Let's Tear Down!!!

Now I have to admit. I have about as much appreciation for a 1/2 ton, 2 wheel drive, automatic truck as stepping in fresh dog poop in summer. Aside from the color, this truck did nothing for me. Until I started taking it apart.

I just kept thinking to myself what a crying shame it was that I was doing this. This thing was SO clean! Don't believe me? Check out some of these photographs!

First to get yanked was the interior. My truck is a stick shift (would a self-respecting man own anything else?) and I had to cut a hole in the transmission tunnel anyway, so the carpet had to go. I fully expected some floor board rust and pitting as I encountered that with Minty. 31 year old vehicles with carpet just don't stay clean with all the wet feet and boots that go into them. Boy, was I wrong. If there was one part of this truck that astounds me more than everything else, is the floor boards.

Next on the list was unhooking the wiring. Ford made it very easy to just unplug the harnesses and take out some fender bolts, inner fender mounts, front radiator mounts, and presto, the whole nose comes off in one section. That makes getting at the engine and all those annoying connections to the cab extremely easy to get at.


Next came the bed and bumpers. This is a pretty easy thing as not much goes to a major section of the body. Pull some fuel filler spouts, 8 bed bolts, and the bumper bolts. You have to understand- in Ohio, this can be a day long process of swearing, digging rust out of your eyes, torching in tight quarters to rust perforated gas tanks, and basically just puckering and unpuckering your butt cheeks the whole time while doing so. This bed? Ha- try 15 minutes. LITERALLY. Once the nuts were broke loose, I could spin them off by hand.

After picking the bed up with the chain hoist in the garage, I nabbed a quick underside shot of it just so other truck people can drool some more if they didn't feel bad enough over the floor boards. (And no, I'm not really taking pictures laying under a 500 lb bed swinging from non-load rated trusses in the garage.. I wouldn't be that stupid... not me... Haha

Next came unhooking all the lines to the cab and everything bolted underneath it and shoved it outside to make room for the brown truck to get torn apart next. All said and done, about 5 hours of work.
One of the best surprises mechanically however of the truck is the fact it has brand new brakes, rotors, rear shoes and drums. Boy, am I happy I didn't just spend $320 bucks for exactly those pieces for Minty. They will bolt right on and solve the warped rotors on that truck. Whatta deal!

I learned a while ago it's much easier to take off parts in large sections with help, than it is to try to take them off in small pieces. My approach however, was take them off in large sections with no help. Which proved over the past couple of days to be deserving of a skinned up knee, pulled neck muscle from trying to (and successfully I might add!) lift the hood off without damage, and a few bloody knuckles. Yeah, I'm loving every minute of it!