I finally took the time to create an album. I thought I would share pic's of my restoration, its a 1978 F250 Ranger 4x4, with a 77 grill. it has taken over two years,Thanks to my wife for giving up the garage unwillingly for one of those years , there are still lots of little things to do but it looks like a truck now. Chassis was done in chassis saver and we replaced the original frame and it has a 4" lift. I loaded up the album, so the completed truck is on the 3rd page. I'm the gray hair guy with my 2 sons. Hope you guys enjoy the pics. Thanks everyone for the help over the years, this is a great site.

Jeff

 

Nice Job! It looks great!

 

Very nice job on that truck. Whats the story on the other one I seen peeking out of the garage?

 

Thank you for the complements, Nice catch, I didn't think it was in any of the pics. It's a long story, the dent in the garage is a 79 F250 Ranger 4x4 that was suppose to be the a parts truck and my youngest son fell in love with and wouldn't let me kill it. I found a deal on Ebay and we have been addicted ever since. I got the black frame that my truck body is on, with a new rough country 4' lift, running parts truck and a ton of parts from other donor trucks that someone had started the restoration on and had lost interest for $1500. So the next project is working on the parts truck. We have replaced the bed, and I have a cab at my dads house. so the projects continues, its been a lot of fun and we have learned alot. It's funny, my younger son gets upset when I end up using some of his parts, but then he just tells me that I know he will end up with my truck anyway someday. He's probably right!

 

Great job! I love it!

 

Great job, I wish mine was that far along. I have to do a lot of painting before I move my body over to the 4x4 frame.

Doug

 

Thanks, I need to post some more pics of the interior, the 400 has a mild cam, other than that not much more, I just re-did some Ford Motorsport aluminum valve covers and it has heddman headers. Interior is pretty nice for its age, all black. I've got another dash pad to install, We have been lucky with the stuff we have aquired, they have been in pretty good shape. But there is always something that needs to be worked on.

 

Terrific Job! The 77 grill threw me off for awhile till I saw the caption on the one photo. Did you put the motor/tranny in the chassis before you set the cab on?

 

Thanks, yes the motor and transmission and transfer case was in the chassis before the body swap. It was great, I worried so much about lifting and dropping the cab, My son worked for a construction company at the time and his boss brought a boom truck over. we just rolled the new frame out fo the garage, used one 4x4 through the cab with straps and just lifted and sat it on the new frame, same with the bed. then my son cut the old frame in half,after we cut the U bolts for the diff's. Then it got hauled away. I wish i had some pics of that but we were to busy guiding the cab and bed into place.

 

Terrific! This is such a great hobby, I can't wait till my son's old enough so I can tear into my '78 with him and get him hooked as much as I am. Mine also has a 400/4 speed. What was the hardest part in your opinion? I'm leery about taking the wiring out of the original truck and being able to get it all back where it's supposed to be when I swap the new cab on.

 

I was lucky keeping the original cab, so i just had to unplug the harness in the engine compartment and just throw the harness on top of the brake booster and make sure it was out of the way. I have read that if you switch the harness to another cab it has to be pulled in from the inside of the cab, to keep it in one piece. I would just lable everything and take your time. I guess the hardest part for me was having enough space to put everything as it got cleaned up. It doesen't seem like it, but there are really a lot of parts in these old trucks once you start tearing stuff apart. I just have a 2 car garage and my driveway was pretty full with other cars. Other than the hard to loosen old cab mounts, it went pretty smooth. I just kept telling myself that it was just like putting together a big model truck. It seemed overwelming at times, but you just have to concentrate on doing things one step at a time, and when things would get frustrating my son would say " this is suppose to be fun dad" which would make me remember why we were doing it together.

 

very nice I love the blue

 

Okay, newbie question: where are the pics? I'm missing something.

 

You have to look in the blue banner about 3/4 toward the top of the page and select albums and look for 78longbed. I guess I should have put them in a gallery or my garage, I'm still figuring the site out myself, it was my first pics. Thanks for looking.

Jeff

 

Ah, okay. Now I see it. Nice truck!