I've about got my boat prime mover project done. I picked up a loaded '89 F250 with a blown (blown the 3 gallons of coolant in the pan way, not the supercharger way) 351 back in April for a little of nothing.

Found a running replacement motor the other day for $50. Cleaned it up, new gaskets, all that jazz, and just got it bolted in last night. Finishing up the final connections now. Didn't do a full rebuild because this truck will most likely only run the 30 mile round trip to the boat ramp and back twice a week and I wanted to keep the total cost for a good heavy duty boat puller well under $1000 Cylinder walls, mains, and rotating assembly looked serviceable as well.

Anyway, since this one is about done I'm looking for a fun project. I'm wondering about the possibility of putting a mid-70's F150 or F250 body on a 1995 or so F150 or 250 4x4 chassis. I love the older body style but I'm also a big fan of technology so that body style with a slightly built 351 MAF set up and a ZF trans sounds kind of cool. I can most likely get the complete newer truck around here for half what an aftermarket FI system would cost. I'm a good fabricator and the ol' man does body work so I think we can handle most of the project no problems IF there are no major issues like completely incompatible frames, etc.

Is this a relatively do-able project or are there major hurdles I need to consider? Or am I mentally challenged for wanting to do it this way instead of just restoring an older truck?

 

The frames are different, so you really would have to do a lot of custom fab work to get that project going.

So you want to use an 90's frame, with a 70's body, and a 90's drivetrain? What's wrong with the 70's frames? Wouldn't it be a lot easier just to transplant a 351w/ZF into a mid-70's truck? Isn't that enough of a challenge for you?

 

Haha, either way it's pushing the limits of my abilities . I just thought there might be less wiring headaches going the way I described vs. moving the new mill and trans into the old truck. You're probably right, though, with a complete wiring swap it would be easier to put the new organs in the old body. Hmmmmm, time to start looking for donors to sit in the yard and aggravate the wife until I decide what I'm going to do........

The plan is to sell my current driver truck once I've got the bugs out of the current project truck and use that to finance my new project, along with whatever I can get out of leftover parts from the donor vehicles. We'll see how it works out.

Thanks for the info and suggestion!!