Its a 1975 F250 Factory Highboy thats sitting on 38 inch Swampers. It has a built 390 bored .80 over with 10.5:1 flattop pistons, MSD ignition, Crane highlift Cam, 750 cfm Holley 4 bbl, and Holley Street Dominator Intake, Port and Polished heads, Long tubes w/ 2Thrush glasspacks. The truck was pretty rough when i bought it a couple months ago. It is still kinda rough, dont let the paint fool you. I got it cleaned up as good as I could for the amount of tools and time I had before I had to go back to college.

When i bought the truck the previous owner decided to do some patch welding work on (mostly) the bed. He had a lot of bondo that was slapped on there and needed a little touching up. In the before pictures its hard to tell but the truck body still wasnt ready to paint. So i sanded the whole thing down and tried to cover all of his mess ups with as little bondo as i could.

I then sanded it all down and had it taped up and ready to paint. I am intending this truck to just be used for the big deep mud, its definately not a show truck (like my dad believes all old Ford trucks should be). If you look closely, you can see some imperfections on the body. But i painted it outside on a pretty decent day. The wind was practically non-existant, so that wasnt too much of an issue.

I got a deal on the old Factory Ford Orange CH paint and ended up putting 4 coats on it. I also saved a little in case i have a little run-in with a tree or big rock or something in the future.

So here are the before pics of the truck, a couple days after i bought it.





I am getting rid of those aweful bucket seats and putting a couple racing buckets in it with 5 point harnesses. (I just need to score some seats...)


Here is where i started sanding off his primer job to see what kind of damage i was actually working with.


The bed had like 4 different paint jobs on it over its life span, it was like counting the rings on a tree (i just couldnt tell how old the paint jobs were)



Here it is all ready to paint, sitting next to my dads cherry shortbed 79' with 40k original miles


All done, just need to finish peeling off all the tape, and put all the trim and mirrors back on....that is after i wax and buff the whole thing to get it to shine!


No there isnt anything wrong with my hood, i just didnt want to touch the paint to try and shut it, so i just left it open for these pictures.



And thats as far as i have taken it. I've got a lot more plans for this old lady but i think the paint was a good start. I have some beadlocks i still need to find tires for before i put them on.
They are Marsh Racing Beadlocks. They are 16.5"x14" 8 lug, 20 bolt ring, 6" of backspacing. These bad boys are very heavy duty.






More to come, stay tuned....
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i managed to get all my trim back on and the front bumper. I didnt put the running lights on that go on the side of the bed and front fenders because the bulbs were out and i had to get new ones, along with the right turn signal. I also want to get or fabricate a heavy duty front bumper, but dont have the money or time yet...

Here are a few pictures of the truck with the trim on it and a couple with my dads black '79 and our new $800 F350 supercab! (future project). You wouldnt know it by looking at it but its a one owner with 89k original miles. These are kinda like a family shot, minus my brothers '79 F150, it was in the shop getting the framed straightened.













More to come, rebuild NP205, hopefully get the truck sitting a little bit higher, and then boggers on my beadlocks.....someday

 

Ok 2 things:

First.... 16.5" beadlocks?? Do you understand why beadlocks are completely pointless on 16.5" wheels??

Second...The Boggers will pick a fight with your axles. Boggers will win.

The thing looks cool with the tall-n-skinnys. Don't ruin it.

 

Nice looking rig!

 

haha yeah i got an answer to both of those questions.

Yeah i didnt want those beadlocks, the story behind them is that i knew a guy (wealthy man) that bought these beadlocks for a project, decided he didnt want them so i bought them off of him for VERY cheap. I knew 14" was way too wide, and on the 16.5" rim the inside bead is very steep and its EXTREMELY easy to pop a bead off when running low pressure. So i was just going to buy them and sell them for a pretty good profit. BUT i had the idea of calling Marsh Racing and see if they would let me trade these wheels for another size, because the 16.5's were brand new still in the box. Well i talked to the owner of Marsh Racing, Brant. He is a super nice guy, and he told me to send him my wheels and they would make me a BRAND new set for free! Now i know why these wheels are so expensive, their customer service is top notch! So anyways i sent him my wheels and told him exactly what i wanted and two weeks later i had a fresh set of 16x10 MRW beadlocks. So i got a pretty lucky break, and i will give them my beadlock business from now on.

And i know 40" boggers will chew up D44's all day long, so that brings me to where im at today.

My dad bought that 79 F350 SC for really cheap, and he wanted that to be his new project. But it needed a new cab and bed, 2 gas tanks, breaks, and all the little stuff. And i was looking for a D60HP for my Highboy, well one day he said i will just let you have the D60 out of the F350. I was pumped, but he knew that the truck was going to take a TON of work, and he wanted an old bronco anyways.

Here she is, D60 front, D70 rear:


So im getting ready to start the swap, we start spring break next weekend. But the axle needs new brakes, and probably rotors, and lockouts, plus a fresh 6 pints of fluid! So that is kind of where im at now. I am looking for a set of boggers, but i might just buy a new set $$$!! I also want to run hydro assist but i just dont have the cash right now.

 

and here is the other '79 i was leaving out. It was the one that was in the shop getting the frame straightened. I bought it off a kid who had it totally redone a few years ago. Well one day he let his mom take it to the grocery store and on the way home she got rearended and fliped the truck end over end (yeah the guy that hit her was flyin' i guess). The kid got a few thousand from the insurance and just wanted the truck out of his yard, so i went over and picked it up for a steal! I was just going to part it out, but i decided to give it to my brother and let him wrench on it. He definately has his work cut out for him! Its a 79' F150 w/ 460 that purrs like a kitten. Its got like a 4'' lift or so and bald 35's.


Im trying to get him to build something along the lines of this (as soon as i can afford a tube bender that is)



But he is more into the original looking, grocery getter type truck, which is nice too...

 

That's cool you are switching the wheels out. 16x10's with a 60 would be a great setup!! But don't assume it's a 70 in the rear. Most F-350 4x4 pickups actually have a Dana 60 in the back.

 

man... youre makin me itch to get started on my trucks!

 

me too. i wished the weather would start getting and staying nicer/warmer.

btw nice looking truck. great job!

 

Nice build there. Truck looks great.

 

great thread i just bought a 1977 f-250 highboy my self the guy started a frame off resto and got bored of it. i picked it up for a great deal and i'm just starting to do the research of what i want to and need to do the pics are on there way as well as some questions keep up all the great work thanks

 

thanks guys...these old trucks are a lot of fun to work on. Im trying to get mine ready for the spring mud boggs.

bucks77ford i have always loved your truck in your avatar. I love that paint and the racetrack trim always looks sweet on the dentsides. I want to build a nice 79' F250/350 single cab someday, one that is super nice like yours. Mine will probably be just a Sunday cruiser. I like your truck a lot though

 

i agree with you completely swampshaker99. bucks77ford that is a great looking truck what colour is that blue is it a ford blue or something else?

 

yeah bucks, what color is that....like manufacturer? If you dont mine sharing. I might want to paint something way down the road someday, and i am always looking for different colors. That blue just looks really vibrant and ....i dont know, AWESOME! Do you have any good pics of that highboy you would want to share?

 

Thanks guys. I don't mind sharing at all. It's a dupont Atlantic Blue Metallic color. Also, I don't want to take anything away from your build thread by posting pics in it so here is a link to my photobucket (beware....there is over 350 photos and some are just for reference and some are just me messing around taking pics of different things I had or tried out), but fill free to look. I have a bunch in my gallery, but I haven't updated it in awhile and really need to.

Pictures by bucks77highboy - Photobucket