Alright guys, Im finally getting around to starting a thread on this thing. Back in June I picked up a '77 F150 to build as a daily driver and started work on it right away. I came to the conclusion pretty quick that would need to do a lot of work to make it functional, so I started a full body of set of repairs. Here it is the day I brought it home.

And a day or two into the tear down

After I discovered that the 351 it had was too far gone to be reliable without a rebuild I started to look for other ways to go. For a while I planned on putting a 4bt into it, but cost and availability led to that plans demise. So, being the diesel lover I am, started to look for other options. After a lot of discussion and research, I decided on a 7.3 IDI swap. Being that the f150 frame cant really handle the weight of the diesel, I started to look for a donor. Thats what I picked this beauty up

Im going to be extending the frame to make the supercab and longbox fit on the frame, but it will be worth it. The donor is an '89 F350, 7.3 IDI with the C6 and dually rear end with 3.55 gears. Heres another pic of the bed that is ready for paint after some body work and primer. Ill keep this updated as i go, and hopefully with better pics if I can find the cord for my camera

 

Almost forgot, heres a pic of the cab that I layed some primer in today. The interior is going to be coated with truck bed liner from top to bottom before sound deadener and carpet go in

 

Sounds good so far. There is another guy on here putting a crew cab on a 7.3 chassis. That is gonna be a ton of work but it will be cool when its done. Good luck with it.

 

Yea I cant wait till its done. found out today that the 7.3's rear end has 3:55 gears, perfect for what I'm using it for. I plan to use the body mounts off the old frame and weld them to the new one, so thats just a matter of cutting/measuring/ welding. What I'm honestly worried about the most is moving all the A/C stuff over, its the only thing Ive never dealt with before...

 

With the a/c, makee sure that you have it evac'd, being an 89 it would be still using R12

 

With the a/c, makee sure that you have it evac'd, being an 89 it would be still using R12, and that stuffs bad for the enviornment.

 

The air conditioning shouldn`t be too bad except for hooking it up to the engine.

 

Hooking it up to the engine should be the easy part, since its the '89 ac system I'm using. Its messing with all the vacuum lines and controls on the inside that worries me. Ill just have to take my time and mark where everything goes, and lots of pictures lol

 

You oughta get a shop manual for the ac, they are completely worth it.