Ive been posting on here for a few years now and never really made a dedicated forum to my own projects just questions for my trucks so figured I would make one.

I am currently 19 and have 4 Dentside trucks as well as a Bumpside, Bullnose, 66 Mustang, and a 98 Crown Victoria.

As I believe most any kids have hard times making decisions about what todo with their trucks my mind changes all the time with what I want to do with my trucks and how I would like to build them up.

So heres a rough idea of what im currently thinking about doing on each of my Dentsides and what they currently are.

This is my first truck which ive owned since July of 2021 which is a 1973 F350 Super Camper Special that had been 4WD converted using Highboy parts before I bought the truck. It has a 390 as far as I
know I've never bothered to measure the stroke of the engine which is paired to a NP435 that powers a NP203 with a part time conversion and has a 76-77 D44 Low Pinion Big Hub Disk Brake front axle
and a D70U 23 Spline rear axle which I believe to be the original rear end to the truck. I converted the D70 over to disk brakes in 2022 and they've been working great since. It has 4.10 gears with 37" tires
with no lift besides the factory style 4" highboy lift blocks in the rear and the stock highboy front leaf springs on the front.

What I currently plan to do with the truck is a bit scatter brain which is between 1 of 3 engine swaps. Firstly I could build the 390 that is in it to make some good power so I can actually get up and go and put
a ZF5 transmission behind it to help with highway mileage and overall drivability using a most likely speed gem SBF transmission adaptor for that half. Secondly I could put a 7.3 Powerstroke into it which
would probably be one of the cheaper options if I leave it stock however finding one for a decent price and not 500k miles may prove difficult. Im not sure if I would want a ZF5 or a ZF6 behind the Powerstroke
as I know the ZF5 will roughly fit underneath the 73 body where ive heard ill have to modify parts of the body to fit the ZF6 underneath it. Third option would be to get a 7.3 IDI from a friend of mine who has a
short block that is supposedly good and build that IDI up to where ill have more than enough power for what I want to do with the truck. I would run a ZF5 with the IDI if I were to go that route. If I were to go with
the IDI I would turbo it as diesels from what I understand about them theyre always gutless N/A no matter what you do to them. My big reason behind wanting a diesel is to get good low end torque for towing
and decent mileage. I will get to this later I have a 76 Tow truck which I would like to tow out to places like Moab and other offroad areas to offroad with it similar to what David Hellman and Rory Irish do with their
tow trucks. Sorry I dont have a ford guy reference I know of who offroads their tow truck. So I would use this 73 to tow a 30 or so foot gooseneck trailer so I can put a service bed at the front and my 1956 Alaskan
Camper in the service bed to camp in. Service bed would be for tools and parts or whatever else. Ideally I would like to get a 67 Crew Cab and do the full 7.3 Powerstroke swap with to pull this setup I want but
thats not something I see in the foreseeable future so I work with what I have. If I were to go with the 390 engine I would have to buy a 95-03 7.3 truck as there is no way I am going to pull the setup at 3 mpg
anywhere if I can help it. So thats basically my woes about the engine dilemma of mine.

This is what I would like to do for the axles/suspension. I currently have a D44 front end I would like to upgrade that to a D60 front end and since sno fighters are hard to come by and are expensive I am thinking
I will find a 1985-1991 D60 High Pinion Kingpin front axle out of the F350s I believe thats all they came out of. Theyre alot easier to find and are alot cheaper. I plan to put the 99-04 front leaf springs on the truck
which I will make the leaf perches for since I need to make the points of contact wider for the 85-91 axle anyhow. The front leaf perch I will beef up and make it have a 2" receiver in it. Not sure how I will go about
doing the shackles in the rear of the front springs yet but I will figure that out when it comes to it. For the rear axle I will probably swap it out for a D80 or another D70 but in a HD or normal version of some sort
for parts availability mainly but I would also like to put a locker or something of the sort in the axle and doesnt seem to be that anyone sells a locker or even a limited slip for a D70U. For the rear leaf springs I am
going to use Battle Born Brakes 2017+ Super Duty leaf spring conversion on there for both ride quality and weight carrying abilities of the newer style leaf springs. I plan to keep it geared with 4.10s I feel those
are about perfect for having 37" tires on it at least right now without overdrive. If I end up putting an overdrive transmission into it I may gear it with 4.44s which would put me around 2200 rpms at just over 70 mph
with a ZF5 transmission. Front axle I plan to have a spool in it and a Detroit locker in the rear. One last thing I plan to raise my truck about 4-6" so I will have to figure out what leafs I need when the time comes
especially since I want to delete the blocks in the rear as well but thats about all I have to say about axles/suspension.

You may be wondering what am I going to do for steering since id be putting the 85-91 axle underneath it well im hoping that will be fairly simple to do using a 78/79 Lowboy steering box and high steer/crossover
steering. I will also have the box ported for a hydraulic ram assist as well to make it steer like butter. Since my truck originally was 2wd I dont actually have to notch my frame for the 78/79 steering box as far as I
can tell so using more parts from Battle Born Brakes I should be able to make that box bolt right into my frame real easy. Between all of that I should be able to make something work underneath it.

I didnt really touch on it but I plan to keep it a divorced transfercase but I would like to find an NP205 for it and use the NP203 for my tow truck which ill touch on later. You may be thinking about shifter options since
none of the overdrive transmission would have a way to mount the shifter to them well I plan to twin stick the NP205 and use a JB Fabrication twin stick flush mount setup with cables to shift the transfercase. Since
it is a flush mount ill weld up the giant hole they cut into the 2wd transmission tunnel my truck has for it and it will seal up super good. I dont think anything I could do could ever seal up the hole they cut into it for that
NP203 shifter if I left it that way.

I currently have a single 20 gallon saddle tank at the front of my bed they couldnt keep the original front tank due to them adding the transfercase to it however I would like more gas on the truck especially if I start
taking it on roadtrips to places. There is a company Aerotanks who makes behind the axle gas tanks for highboy trucks and I am hoping I can retro fit one of those into my super camper with the extra wheelbase.
So I plan on buying one of their 32 gallon versions for the truck opposed to their 42 gallon due to me wanting to offroad the truck from time to time and wanting that extra 3" of clearance or whatever that gives me
and if it doesnt end up working out I will throw it into my real 76 Highboy truck and find someone to custom make me a tank for the Super Camper.

For interior stuff im not to picky but I would like to add some vintage air to it after whatever I decide to do with the engine swaps. Sound deadening and carpet will be nice to have once I get the engine done and
finalized it is quite crazy how noisy a 390 with an exhaust leak 37s and wind gusts are especially with no door seals. For now I manage with my Kicker stereo system I put into it a few years ago to drown out the
wind noise mainy.

Anyways I plan to leave the current paint job thats on it so I dont have to worry about a new pinstriping from the lovely bushes so heres some pictures of that truck.

Shout out to my buddy Emerson and Cole for some of these pictures.








So onto my next truck ive owned it July of 2023...

This is my 1974 Ford F100 it has a 351W and a 2.50 rear gear out of a 1978 Ford LTD2 which connects them through its original FMX transmission. It was overall a pretty clean truck with the exception of a dent
over the passenger side wheelwell on the bed from a log hitting the bed while it was stored away in my uncles Quonset hut sometime between when he put it there around 1984 and when we dragged it out in
2023. It had fresh paint put onto it in 83 or 84 which my uncle traded its engine for the paint and guess he got burnt out on it or something and it sat. The reason we stole the 2.50 rear end out of the LTD was
that my uncle grenaded the 3.25 gear in his 69 F100 in the 90s or so and took it out of my truck so it had no third member in it when we dragged it out of where it was sitting.

I plan on doing something less with this truck which is more or less leave it the way it is however it severly lacks power which im sure is compounded by the rear gear and it being a 78 engine. So what I want to do
with it for starters is bump the compression ratio up to around 10:1 and get an RV style cam for it as well as a 4 barrel intake and carb. Then I want to replace the FMX with a toughened up AOD and put a limited
slip of some sort in the rear as well as regearing it to 3.70 which I think will be perfect for the 29" tires and the AOD transmission. Will keep it around the same highway rpms I have with the 2.50 gear and FMX but
with the AOD and 3.70. That is more or less all I had planned on doing to the truck until February 10th when I parked it in the front yard and it decided to go for a walk on its own.

Thankfully it rolled into my tow truck and not one of my neighbors vehicles or all the way down the street. Truck was running with the parking brake on and went into reverse while I was under it looking for leaks
since I hadnt driven it in a few months due to the pot metal shifter on the column breaking and not allowing it to shift. So now I need to replace the drivers side bedside on it which I think I found a good enough donor
for it which I will pick up when its accessible on the guys property.

I guess what this entails yes it is a pretty clean truck however since I own it I find all the issues with the paint that it has and theres alot of spots that do annoy me on the paint so since the cab got dented in by the bed
I am going to be painting the whole truck sadly however it will come out looking better than ever when im done with it.

I am probably going to have a saddle tank made for the front of the new bedside since it is a dual tank bedside and make the truck have dual tanks since it is the truck I drive the most and I liked doing roadtrips in it so
stopping every 200 miles was a little annoying I will also probably put the 38 gallon tank in the rear as well so that should give me a good 500 miles or better of range between the 2 tanks.

I dont have much else to say about this truck so heres some pictures of it.








So onto my next truck which ive owned since September of 2023.

This is my 1976 F250 Highboy truck got it for super cheap which is really the only reason I bought it. At the time I bought it with the plans of making it into a baja type of truck but with the amount of people offering
me money for my white truck I decided it would make more sense to do a mechanical restoration on it and essentially flip it. Biggest down side is that it doesnt have a bed so I will have to either find an original paint
medium ginger metallic paint bed with only the thin trim in the dent thats for a narrow frame or build/buy a flatbed for it. I dont like flatbeds myself however I feel that would be the most proper thing todo for it if I
cannot come up with an original paint bed for the truck.

It came with a blown up 360 and a T18 which I bought a 360 and a NP435 for it which I need to rebuild for it still. I need to find a NP205 transfercase and both axles for the truck as well. Specifically a 76-77 D44 Big
Hub axle and a D60 rear axle both with 4.10 gears. It had a 67-75 D44 Closed Knuckle small hub axle under it for some reason and a D61 out of I think an Econoline in the rear. So I want to be era correct with my
parts however if you read through my whole article about my trucks youll know that my Super Camper has a 76-77 D44 axle so if I end up getting this truck done after doing all the work to my white truck I will use that
big hub axle on this truck. I am trying to make this truck as close as I can to how it wouldve been originally but still have the beat up body like as if it were an old farm truck but with good drivetrain under it.

I will do some retrofitting on this truck which will mainly consist of stereo equipment and power steering since this is a real highboy I cannot put the 78-79 power steering box into the chassis without modifying it so what
I am going to run is the Benchworks power steering on it which is about the closest I can get to it being factory normal power steering and not the factory power assist steering it had.

Currently I have the frame completely stripped of everything because I sandblasted the whole frame and then I painted it but then I kinda threw the truck on the back burner until I figured a few things out. First of all I
have very little welding experience and this truck has rotted floors so I was waiting to weld patch panel in until after I went through a internship with a fabrication shop however they wanted previous experience before
they would give me said internship which is dumb but whatever so I'm probably not going to end up going through that so I guess I am going to have to learn on my own. Secondly since I have to replace the floor it
wont be original paint on the undercarriage so I want to wait until I have the new floor pans in it so I can paint the firewall as well to match the bottom side of the truck so its all black opposed to half brown half black
patch panel. That also takes me to the terrible speaker additions that put into this truck where they cut 2 6x9 holes at the bottom of both doors so I plan to also patch those holes in and paint the bottom half of the
doors to match the floor on the interior side.

That is about all I have to say about this truck at the moment so heres some pictures of it.






So heres my 4th truck which ive owned since August of 2025.

It is a 1976 Highboy as well however this is a tow truck. The wheelbase has been extended to 140" just like the Super Camper is but for the wrecker bed. It has a 460 in it paired to a NP435 to a NP205 and in the front
it has a D60 Kingpin Snofighter front axle and in the rear it has a 14 bolt chevy axle. As far as I can tell the front axle has a spool and the rear axle has some sort of a detroit locker in it. I also believe it has 4.56s in it.
Truck is currently on 37" tires which I plan to leave on it.

So heres the history of the truck ive been able to find out about it not 100% sure on the accuracy however this is what I know a company called A1 Towing and Garage out of Barstow towing bought the truck brand new.
They had it for a few years and had another tow truck get into a wreck and they decided to take the bed off of that truck and put it onto the highboy which over the years they turned into what it is now however the guy
who originally built it passed in 2005 and it was sold or something to another company called Barstow Towing where it then worked with them up until 2025 when they went Bankrupt. Back to the truck it was actually
featured on a random movie called Drowning on Dry Land from 1999 so its kinda cool I was able to find pictures of it while it was still owned by A1.

So heres what I plan to do with it. I am big into rock crawlers and pre runners well this is a pretty heavy duty 4wd so its perfect to be a rock crawler type of build so thats what I plan on doing.

I will be putting a 7.3 IDI into it a turbo setup connected to a ZF5 transmission that will still go to the factory NP205 however like I mentioned earlier that I would be using the NP203 from my Super Camper on this truck
and heres how I plan to do that. There is a thing called a NP203/205 doubler which will allow me to have 1.96:1 low range or 2.0:1 low range or I can combined them and get 3.96:1 double low. To most people this would
make no sense but for what I plan to use it for I think it will work great. I will have triple sticks to control the transfercase in the truck which 2 of them are for both high/low and the 3rd is for a front dig, 2wd, and neutral.

Suspension and axles I dont plan to make much difference to however I want to lift it about 6" higher than it currently is and put duallys on the rear and humvee double beadlock wheels in the front. If you look up BSF
recovery on youtube he has the same wheel and tire combo I want to run. Ill run similar spring setup to my Super Camper so ill have the 99-04 front leaf springs and the 17+ Super Duty leafs in the rear. However I will
probably run F250 super duty springs and have air bags in the rear for when I actually were to tow somebody with the truck so it wont always be super stiff only when I want it to be with the air bags.

Since this will be an offroad wrecker I need to add winches to it so I plan to notch the front bumper for a 12k lb Warn winch also plan to add one to each side of the bed as well as one on top of the bed facing towards
the rear so I can ****** block the winch line to the boom and have a twin line if I need it or just need a lower winching point on the back of the truck.

I plan to add rock sliders to the bottom of the truck so I dont damage the rocker panels on the truck. I really dig how @77&79F250 has his setup on his bronco using 2" square tubing so I think I will be copying that
and making it so I can also mount a hitch mounted winch to the 2" receivers it will have facing outwards so if I need more winches I can put them there. Also similar to how he has his setup I liked that he could put a
drop hitch into the receiver and use it as a step so ill probably do that from time to time as well since itll be lifted around 6" and the 37s some people may struggle to get in so its a good way to have a step without
compromising the ability to have sliders.

I also plan to run a secondary gas tank on this truck however I cant really run the aerotank on this since id be worried about really hammering it on rocks but also the filler neck on the bed is in front of the axle so I am
going to need to figure out where I can put a tank in front of the axle somehow. I am thinking I could do something similar to the factory dual tank trucks but make it to the dimensions that work with the transfercase
crossmember and rear axle. I dont think I can put anything bigger than maybe a 20 gallon tank in there but well see when the time comes for now the in cab tank works.

Thats about all I have to say about this truck so heres the pictures of it.

Thanks to James Floyd from Facebook and humungus from IMCDB for the old pictures.







I congratulate you if you went through reading my whole charade of information on my trucks but I plan to keep this thread updated with everything about my truck in the future.

 

Love that wrecker!

 

Love the trucks ! Nice repair work going on !

 

Thankyou I do to, its one of my favorite vehicles out of everything I own.

Thanks, I cant wait to get them all fixed up and going real good!

 

Wow, nice set of rigs you got there.

 

I'm living vicariously through you. Hahaha
I can only dream of having a small handful of old Fords in my driveway to fix up. I have my 76 F350 and I got my eye on a 78 Bronco but I don't think the Minister of Sex n Finance would like my idea. She's always reminding me that I need to "get rid of stuff" I'm like....uh...no....I don't.

 

Thanks man!

I love having all the trucks but with me being just a kid its hard to afford all the maintenance on them. Ive definitely got big dreams for them.

Is your 76 F350 a Super Camper Special? I love these trucks just a cool piece of history between Ford and Chevy in the slide in Camper era.

From what I understand Ford made the Super Camper or 140" wb trucks to compete against Chevy/GMC's 67-72 "Longhorn" Model 8.5' long beds.

Whats funny is I own the Super Camper and my dad is looking at buying a Longhorn. Dad is a GM guy and im a Ford guy.

Yeah no, hoarding everything is fun whats wrong with that.. My parents tell me the same thing lol. I own 8 trucks, 2 cars, dirtbike, and quad.

I only plan to keep 4 of the trucks though. Rest will be flipped and hopefully sold for some sort of profit.

78 Broncos are cool if I was going to get one id have to get a Custom trim one to be different with the round headlights opposed to the square headlights.

 

Yes...my 76 is a SCS.

My 76 F350. Just got a newer 460 in it. Plans for use are hauling whatever I might need around the mini farm, trips to the dump or just cruising around enjoying a sunny day. But by no means will it be used to haul 6000lb boats or 11ft campers like it did through out the 80s.

 

Ahh nice, I love these trucks.

460 is a great powerplant. Especially when theyre all freshened up.

That wrecker of mine has a 460 in it but its extremely tired. I need to do a tune up on it one of these days and see if that helps any but ive got a feeling it has washed out cylinder walls from lots of idle time.

I plan to use my SCS for hauling that wrecker or my 72 F350 around on a 30 something foot gooseneck trailer with a utility bed at the front with my 1956 Alaskan Camper in that.

Its funny im working on a 73 F250 in that exact color combo as your truck.

 

Cool! They could be twins. I'm kinda partial to the color combo too. Maybe because I've been looking at it since ....1976. 😆

 

Wow your the original owner that is super cool!

That was only 30 years before I was even born but man I wish I couldve owned one myself brand new.

I actually just got done with fixing that truck up and it went back to its owner.

 

Not exactly....it was my Dads truck so I guess I'm original owner adjacent. Hahaha

 

Thats close enough haha

 

Tow trucks are useful. Finally felt like working on my highboy after it’s been sitting in the yard untouched since November of 24’ really.

Anyhow idea of flipping the cab is so I can cut the rotted parts of the floor out and replace them before sitting the cab back on the chassis also gives me the opportunity to wire wheel the whole underside and paint it and make it look presentable.

 

Welp it’s a bit worse than I had imagined. The first 3 pictures are all the rust I could see prior to wire wheeling the bottom side and oh man was there a lot of hidden rust on that passenger floor pan. Looks like I’m going to need to replace the whole pan sadly oh well what can you do. Driver pan is definitely patchable though guess we’ll see how bad of a welder I am in the next few weeks. I’ve never welded before fyi.