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Relatively new to the forum, I am a long time (40+ years) enthusiast who migrated from race cars to hot rods and has now entered the world of trucks.
A couple of years ago my neighbor and good friend passed away and left his truck sitting in their garage. His widow recently told me she was ready to part with it and wanted me to have it. She wanted to give it to me, I wanted to pay FMV. We reached a compromise and it was towed across the street from her garage to mine.
The truck is a ’49 Ford F1 with a 302 and a front clip from a ’88 Mercury Grand Marquis. It has sat since 2014, so the first order of business will be replacing all fluids, checking everything out, and just returning it to running condition. Planned changes include a complete interior revamp and conversion from the Ford EFI to a carb or Holley Sniper. But that GORGEOUS custom paint job will always be preserved in memory of my friend.
Ex race car
Wife's '34
The Star
Last edited by AlaRodder; Mar 21, 2026 at 09:11 AM.
Welcome to the forum! Great story, sad about your friend but awesome that his widow wanted you to be the next caretaker of his truck and keep it in his memory.
I have to ask, what would be the reason for getting rid of the factory EFI and replacing it with a carb or Sniper? The factory stuff seems fairly bulletproof with a history of billions of troublefree miles, so I have no idea what you could gain. Seems counterintuitive in my pea brain and one of those if it ain't broke, don't fix it kind of things. What do you know that I don't? No judgement, just curious.
It turned out that there were problems with the EFI after sitting so long. Instead of spending more time and money on the EFI, I jumped right into the carb conversion. After removing all of the EFI stuff from the engine bay, it was on to the wiring. Things went smoothly till I looked under the dash.
I had originally planned on adapting the existing wiring harness, but that quickly became impractical. So I decided to chuck it all.
Now onto the next phase - filling a few holes in the firewall.
Last edited by AlaRodder; Apr 11, 2026 at 08:04 AM.
