We love to off-road at Silver Lake Sand Dunes. We camp and hang out around the dunes all summer. We have family and friends who love to go for rides and enjoy time in the sand. My cousin and I had the idea of building a multi-passenger dune truck to transport many people at once. We started on a journey last March to find the right pick-up truck to build. We thought we could build an F150 with a 351. So we started by buying an old farm plow truck. We quickly learned this truck was not going to cut it. Cleaned it up, fixed the brakes, parted some of it out and made back the money we paid for it plus a little profit.






Stick with me, this build ends up being a 460-powered, C6, NP205, 4WD, 14-passenger Sand Dune truck. It has been a lot of fun this summer. We have been waiting to share the build until we knew it would work.

 

We found an F250 with a non-running 460, C6, NP205 for a good price and started our plan to find a good running 460. This truck came with an extra C6, NOS ford fenders, and lots of miscellaneous parts. We really wanted to keep the TTB front axle because they ride really well in the sand. We thought we had a good truck to start out project.















This truck ends up donating its transmission, transfer case, driveshafts, and many unpictured items towards the final product. This truck ended up being sold to fund the build. Hence the funny picture of it sticking out of an enclosed trailer. Didn't think it would fit but the new owner was determined to take it home.

 

EXAMPLES of what we wanted to build.

Over the years we have seen many multi-passenger builds. Some were very intricate and some were just thrown together. We wanted to make sure we had a safe and fun vehicle for our family and friends to enjoy. Here are some of the vehicles we spotted as we were dreaming up this project. The vehicle we liked was the silver bullnose F150. It was an achievable build on our budget and we already had some parts to build this type of truck.

 

Browsing FB Marketplace I came across a running driving F-250 with a 460. It was only 2wd but it was the right price. We planned on transplanting the 460 from this truck into the black F-250 we already had and we could start our build. The gray bullnose in the background was my brother's truck. It quit running on him and he donated it to my cousin for parts. Little did we know at that time it would help to shape the direction of this build. We drove this 1987 F-250 2 hours home from the seller's house. I was in great shape minus a lot of rust. Cab body mounts were shot, but it ran great. We started to throw around new possibilities for this build.


This truck spent most of its life as a landscaping vehicle. It hauled many lawnmowers and other equipment to lots of job sites over the years.

 

As we discussed the possibilities for what truck we would build it came to our attention that the 4x4 frame of an F-150 is exactly the same as a 2wd F-250 frame. We decided to use the front axle off of my brother's junk truck (which he just had new ball joints, u-joints, and brakes installed only a year or so prior). Instead of swapping the motor into the black F-250, we decided to swap the transmission, transfer case, and front axle into our camo F-250. We really like the idea of the coil-sprung front end for the quality of the ride. We also already had a 6" lift for the F-150 dana 44 from yet another truck. Hopefully, this is not too confusing, it took a few parts from a lot of trucks to get what we were looking for. Since we only needed from the firewall forward we started stripping down the Camo F-250. Selling off the parts we no longer needed.


The picture above is when we were done harvesting and took it to be scrapped. There was not much left to be salvaged.



With Warn hubs and lots of new front-end parts, we decided this axle was the best one on the lot for our dune truck.



The F-250 got a lot lighter as we stripped it down. You can see the shadow of rust it is leaving on the ground. Many of the parts we took off were sold to fund the project.

 

By this time it was September / October 2021. We found some 35x17.50r15 Mickey Thompson Baja Belted tires for a really good price. These have always been a favorite of mine and would provide great floatation for the rear end of this dune ox. We decided on the name and made it legal. Part of the reason for keeping the truck intact from the firewall forward was to more easily preserve everything needed to be street legal here in Michigan. We purchased a $200 plasma cutter from Amazon, which is still in use and has worked flawlessly. Started by cutting the cab, at this point, there was no turning back.

Yes, we are going to have 8x6.5 on the rear and 5x5.5 on the front for our wheels. We may try and swap out to all 8 lug wheels at some point but for our use currently, it works.



Not really the stance we were going for but the rear tires worked great.



You can see above the rust and condition of the underside of the truck. The flex plate was a mess and needed to be replaced. The starter proved to be on its way out as well.



This is just before we swapped in the 4wd C6 and 205.



The picture above is when we returned from test driving it with the 4wd trans and transfer case in it.






The Amazon plasma cutter is amazing. Works great for the fabrication we did and we can't complain about the $200 price tag.

 

Before we cut the cab a part we were able to get the C6 and resealed NP205 installed. We took it for a test ride and the C6 shifted super smooth. We were unsure of the condition because it came out of a non-running truck. As we started to tear down the frame we knew we were not going to have it this accessible for long. It was a race against the weather. We had to get the frame cleaned up, sealed, and painted. Luckily we got it done just in time before our wonderful Michigan weather turned cold.



Next, we started on the front axle swap. Taking out the 2wd beams and mounts was fairly easy. Swapping in the 4wd axle also went pretty smoothly. The truck did not move from this spot for six or seven months. We thought it looked pretty good sitting on the 4wd axles with the lift and tires.






The front tires we are running are General Grabber 35x12.50r15. They are designed for the sand and work really well. Found the pair at a local swapmeet.

 

With any custom project, we had to make our own parts at times to make everything work correctly. We fabbed up a custom cross-member for the transmission. This is just the center section and does not show the gussets and strengthened we added later but it gave the exhaust guy enough room to run duals later in the process. Every bend received a pair of side gussets to aid in strength. The mounts to the frame were also reinforced as the project progressed. In these pictures you can see how bad the front body mounts were, well you can see where they used to be. It was a rusty mess that we ultimately ended up cutting out.




Here is the cage design my cousin came up with for our build. It will hold 12 people. Should provide plenty of strength with 1-3/4 tubing.

 

We had to come up with a cost-effective way to get 12 seats for the rear passengers. While browsing FB Marketplace I came across an ad for ford explorer rear seats from a police auction. The guy had 40+ seats and the ad said the more you buy the better the deal. We hooked up the trailer and headed to the east side of the state. We brought home 46 seats for $550. 15 of each side and 16 middles. The price was right and we had the room for the seats. The plan was to take the outside right and left seats and make rows of four. We decided to pair up the right and left next to each other and separate them in the middle by a verticle support bar as well as an armrest bar for each row. These seats were brand new takeouts from police SUV builds. Modifying the brackets a little made them perfect for our build.

 

Once we got our seats it was time to start fabricating the rear passenger floor and cage. We tried a few different configurations but three rows of four is what we settled on. Here we spaced the seats in order to get an idea of the space needed for our idea. Once we were happy with the spacing and support locations we started welding some stuff together.

 

Fabrication started happening and went pretty smoothly. The first roll cage hoop was fun because of the price of steel we didn't want to mess it up. Not a lot of room for error. It seemed like the cage took shape pretty fast. Lots of tacking and welding to get everything just right.



First hoop was a success



Second one is easier once you have a pattern.





We wanted to have a gentle slope from the windshield to the highest point of the cage so we cut the front hoop down a little to ease the transition.



The back seat faces the rear so we decided on a mesh floor. The rear kicks up slightly for aesthetic reasons.




Verticle bars for strength.





Needed more clearance for the rear tires. We planned this from the start. We did end up lifting the rear another three inches. 12 people in the rear get pretty heavy. This might need to be upgraded next winter.




Started skinning the floor. We added some more 1x1 tubing where we thought it needed a little more support. The middle row seat supports were integrated into the fenders for simplicity.

 

Any update?

 

Inadvertently started two threads. The one below is fully updated.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...r-project.html

 

This is absolutely amazing. You guys are making me want to crawl under a rock...

That transformation is spanky!

I will visit that thread later, you did a top shelf job on that! I have pondered cutting my frame down, moving the axle forward and using a shorter driveshaft, but it always seems like more work with little practicality for my personal use.