Well, I went and did it....
 

Well fellas, it's done. I went and jumped on the "buying a 'new' truck" bandwagon. I blame Bill, myself but you're all to blame really. Look what you made me do:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-I...915_103920.jpg
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The truck is a '97 F-350 CCLB (obviously) with 201k on the clock. I have been working on this for about a week and a half and over the weekend dad and my son and I drove the 900 miles to southern Goeorgia and brought it home. It's a little rough around the edges, but that is how I like them. It doesn't need anything major and it is way, WAY cleaner underneath than anything I was going to find locally.

I had to work Saturday morning so we left OH at about 1 PM Saturday and arrived in Valdosta, GA at about 3:30 AM Sunday morning. We parked the loser limo and caught about 3-4 hours of shut eye in the Wallyworld parking lot and then headed out to see the new truck. Turbo end-play checked out okay, blow-by was minimal, truck runs good and we agreed upon a price, so papers were swapped and away we went.

We had some minor issues with the brake lights and turn signals that we had to stop and rectify but I had come prepared to handle whatever we ran into so it didn't take us long.

Aside from that, the trip went off without a hitch! We made tracks for home, leaving down there about 11:00 (after a great breakfast at Hardees -- man I miss those up here).

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/El...=w1280-h720-no

We got home last night about 12:30. It sure was a lot of driving (about 1800 miles round trip), but we all had a good time. Dad and I are both ham radio nerds, so we wired up the vehicles with 2 meter radios and a couple CB's and chatted our way home up I-75. All in all, the trip was a success. My son had the time of his life and has already said that if I ever do this again he wants to go along (even if it is farther away than this one was). The truck averaged 18.01 MPG on the way home which isn't shabby at all considering I was using the cruise and driving 75-80 most of the way. All in all, I'm thrilled!

The truck needs a SERIOUS cleaning, a clean bed, and a bunch of other little things, but this is going to be a great foundation for me to build on. Oh, and here's the best part:
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-0...915_180138.jpg

Oh yeah! The "Man Pedal"! It's a ZF5 truck and I'm loving it. I know this will push some buttons but as good as these trucks are, they're even better with a 5 speed.

Here are a few more random pictures I shot while we were stopped for breakfast.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6H...=w1280-h720-nohttps://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-5...915_103908.jpg

Can you tell that someone likes the truck?

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-C...915_085617.jpg

Made a little stop in TN too on the way through, hehehe

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/zZ...=w1280-h720-no

All in all, I'm happy to be home, but ready to go do it again. }>

Now let the process of cleaning that thing up begin...

Nice find! And yeah, the "clean underneath" is the important part, exactly what you DON'T find up here. Clean CCLB ZF5 4x4 is sorta the grand slam. And a real front bumper to boot. So what's that mess-o-wires over by the skinny pedal?

Congrats on the new truck, Nate! looks like a nice one - and a nice winch bumper as well - just need a winch to put in it now :-)

that is some serious driving for a truck, though. and a lot of confidence that it would make it home :-) must have been a great deal!

good luck with it!

That "mess" is part of the wiring that went to the brake controller that was in the truck. We had a problem with it wanting to blow the fuse out of the brake and turn signal lights, so I removed everything that looked suspect, including that wiring mess. I'm not sure if it was the controller or the third brake light that cleared it up and I wasn't sticking around to find out. I'll sort it all out later. Funny thing... the third brake light didn't effect the transmission on this one at all... :-X04

Oh, it came with a winch! The winch is in the bed, and needs some work, but it came with a Warn winch. That was part of my negotiations with the seller. Yeah it was a long haul for sure but I think I got a good deal on it. I am looking forward to getting home and getting started cleaning it up. I'll take more pictures tonight. It is bone stock (for the moment }>).

Awesome man! Looks even better on my 'big screen' lol

Your boy will remember that for the rest of his life! Hopefully a decade from now when these things are collector items :-drink he will be signing up for FTE to lookup all the cool things you can do with/to these trucks! LOL

Thanks Alex, he is already talking about the truck we are going to build him when he gets old enough.

Good deal Nate! Nice looking truck.

Nice find Nate! Looking forward to seeing the cleanup and build process! I just got mine but I am already jealous and wanna get another one. yikes....

Sweet! That will be a keeper!

Nice truck now go give it a bath lol

Haha, I know, right!? That thing is a mess! You should see the interior.

Oh, well. It wouldn't be "me" if it wasn't going to be a project.

Congrats Nate! Great looking truck! Thats the only thing I wish mine had was the 5 speed other than that mine is perfect for me.

Looking forward to more posts about it!

Some projects are better than others though! So it looks like you got a good one there. Valdosta is a long haul - might as well of headed to Disney for a day!!!!

Congrats on the truck. Looks RRE-ready to me! No excuses for next year.

Looks like you got a nice truck Nate.

Did they swap in the ZF-5 for the E4OD or was it factory? The odometer picture makes it look like it might have started out as an automatic.

It must have 3.55 gears to get that good on fuel.

Yeah Valdosta is way down there! We thought about going to Florida for breakfast just so my son could add Florida to his list of states for the weekend, but decided against it due to time constraints.

We'll see! This certainly gets me a lot closer! :-jammin