Figured it was about time to chronicle the progress I've made rebuilding my '92 F150 2WD, extended cab short bed, 4.9L/E4OD/8.8. My grandfather bought this off the original owner in 1995 to haul his gear up north for deer hunting. He gave it to me in 2005 and I used it as a daily driver until taking it off the road in 2009. It had been a Michigan rustbelt warrior its entire life and it shows. Not being able to let things go I garaged it until I was ready to start working on it after finishing another project car. Only took 14 years.

This is by no means a high dollar restoration. Original goal is just to make it reliable and fix the rot without changing too much to where it won't be grandpa's truck any longer. I will be doing a rebuild of the motor at some point and hopping it up with a Promaxx CNC ported head, cam and Sniper fuel injection. 8.8 axle is staying and I haven't decided what to do with the E4OD. I might swap it out for a 6R80. Figure if I need to buy an aftermarket controller I may as well get what I want. Still undecided.

As it stands now I've replaced the core support, fenders and bed. The core support and fenders came from Texas and the bed came from Florida. I find this stuff locally on Facebook Marketplace. The cab is actually in great shape as I had the cab corners replaced a long time ago. Before I started anything of this I went over the entire frame and surprisingly it's in great shape - it's not thinned out anywhere. No holes either.

Paint consists of scuffing the factory paint and laying down Rustoleum with a spray gun. Once it's completely done it'll get painted properly. Really liking the Night scheme with that blue to purple stripe on gloss black.

Anyhow...photos.

Stripping the front end was a pain. Being rotted as bad as it was made everything painful. The support brackets completely intact. Getting the old mounts off wasn't too easy.



Old sheet metal. I swept up enough rust off the floor to build a Toyota. What's nice is the scrappers make rounds every night before trash day. Left all the junk on the road and they haul it off for you.




Needed a new A/C condenser at this time. Later found the compressor grenaded itself, so I'm still waiting to replace the A/C at this time. Ended up just removing the entire system until I get new parts.




Pulled factory front and rear sway bars off of a F250 from a pick 'n pull. My truck didn't have bars and one of the goals of this is to make it handle a bit better for long haul trips to the family cottage. It required me to get the coil spring seats too as they have the ears for the end links. Trucks that don't have bars didn't get these. 4x4 and 4x2 spring seats don't interchange. With the limited driving I've done with the bars installed it made a world of difference.



My son isn't old enough to ride shotgun just yet, so I swapped in a rear bench seat. Truck had drop seats before, so not entirely safe. This was a bit more involved and than I thought it would be. My truck didn't have the mounting brackets for the rear bench and the holes for the seatbelts needed to be threaded. Interior panels needed to be changed to accommodate the belts.





A hard requirement was a quiet exhaust and needed to be able to handle upgrades to the six. This came out of '20 F150 with a V8. It's 3" and has a huge muffler and resonator. Picked it up for $100. It's the quietest the truck has ever been and this is without a cat. It fit, but barely.



I wanted a tach, but didn't want an aftermarket. Found an eBay cluster with the tach and swapped in LED bulbs. All I had to do was swap the speedo between the two to maintain the odometer.



Added a stacked plate trans cooler later on.



Ended up needing a new radiator and it old one had crust in it. Installed one of those glass radiator filters in the upper hose. It actually doesn't leak. Should be OK until the motor comes out for a rebuild.



I wanted actual gauges instead of the idiot gauges, but I wasn't willing to cut up any of the factory trim pieces to mount them. Mounted oil pressure, coolant temp and trans temp under the dash in the center using the trim screws. Just needed to use a piece of aluminum bar stock to take up the distance.




Under the bed was a rusty mess. I was actually able to remove rear sending unit by just pulling on it. The retaining ring was completely gone.



Lots of wire wheeling and needle scaling later.



Painted the frame with Eastwood rust encapsulator with a Krylon semi-gloss topcoat. Decided to replace frame spring brackets. Bought them from Bronco Graveyard. The hardware they came with was only 3/8 and the holes accommodated 7/16 so I used grade 8 bolts from the hardware instead. Springs 1 leaf over stock and the brake lines are pre-bent SS from Inline Tube. The bump stops fell right off the brackets. I'm surprised they stay on at all. The rubber was still good, so instead of buying new I drilled a hole through the bottom center and counter sunk a bolt to put them back on. The bump stop brackets came off and went into the sand blaster.



Tanks and straps were replaced. Axle was rebuilt and I had a Trac-Lok added. Still the 3.08 gear. Don't what gear I'll be running yet.



Truck has functioning e-brakes again. New cables from Bronco Graveyard.



The bed has a few dents in it, but absolutely no rust. When I'm ready for professional paint those will get filled in. For now it's Rustoleum semi gloss.




Only thing left to do this season is mask off things on the cab and spray it to match the bed. And reinstalling the bed liner and tool box. Not pictured is the front sway bar install and new tie rods. I actually have 15x8 alloy wheels for it too. More pictures to come once it's finished.



Next year will be the complete rebuild of the front suspension and frame rail cleanup.

 

Nicely done. I'm so glad you said turbo in your OP.

 

Nice work so far. What is the scoop on the j10 parked beside it?

 

Dad's truck he bought from California in the 90's. It's a 1982 with the wide wheel package. Real cherry. Was a 258 5-speed and we swapped a 360/T18 into it. Has Dana 44 3.73 traclocs front and rear.

He just picked up an NV4500 with all the adapters. Truck needs an overdrive. That's winter's project.

 

Same spot I put real gauges in my '88 and plan to use the same on the '92. Upgrade the alt?

Interesting that 4x was equipped with an auto and 3.08:1 gears. How is handling with the sways? I do know rear link length is different between 2x and 4x too. Got a big tow hitch? I tossed a Class V on mine

Did you snag OG Alcoas? Correct for our year have those outer rivets.

 

I have all the parts you need in my 94 F150 300ci manual trans. They are in North Caroline

 

Lol. Hop up the engine, different transmission, “new” sheet metal, added gauges, maybe change the gear ratios but still be grandpa’s truck. I think you passed that point. I’m not criticizing since I have replaced the frame, hood, core support, both doors, bed wheel arches, outer floor on both side and a rocker panel. The bench seat is gone and replaced with buckets and a console. Gears have been changed from 3.55 to 4.10, M5OD is now a ZF5 and a 351W replaced the tired 302. There isn’t much left of the truck I bought 12 years ago.

Good for the scrappers too. Free money.

I’d be concerned about losing low end torque with that 3” exhaust. A long time ago I put a SS Gibson 3” system on the 302. Breathed a little better on the highway but it felt like it lost a little power around town.

Did you get the same year cluster as your truck because there are some warning light location changes over the years that might make you think something is wrong and try to troubleshoot the wrong system.

The temp and voltage gauges are real. You can modify the oil pressure gauge to make it as real gauge. None of that will put actual numbers on the gauge.

I’m curious why you put money into rebuilding the axle and adding a traction device if you are considering a gear change.

I am not seeing the mention of a turbo.

 

It looks like good times happening! The progress is looking good!

 

here's where he said it

 

see above!

 

No, haven't upgraded the alt yet. I read about it a bit here on this forum. I'm planning on doing it at some point as the truck will be getting electric fans. Fans from a late 90's V6 Contour pull a massive amount of air. Perfect for cold A/C in stop and go.

Both mine and the donor truck are 4x2. Difference was the donor is a 250. Everything swapped right, but I didn't reuse the rear links and just ordered new ones. Factor front links were reused with new bushings. It made a pretty noticeable change when changing lanes on the expressway and on/off ramps. Well worth the effort to me and pulling them off of that rusty donor truck in the yard was not easy. Took two trips and I smuggled a map gas torch in the second day. Heat made it a lot easier.

No on the Alcoas. I wanted 15x8 rims and the Alcoa wheels are 15x7. I'm actually kind of regretting it now. The Alcoa wheels really do look nice.

Also have a Reese hitch, but haven't put it on yet.

As of right now the cab, frame and the entire drivetrain is original. Most of the interior as well. I understand the line of what constitutes it being a different truck is debatable, but is isn't there yet. Change anything else and you're probably right.

The Y pipe and extension are still factory diameter. I haven't noticed any low end loss in my limited driving so far.

I did a LOT of reading regarding the cluster before buying. This forum has been invaluable. I matched the part number on the back of new cluster to make sure the year was either '92 or '93. Read about a lot of guys having issues with charging amongst other things.

I asked the guys over on the Ford Six forum and the consensus was leave the gear alone for right now until I have a build plan setup. I guess it save cash for now. If I do decide to swap to a 6R80 it has a much steeper first gear and won't require a gear change. Don't know yet. Keeping the E4OD would be a lot simpler and overall cheaper.

 

Tailgate, bed liner and toolbox have been reinstalled. One thing I wasn't going to do again was drill holes in the bed to mount the toolbox. Dad came up with some brackets to thread in 1/2" bolts into the forward post holes without drilling. After that it was just a piece of angle, some spacers and four horizontal holes in the box for final mounting. Worked out trick.





These are the wheels I got. 15x8 alloys. The only chrome on the entire truck is the backside of the side mirrors and windshield trim, so I didn't want anything flashy for the wheels. These should cleanup nice. Probably a couple weeks away still on those. Have to order center caps and lugs. Outside of this and a little wiring the truck is done for the season.

 

It’s still the same truck! Looks good! I like the no drill tool box installation. I just had my bed done and I want a tool box but I want to not drill holes in the bed even more! I have a headache rack, tool box and diamond plate bed rail covers but I’m gonna hold off on installing them till I scratch it up a bit. It looks to good now to drill a hole through!

 

Got the new (to me) rims mounted and balanced this week. New SS unbranded center caps and McGard lug nuts. Was a little concerned the 235 tires wouldn't fill out the 8" wheels, but it looks fine. Really happy how this turned out. Next year I'll have to paint it the same shade of black.

 

Starting off slow this year. Converting to electric fans so I needed to mount the controller in the cab somewhere. Decided to put it next to the gauge cluster I made last year. Controller is an older out-of-production Dakota Digital unit. I've used these on a couple of other builds and they're fantastic. Rest of the work of tearing apart the front end will begin in June probably.