket is packed with stuff to make this right again.

 

Thank you guys for helping me out. Its good to know that there are people out there that know what they are talking about.

 

Can someone posta picture of a upper coil retainer and a lower so I can get a idea of what I am looking for? and if I get stock radius arms can I run a 6" lift coil or do I have to change them?

 

Should you decide to lift the vehicle, you will have to purchase a lift kit with all of the brackets necessary to accomplish this, and bolt everything up. If this is the direction you are going then you may consider a long arm kit since you would have to purchase radius arms anyway.
This is not sucah a bad fix. This can come out clean ahd factory looking. Coil buckets and and hardware is about all you will need. The kit should have just about everything else.

 

Are coil buckets what attaches to the frame? The lower cup for the coil should come in a lift kit? Is there another name for the coil bucket because I cant find any? My grandpa has a 78 f-150 2wd. Could I take his coil buckets or would he have leafs?

 

also on the rear leafs there are helper springs and the lift kits I have seen just have blocks for the rear. Can you block a rear leaf with helpers?

 

Just happened to stumble on this one. Yes, you can block the rear. I personally don't like the handling of blocks, but it will get you by.

From the junkyard, you will need coil buckets, bottom cups and retainers, radius arms and caps, and the track bar and mount. The best bet would be to drive to the junkyard, look at what a fairly complete F150 has, and what you don't have.