Project Hank is a go! 4/15/2011
 

Well I have had the Hank for about seven years now. Bought it in AZ and drove it home to FL at the time. Now we are in Anderson SC where it has sat in storage for four years. Well as of 4/15/2011 we have brought Hank home and started the build. Pics to follow soon!

Hank is a rust free 1970 F250 2wd regular cab long bed truck. It has a 390, c6, dana60 for a drivetrain with 107k miles. Still runs awesome aside from a leaky exhaust manifold. Originally a camper special, Hank has front disc brakes, tranny cooler, oil cooler, front and rear sway bars, and some funky spring overload system in the rear. Dealer add on air no longer works but no matter. It's time to upgrade.

So here is the plan. Sport truck looks fused with tow rig capabilities. I have access to a complete, rolling regular cab 2wd F350 Super Duty dually frame from somewhere in the 2000ish model year. My plan is to graft my cab and bed onto this frame. Use bolt on Air Ride technologies air bag suspension in front and their one ton four link in the rear with 22" big rig style dually wheels with performance low profile tires. I dont care for dually fenders so the rear will be narrowed to allow the dual rear wheels to tuck under the bed sides. The drive train has yet to have been determined but I do love a turbo diesel.

Thoughts? Comments?

Good luck.

I am waiting till late June for my project start.

Unless I get job they have offered some of us at my trade school then I will postpone it for a few months. This is practically a dream job so it is well worth the wait as far as I am concerned.

Well I wish you luck. I have been waiting for seven years and when I realized that my storge bill to keep the rust free truck rust free had exceeded the value of the truck and that is just silly. It's now or never.

Well it's been a long time since I posted an update because I didn't do a darn thing for a while because of some family stuff going on but it looks like I am back on track and cooking!! Since we last left off I have made some progress that I will share in future posts. I really want to post pics too so I am going to spend some time this weekend figuring out how to do that from my I phone. Any advise in this department would be awesome!

So first off the Super Duty frame idea is OUT!! After a bunch of measuring and brain pain it has been determined that the front track width is too wide to tuck dually wheels into the front fenders. It would work well for a 4x4 project with the right offset wheels but not for my project....

First thing we did was strip all those darn awful factory trim pieces, moldings and mirrors from the outside of Hank. The we went to work gutting the interior. Headliner, A/C unit, seat, rubber floor covering, gas tank, dash pad, and various interior trim pieces were removed.

Turns out Hank was not as rust free as I thought. The underside of the floor boards was pristine sheetmetal with no rust through but the top of both sides is heavily corroded. The drivers side was worse as a good rap with a screwdriver went through the metal in some places but the passenger side seems solid.

So the question becomes, what determines w:-huhhen to clean up and when to remove and repair corroded sheetmetal?? Any bodywork/restoration experts out there with advise I'm all ears!

You were planning on running dual wheels on the front? Total of 8 tires on the truck?

No sir. Just six wheels. Only two up front.

Aw the floor pans are a problem area for these classic. I had a water leak every time it rained for a long time. And one summer day, I thought about it. I had to find it and get it stopped. It turned out to be the wiper arm shaft mounting plate gasket was bad. Now a few yrs. before. I put down some sheet metal in the floor pan to enforce it as it was getting thin and had some small areas that were rusted out holes. Well, I cleaned the rusted areas up got some small cans of black Por-15 and some fiberglass mat that was crossed weaved for patching boats. It was like 1/8'' thick by 4'X4'. I cut it to fit the floor pans. Then painted the whole area with a heavy coat base were, I wanted to repair and built up the pan with glass layers and extra strips where the rusted holes were as needed. All a long adding more Por-15 as needed working out the any bubbles or wrinkles. I used some duct tape on the underside of the rusted out holes to keep the por-15 from leaking through. The floor pans are stronger now. You will need to apply each layer while the paint is still wet or tacky. I was happy and glad I went this way because it will never rust again..My 2cents. It worked for me.
orich

As far as width goes a truck is a truck. I guess what I am missing is why it won't work. Are you sure the "Super Duty" frame is actually a 350 and not a bigger truck?

I got lucky, i found a good deal on a rolling hi-boy chassis from a fire department in Illinoise. I put my 68 body on it a few years ago, and just put my restored cab on this summer. For all practical purposes it is a stock 68/71 hi-boy. I imagine the narrowing of the rear dually axle was also complicated by the frame needing to be narrowed also to keep the wheels within the stock bed sides, sounded neat though. Good luck with your project, i have some of my project photos in my garage and gallery.

A late model Super Duty track width & outside sidewall to outside sidewall are several inches wider (I am on a trip right now so i dont have the exact measurements) than a bumpside. No big deal if you intend to lift but I am going down.

So I picked up the front clip from a 1978 F-350 cab and chassis truck. Pretty rusty and greasy so I pressure washed it until almost all the loose rust and grease was gone. Brought it home and set it up on jack stands. Time for some measurements and dissassembly. Of note the tie rod ends are above the spindle arms where on my F-250 they bolt on below. Also the radius arms are a much beefier and made of steel. I-beams are the same length but the king pins are bigger diameter at 1&1/16". Springs and spring perches are taller and beefier than my 250.