Bringing Back The Past

Where to begin...

I love trucks. I have owned, and currently own many trucks. Swimming around in my head nearly 24/7 are ideas of what I want to do with '67-79 Ford's and exhausting all of the possibilities of what I can do to the ones I own.

One in particular has been going on 9 years now. My '76 F-250 4x4 is what I (and other enthusiasts who really know their business) consider the quintessential Ford truck to own. It's was we call a "Highboy".

A little background: The late ’75 to early 77 Ford ¾ ton 4x4’s were a very unique animal in that they were the combination of the best of the old, and the niceties of the new. They came with the 360 “FE” series engines with electronic ignition, had divorced New Process 205 transfer cases for that 3 piece hanging low driveshaft look, had disc brake, open knuckle, low pinion front axle assemblies, and of course, the 67-72 style 4wd ¾ ton frame that is virtually impossible to find a 73-79 body to bolt onto it.

“Jack” as I call my ’76, is one of my earlier members of my truck family. I bought it off of the next-door-neighbor to the owners of my ’70 F-100 4x4 sight-unseen in May of 1999 from Belgrade, Montana. I paid $1400 for it and never saw so much as a picture.

After Jack arrived some 5 weeks later, the motor was cooked, the transfer case was shot, and the body although fairly clean, had fertilizer stacked in the bed and it rotted out the whole tailgate area. The frame was impeccable still and with the help of a good friend Stu, another truck was sourced with a 390 FE engine as a donor. A few months later with a rebuilt transfer case, a newly sealed up engine, Jack was on the street.

Not much changed from that over the past 9 years. The first winter I had it, I had to drive through the salt and grime of Ohio which basically took a harsh toll on the body immediately, but didn’t hurt the rest.

About 2 years ago after a LONG time of searching, I even stumbled across a Dana-60 front axle from a ’75 F-250 4x4 Crew-Cab. These Ultra-RARE axles are direct bolt-ins for the regular cab models and gives you that big, beefy, envious look from those who can recognize it when they look under your truck. The axle required quite a bit of work actually as it was pretty beat. New knuckles from a ’92, new carrier and positraction (trak-lok) front differential re-geared to 3.55’s, new axle shaft U-joints, and even had to seam weld and set the tubes in the housing straight again. It’s a monster for sure.

That left me with an incredible running gear, and a bad body for the past couple of years… With ’73-77.5 narrow frame cab and beds nearly impossible to find as I mentioned earlier, I started thinking about the ’67-72 style bodies that bolt right onto the frames with no work required. Having my ’70 F-100 4x4 in a million pieces, I started thinking how I should just combine the two trucks.

It would make for a really cool project. Take the frame of Jack and cut 18 inches out of it and re-weld it, then take the ’70 body and put it on the chassis and have a neat little short-bed, ¾ ton 4x4 and kill two restoration project with one stone. I had everything to do it, it wouldn't cost me hardly any money whatsoever, and it would free up a ton of garage space at the same time.

I kept this in my mind over the past year and still wasn’t able to figure out what I wanted to do. Scouring eBay as I do on a regular basis, I came across a listing for a ’78 F-100 shortbed 2wd drive in Hickory North Carolina.

I had always wanted a little two wheel drive that got great gas mileage, could throw my bike into the back, and really was missing the performance of my Mustang in a weird way since I had traded it in on my third F-350 4x4 in 6 years. Poof- the light went on to grab this truck, do a quick clean up on it, and have a really nice daily driver for summer. $5000 dollars later and a 17 hour drive straight to NC and back, and Minty was sitting in my driveway.

The term original doesn't do this truck justice.. However, “Quick Cleanup” turned out to be a whole different story… I’ll share that at a later date...


After Minty was done, and I was officially beyond broke and I thought I’d be content for a while. And I was really…

Then I spent a week out of my summer going to Arkansas to work on some REALLY clean steel - Ashlie’s ’70 F-250 “Maggie” out of California. She rates about an 8 on the "Cleanest old trucks I've ever seen".

And Stu’s ’76 F-250 4x4 “Sunshine” from Washinton. Sunshine is also a Highboy. I feel content knowing Sunshine is now a member of the family and will be used, but pampered, like all old Fords should!

I came back home, took one look at Jack and was totally disgusted at what I had let the truck become. I was resentful I dumped so much money into Minty, and I even got to the point I tried to sell Jack to a couple friends. I don’t know if they thought I was asking too much, or they knew I wouldn't be happy I sold it, but none of them took me up on my offer.

So I kept thinking of ideas, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and how cheap I could do it. I once again scoured over eBay and Craig’s list, and stumbled across a completed auction that just “grabbed me”. A ’77, dark blue, long bed F-150 in Lafayette, Oregon.

There’s not much of my childhood I can remember. Hell, there’s not much I really care to remember. But one thing that has stuck with me over the years is a truck my parent’s owned. A ’73 F-250 two wheel drive in Ford Midnight Metallic Dark Blue. It just doesn’t get any more FORD than that. It was a beast- 360 engine, blue interior, and best of all- A stick shift. :-)

The New Process 435 four speed has that ultra-low creeper gear and I can still remember sitting in the middle of the bench seat shifting it when I was probably only 7 or 8 years old. I can also remember going down Martin Hill on one of the back roads near my parent’s house and being amazed at how you didn’t even have to hit the brakes the whole way down and could just let the back compression of the motor hold you from going any faster. I was fascinated.

So that was it. The decision was already made in my mind. I HAD TO HAVE this truck for Jack and turn it into the '73 I remember. I’m young, I’m single, and even if the truck didn’t turn out to be what I expected, I could accept the fact I took an $1875 dollar gamble, and I knew I could make most of my money back selling parts off it. Hey, you only live once, right?

My Stork Has 18 Wheels

The whole purchase of "the blue truck from Oregon" was just fantastic. I contacted the sellers of the truck after the eBay auction had ended and asked them if they were will willing to part ways with the truck. They said they would, and I requested some photos of some basic areas that are typically prone to rust.

What I got from them was just amazing both in communication, honesty, and pictures. They just about nailed every single photo I was looking for, and out of the very few that I forgot to request, I already had warm fuzzy feelings this truck would be as clean as I thought it should be in my mind for me to make the purchase. $800 dollars later, I owned a truck... Now all I had to do was get it here...

I did the typical Google search and went with the first major brokerage outfit I stumbled across. That Sunday night after I paypaled the money to the sellers, I ordered up shipping for $1075. Nice, my shipping cost more than my truck! Estimated 7-10 days to pick up the truck, another 7-14 days to get it here. I could hardly wait.

And waiting I did... FINALLY after some pretty poor communication and a couple of days of waiting at home when the shipper SHOULD have showed up, my truck finally rolled in down my street!

While the driver was unchaining the truck I was taking the opportunity to crawl all around underneath of it inspecting some hard-to-reach areas. Everything under this truck just looked AMAZING. I thought Minty was clean- shoot- that truck is a heap compared to the chassis and underside of this truck. I didn't care how it ran, I didn't care how it drove, I didn't even care if I had to push it up into the garage and the motor never took another breath, I was happy already.

Well, after a couple whacks on the starter, it did fire up. I would have almost felt better if I saw it blow a ton of blue smoke, or make knocking noises, or what not because I knew the motor was probably going straight to the scrap yard anyway. 400 Modifieds just aren't sought after engines, and if you want to build some power, there are better options out there for the money. Fact of the matter is- the truck was unloaded, I paid the driver, and went for a quick drive.

This truck drove amazing. Flat out amazing. Steering was tight, brakes were perfect, motor was a smooth runnin' dog (even compared to the 300 I-6's I've owned!) and everything just felt right. I pulled up behind the house, gave it wash job, waxed it up, and watched the original paint start to shine again.

The roof and hood paint have been burnt off from years of neglect and sitting in the sun. That just makes me sick, but I can still get a NOS Original Ford hood, and the top can be cut and a new skin from another put on, or even just dual action sanded and it'll come out fine. Heck, I might even throw a sunroof on there since it's not in perfect shape anyway.. Haha.

This is the perfect photograph to show was is to come. Jack in the background... and.. well... Jack in the foreground! If I had any inkling that changing the body over would make the truck female, I'd start changing the name over to "Jill", but that just ain't gonna happen!

I received the truck on Wednesday August 10th. I had to do some computer work for a friend on Thursday, so I knew I wouldn't get my grubbly little hands on it for some quality time until Friday Evening... And boy did I ever...

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!

Do I feel bad or good?

It was Jack's turn to get torn down. I actually wasn't looking forward to this. I wasn't taking it apart to fix it up or restore anything, I was taking apart my lovely brown disco-rig and ditching that '70's look and feel for the last time. It hurts. I've become attached to those big, thick cream stripes and ginger bronze body color. So I feel a little bad. What I don't feel bad about is getting rid of that gawd-awful teal and grey bed I used just for hauling scrap because it wasn't rotten where the tailgate went like the original bed.

So, same process as before. Lots more work, bagging and tagging nuts and bolts. This one didn't come apart nearly as nice as the '77. After sitting outside the last 8 years, even the never-seized bolts were seized. I actually only snapped one- the radiator support mount bolt. Since it did snap and didn't round over, now that the front clip is off, I can easily finish torching it out.

This is where it's nice to have friends for the heavy lifting. Or I should say, friends with heavy equipment! One of my buddies lives up the street and owns his own landscaping / excavating business. Today we nabbed the mini-excavator with just the thumb on it. :-)

Jared has proved to be invaluable for things I cannot even think about doing myself. I spend my labor and time working on his old trucks and such, and he basically lets me borrow heavy equipment at whim. Couple of straps to the cab and poof, about 5 hours later, the ole' 76 is down to it's birthday suit.

While the mini-ex was still around, I managed to barter the use of the machine for the scrap value of the old body panels. Little did Jared know how much of a favor he was doing me by getting rid of it.


And now the moment I had been waiting for after 3 days of working myself into the ground. The official merging of the two trucks by putting the blue cab onto Jack's frame. here is a sneak peak!!! Can anybody say "Bigfoot"? I actually got goose-bumps!

Nose Job

We left off where I set the cab down onto Jack's frame. Now, I knew the bed wouldn't bolt right on and I'd have some work cut out for me, but it was a shocker to realize that the cab didn't even fit right. As it turns out, the Highboy chassis even changed the rear cab mounts to the external part of the frame on separate perches rather than just using the traditional inside crossmember style. What sounds like "not that big of deal" turns out to be a "pretty big deal".


I was planning on just drilling new mount holes in the floor of the cab and using my existing mounts, but that turned out to not be so hot of an idea as there is plating under the brace to brace up the cab where those outer mounts would be that was missing from the dark blue cab. Whoops. So, I decided to use the original mount location and drill my crossmember for the transfer case to line up with the stock location of the cab.


The only problem was- I knew darn well those original cab mounts were not coming apart on the '76 frame, so out I went to the 77 chassis that every single bolt and nut has come off of like butter. The mounts are pressed together, and usually with a socket of the right size, and an appropriately large hammer (sledge) you can drive out the lower steel retaining cup from the upper bushing. So I thought... It went something like this:


1. Drop socket into bushing
2. Swing large hammer
3. Hope you hit socket
4. Watch socket recoil and hope to miss face
5. Walk between 20 and 50 feet to retrive socket
6. Repeat process.


About 30 minutes later and a broken sledge hammer handle from a near miss, I had the bushings out and they were in pretty good shape. What I had to do since they were a slightly different style was take a grinder and take the lip that normally goes through the frame hole and cut it off flush because there was no way I was going to be able to make a 2 inch hole in the transfer case crossmember without completely lifting the cab back off. As long as the impregnated steel was still in there, it'd be fine.


I set the cab back down on the frame, lined them up, drilled the mounting holes, put my 1 inch aluminum spacer blocks in (so I have room for bed relocation brackets) and was golden. Or so I thought until I couldn't find bolts that worked.


Could somebody please tell me why hardware stores do NOT carry 7/16 bolts? And if they do, why are they always crap grade-2? So, I needed 7/16 x 5 1/2 inch grade-5 at least to mount the rear of the cab. I decided to hop on the internet really quick and just order a box of 10 from a huge nut & bolt dealer. Oh- they are out of stock and will have some sometime next week. Grr.


Back to the front clip. I figured I could spend my time aligning the front end to the cab, even if I did only have to use the front cab mounts to hold it down. I'm not like my buddy Stu- I've always been the mechanical guy of my group of friends. I can't seem to ever make anything look good, but I sure can make it work and run good.


Something I desperately wanted to do was make the body lines on this truck PERFECT like the factory so you couldn't tell it was ever apart. I spent the next hour measuring, squaring, nudging, bumping, cussing, loosening and retightening that front clip until it was.... perfect. I call it a night.

The only thing I've ever liked in Red.

It's my new lawnmower, and yes, it's Wicked.

For those of you who mow grass for a living, I'm sure you don't get the same thrill getting onto this commercial mower as I do, but let me tell you something... For the past 8 years I have been collecting, fixing up, and trying to keep from falling apart old '67-73 Sears Super Suburban garden tractors.

I've had all the attachments, the snow plow, snowblower, dozer blade, generator, moldboard plow, rototiller, various mower decks of various styles. Heck, I've even figured out ways to repower them to Kohler engines just so I could get parts for the stupid things.

But the time had finally come. It had been LITERALLY 2 years since I had mowed my 2 1/4 acre yard without a mechanical incident. If it wasn't a pulley zipping across the top of the grass like a UFO into the swamp, fuel leak setting leaves on fire that packed up under the front mule drive, or a smoking belt going south from a tensioner spring that broke, it was always something... Never failed. One day it took me over 5 hours to mow and 3 different tractors. I eneded up having to finish up that day with only 1 blade spinning on a 3 blade 48 inch mower deck. Don't get me wrong, I love my tractors, but being allergic to grass and crawling around and under these just to get the yard cut, I was done.

So I sucked it up, looked for SOMETHING in this modern age that was built well, parts available, local dealer equipt, and would last me the next 20 years if I wanted it to. Price was going to be dictated on what I could afford after selling all my Sears stuff. Well, almost all of it. :-) After a eBay selling spree, I had some $$$ to play with. I went out and started looking at the commercial zero turn mower market.

What I knew I'd end up with would be a Hustler Z, or a Laser Z. Both absolute tanks, both available with Kohler engines, and both came with 60 inch mowing decks. But both carried a ridiculous price tag new, and held a crazy reselling price used. I figured I'd give up on them, suck it up, and start restoring another Sears tractor in my kitchen for the attempts of mowing next year.

Keeping my eyes tuned in on eBay, I ran across a guy selling a used, beat up, 1800 hour Exmark with a 72 inch deck for a crazy price like the rest. But what caught my eye was he put in his description "Also available for same price, 60 inch model with 318 hours". Now that's what I'm about! And for that mower, the price was equally crazy-- crazy cheap!

I called him the next morning as I don't think he'd have appreciated being rung at 2:00 am. To make a long story short, That Friday I picked up my new killer mower in Dayton, Ohio and trucked it back to Akron. It was in fantastic, near new condition, everything worked, and I was giddy at the prospect of mowing the grass once again.

It was the perfect day. The sun was shining when I arrived home with my new toy, the grass was green and thick, and I figured I'd get right to it! After nearly dumping it off the trailer (I'd never driven one of these before) I went right to work on the yard. The tunes blaring through my headphones, I was singing, my boobs were jiggling, and I was haulin' grass across the yard at nearly 9 mph slinging green spray everywhere one crooked line after another!

This thing was a beast. And I loved it. What use to take 2 hours to mow, now only took me about 45 minutes, and I knew once I had some practice I might even get it down to 1/2 an hour if my kidneys could take it. The best part is- I did it without one single mechanical malfunction...

Victory.

Why do I do this again?

Tonight started out tough. I knew I had to do some work that I really wasn't looking forward to... Interior, Steering, and Brakes. Each of them I really don't care for in their own respect. After the aligning of the front clip to the cab and my solution for cab mounts, I was feeling pretty confident in tackling more.

Originally this truck came with cruise control, but somewhere down the line the steering wheel got changed out to this really 80's retro Grant GT wheel and the cruise control controls (yeesh!) got ditched. Well, I'm not one for frilly frilly crap in my trucks, it had to go, along with all the wiring that goes with it.

Yanking the whole steering column was on my list anyway because of changing over to a stick shift and Jack originally having manual steering and the larger wheel. Not to mention that little wheel and gay shifter lever just wasn't going to cut it regardless. So while the column was out, the pedal assemblies had to come out too so I could put in the clutch pedal mounts and linkages. It was the perfect opportunity to get at all the wires, and boy, did I.

The awesome part of spending 1 1/2 hours on your back on the floor board of the truck looking up while dust and dirt falls in your eyes is the simple fact that when you're done, you have a pile of crap laying outside on the concrete floor and when you turn the key, it'll still start and the headlights and radio still come on. I got lucky- the ONLY wire in this entire truck so far that was cut was the one black lead to the windshield wipers where somebody put in a delay system. Since my truck won't ever see rain, at least not intentionally, I could really care less about that stuff and soldered and heat-shrinked up the splice. I moved into the engine bay, plugged everything in, and presto- wiring was done.

On to the steering column and pedals. Here's where another surprise came in. Apparently, when you have manual steering, you have 3 more holes drilled into your firewall and a brace that gets bolted to it with a big clamp that goes around the lower steering column tube. Makes perfect sense to me as the torque you are putting to the wheel would cause that lower assembly to try to walk all over.

A quick few holes and some bolts, and that was all fixed up. Noteworthy also, the opening hole was larger in this cab than in the highboy cab and the gasket hardly fit.

I had some time to kill, so I figured I'd tackle setting the bed down on the frame and seeing how screwed I was... Well, pretty screwed, and I'll save that for a future post. One thing I did learn however, all that time spent on the front clip and cab making it perfect on the frame? Yeah, it all gets to be redone. Since the bed was gingerly set on the frame, and none of the crossmembers lign up, I spent some time getting the bed square and level.

One thing I immediately noticed after doing so, was the bed in relation to the cab and the fact the cab and front clip have a rake to them. They are raked nose-forward. This is HUGE. When I added the 1 inch body lift, the front bumper on the stock brackets BARELY fits around the grill shell. If it was even 1/4 of an inch higher, the bumper wouldn't fit properly, and it's not easy to make higher new front bumper brackets. I just don't want to either. So to take the rake out of the cab, I have 3 options.

1. Remove shims under front cab mounts and core support mounts and hope I can use rear cab bolts to smash down the mounts and re-level lower on frame.

2. Relocate front bumper higher and shim nose and front cab mounts higher to match rear cab mounts.

3. Say screw it, and just mount the bed at an angle like the cab, although this would be a nightmare to make each crossmember brace shim at a different height- so, that's not going to happen.

Yeah, I guess it's option number 1, and I'll be unbolting everything once again... Argh. Here are some teaser shots of what's to come. It's looking better and better by the day. And yes, I know the bed doesn't line up. Didn't we just go over that? :-) Haha

The List Grows

This weekend I had great hopes and aspirations of getting a lot accomplished… And I actually did, although not many pictures to show for it as most of the work was “busy work”. I did things like put new door posts catches on so the doors didn't rattle anymore, put my Explorer hood ornament from Jack's brown hood onto the blue one, mounted the front bumper properly, and even filled the carb with some gas to pulled it out of the garage under its own power for some sunshine. Wise words of advice however- try to use something shorter and more stable to sit on than a 5 gallon bucket when trying to drive a truck like this with a stick shift and manual steering. :-)

I now needed a game-plan for finishing up in the next week or two. Part of what I needed to do that kept incessantly nagging on me was to get that bed and cab aligned properly. So I started there.

After putting my Google-fu skills to work, I realized in short order that the rear cab mounts for a 2 wheel drive truck are ¾ inch taller than on a 4 wheel drive truck. Since I used the donor ones from the 2 wheel drive frame, that’s what ended up giving me my cab rake. So off came the bolts, shims, etc and the whole process started all over again.

As it turns out, I had a revelation that along with the 1 inch aluminum spacer blocks I was using on the rest of the cab, I happened to have a set of ½ inch spacers as well! So instead of figuring out how to cut-down the rear cab mounts I used, I just slipped out the old 1 inch spacers, put in ½ inch ones, and shimmed up the rest of the cab and front clip for a nice level fit.

Dropping the bed back onto the truck once again and putting in the 1 inch blocks under the bed cross-member areas, everything looked IDEAL. Now all I had to do was measure out what size steel box tubing I needed to order to build the sub-frame, where I needed to drill holes in my existing frame, and how I wanted to brace it all up so that the floor was fully supported and wouldn’t flex if I was hauling a heavy load.

As it stands, everything looks fairly straight forward and $152 dollars in ordered steel later, I’ll have everything I need arriving hopefully at the end of this week to mount it.

Another thing I’m also waiting on is the gas tank. I found an aftermarket polypropylene one on eBay that’ll fit PERFECTLY between the frame rails. That also was around $260, so it’s on order too...

Oh, and a floor mat! That nasty blue carpet isn’t going back in of course, and a truck just isn’t a truck without a black rubber floor. So add that to the list for $150...

Once again, broke and bored at this point waiting on parts, I thought- well, there is this other thing with the truck I truly don’t understand….

There Is Nothing Safe About Safety-Belts!

There are things I’ve run across working on old Ford’s that I just don’t understand that previous owners have done. I was pretty worried about potentially offending the ones I bought the truck from with this post up until about 10 minutes ago when I checked my e-mail and in a weird way, was relieved to know that I probably wouldn’t. All reservations are off now!!!

Ingenuity comes at many different levels. When you mix ingenuity with somebody who must've been smoking crack, this is what you get:

Yup, that's my over the shoulder seatbelt retractor on the driver's side with the cover removed. You know, the one that is suppose to unroll and retract the belt harness? Well, this one made me bust out laughing when I first saw it! SOMEBODY for SOME REASON decided to unwind the original belt webbing, methodically take apart the retractor, insert a lap belt from a Chrysler product up into the retractor mechanism, and re-mount it back up on the wall of the cab.

So what are you left with? A driver's side seat belt with 2 latches and enough room for a person to sit behind the wheel who couldn't possibly have sat behind the wheel! OR, maybe that explains why the steering wheel was so small! I'm not one too offend "larger" people- heck, I'm one of them myself, but there's just no other reason I can think of why somebody would take the time to do this! And of course...

This had to go. It's that simple.

Now, I often get asked by people how I know as much as I know about things. Computers, Trucks, whatever. The simple answer is, I'm not scared to get into something and figure it out. I'll break it 2 times just so I can fix it the right way once even if it costs me as much to do so as paying somebody else to do it the first time. Eventually, you build up a large enough foundation of knowledge and experience that things start to pay off. 15 years or so now, and I'm to the point there really isn't much I'm not scared, or competent to handle.

Pssshaw- seat belt retractor? I'll have this whipped out in 15 minutes! I was happily surprised to see the original belt wasn't cut, so I knew I would be in business.

So the first thing set out to do was remove the retractor and get it on the bench where I could work with it. Here's where problem #1 came in. The first bolt in the entire damn truck I've had issues with had to be the single bolt that holds this retractor into place. Why you might ask? Because red lock-tite thread locker is the Devil!!!

You know how often your seat belt bolts come loose, obviously the genius who thought up this setup didn't want it EVER coming out again. I broke my Craftsman T-50 torque bit on it. I was having so much fun I decided to pound a 1/4 inch allen head bit into it... After breaking that, I decided to try a metric one I borrowed off of Jared, which didn't let it budge...

Not to be defeated, and certainly not a setup I'm willing to live with, now it was time to get out the welder. We'll just jam a 3/8 ths inch bolt into that sucker, throw some high-heat globular welds on it and see what we can get!

SUCCESS!!! With baited breath I was able to barely turn the sucker out and finally get it out of the cab. I put it down on the counter top and cleaned up my mess I made in the cab.

Taking a quick overview of the assembly, there really wasn't much you could do with it. These are pretty simple setups. It works just like a ratchet strap mechanism on a pendulum for locking the assembly when you encounter a shock to the vehicle, and a spring that will pull the belt back when there is no vibration. I can handle this.

What's the first thing I do? Well, there is this Orange cap that says "Caution: Do Not Remove".... Hmmmmm.... That sounds like a good place to start....

You know... In retrospect, I think more adept words could have been put onto that cover. Maybe something like "Caution: Highly Sprung Death-Coil From Hell Inside" would have been good for starters?! Maybe that wouldn't have fit on the cap... All I know is this- the orange cap went ricocheting off my forehead at some point, and I'll spare you the photos of the multiple, greasy, paper-cut lacerations all over my hands... But hey, the cap was removed, I didn't die, and that's called progress right?!! :-)

If any of you have ever tried to fix a recoil starter on a lawn mower or what-not, then you'll know just about how impossible it is to wind one of these back up. Add in the fact I don't have the most dexterous hands, the stuff is greasy as all get-out, and the size of that orange cap is about 2 inches in diameter, I knew this was not going to be fun.

For literally the next hour I worked on getting that sucker wound back up and into that cap. I just couldn't do it. I needed a better solution. I finally did come up with something after a quick break for food. I put one end in a vice, stretched it across the garage nearly 10 feet, clamped the the other end in my cordless drill chuck, and slowly hit the trigger winding it while I held the coil between two pieces of wood. After removing one of the pieces of wood I was able to slip it back into the orange cap.

Finally putting that part behind me, it was pretty simple to just unpin and remove the short Chrysler belt that was wedged into the ratchet assembly. Now all I had to do was thread the end of the original belt back into it, pin it with the retaining pin, slide the ratchet shaft back into the gears- and oh yeah- rewind the orange cap with the proper tension again.

This sounded like another good use for the vice. Putting the assembly into the vice, I spun the orange cap around and around and around about a gazillion times until the retraction force felt "just about right" and snapped it back into place.

All I needed to do now was bolt it back into place, throw the cover back onto it, and call it done. A quick trip out behind the garage and I grabbed another bolt from Jack's brown cab, and back into place it all went! I'm still of course left with the lingering question for the person who originally did this: What were you thinking?!

Smile! You're Famous!

Tonight I received a great e-mail from the owners Cindy and Dan that I bought the Blue ’77 truck off of.

It’s awesome to see they are following along in the fun and resurrection of their old truck. I think it’s great because I know myself I’d love to keep track of what’s going on with one that I sell. The only problem is, I never sell them so I wouldn’t know what that would be like!!

They assured me even before even my latest posts, they were not to blame for some of the crazy things about the truck, and credited for all the fun bonuses I’ve encountered. That makes me breathe a lot easier as I really, really, wanted to comment on a few things. :-)

Hearing from them does kind of make me wonder what happened to Amanda and Tom Steele who I bought my ’70 off of on May 19th, 1998 in Belgrade, Montana. I talked to Amanda for probably 3 months before I drove out and bought the truck, and even talked to near daily for the next year or two after that.

They had goals of moving away from the “Yuppy Invasion” of Montana to Wisconsin and do some farming. I wonder if that ever happened. Someday when their truck is done I’ll have to take it back out to wherever they are and let them take their son Jay for a spin in “Grandpa’s old truck”.

On a lighter note, Cindy and Dan sent me that awesome picture at the beginning of this post that made me think of two things immediately:

First, why am I still in Akron, Ohio when there are places like Exit Glacier, Alaska to live and visit?

Secondly, is it just me, or does anybody else see a resemblance between Dan and my buddy Stu?

Yeah, I’m gonna be shot for this.. HAHA! Thanks guys!

New Garage Toy

Well, inevitably, each of my weekends seems to end up costing me money. More money than I have, and money that it takes for a “too good to be true” deal that presents itself to me.

My buddy Jared said something once that made me laugh when he was talking about leveling out my yard… “Sometimes you just gotta make dirt”. What he meant by that was digging out dirt and filling with something else in the ground, then using that dirt to smooth out the top and have something that looks great on the surface with all the nasty buried underneath.

See, I kind of think that’s a lot like money! I have a lot of nice things, but also sometimes you just have to suck it up, and figure out a way to make money no matter what gets buried underneath.
I received a phone call Friday at work about a guy who was selling all his possessions and moving south. All envy aside, one of the items he had for sale was an adjustable gantry crane.

“Supposedly” this crane was in like new condition, hardly used, was 8 foot 8 inches wide, from 8 foot to 14 foot tall, and had a capacity of 2000 lbs. Also included was the 3 ton overhead chain hoist, trolley carrier, and a DIRT CHEAP price tag. Normally, without said trolley and chain hoist, this particular model goes for $1800 bucks.

Today, it wasn’t 20% off, it wasn’t 30% off, it wasn’t even 50% off.. It was an obnoxious get it the hell out of here 75% off! All I know is I was darn tired of rolling the truck back and forth in the garage, trying to push and pull the bed into position, and worried about doing damage to the roof of the garage all at the same time.

If I said this would be the last truck I’d be removing a cab, bed, engine, axle, etc from, ya’ll know I was nuts. The gantry was already a done-deal and I had to have it. What I don't have to have is groceries for another few weeks, gasoline, electricity....help....

Self Proclaimed "Highboy" God Status 1 of 2

Welp, this half of the little blog entry where the majority of the project comes together and one of the two most tough issuess are dealt with. The bed!

Friday started off great as I received in the mail not only the steel I needed to make adaptor brackets for the frame to bed assembly, but also the interior rubber floor mat, as well as the gas tank. I needed the tank especially for this step measure out how this will all fit together and make sure any bracing wouldn't interfere with the gas tank.

Friday evening however, I decided to call it early and not work on the truck. I ended up having to haul wood for a friend and frankly, I was too tired to really care about trying to wrench on the truck, so I figured I'd better save it for Saturday bright and early.

On a side note, this picture should make you smile. :-) You might ask yourself, how can 4 crazy guys pick this up without any equipment (or injuries) and get this into the bed of a truck? Future blog entry for sure. Haha

Back to trucks - "Bright and Early in the Morning" is a relative term for me. That can mean 4:30am gearing up for a road trip to anywhere in the USA, or it could mean 11:30am I’m too tired and cranky to care about the rest of the world and wish the phone would stop ringing early. I decided 9:00 for the alarm with a cup of coffee would be a good start- and oh? Did I mention the phone was set to silent so I couldn’t hear it?

I really want to get all technical with this post, but think I’ll keep it higher-level with just the basics rather than a “tech” article on what exactly to do.

Let’s recap:
Highboy frames are narrower than any other 73-79 with same body
I’m using a non-highboy bed and body
Bed needs to be made to match frame
Highboy beds are non-existent

Caveat:
Bed bolt holes in non-highboy bed are wider than frame
Bed braces in non-highboy bed are in different locations
Bed braces in non-highboy bed are different heights
Bed braces are welded and non-removable

That left me with only one real solution. Figure out a way to fully support the original bed bracing, attach it to my frame in a narrower location, and retain the original bed bolt holes in the tub of the bed. I REFUSE to do welding or sheet metal work to make this happen. I wanted a bolt on solution ANYBODY can do with basic tools.

Let’s describe basic tools- Drill, hacksaw, open end wrenches, angle grinder, and some ability to measure properly. I cheat- I have a chop saw, 1.5 horsepower Delta/Rockwell drill press, and a machinist buddy on-call next door. Did I mention my sexy new gantry crane? I know, life isn’t fair.

The steel was pretty simple. I put a 1 inch body lift under the cab so that I had 1 inch of bed lift to work with to make adaptor brackets. I purchased 5 sticks of 2” x 1” x .125 steel stock in 48 inch lengths, some ½ inch flat stock, some 1” x 1” angle, and I had some 1” x 3/16 bar already. Also in my possession was 6 more 1” x 3” aluminum spacers used on the cab. Note: Add small hardware store of grade 8 nuts, bolts, washers, etc in the basement.

First off was measuring everything out. There are 4 bolted braces to hold down the bed, and 2 additional support braces that did not receive bed bolts. Starting with the 4 braces that did need bolts, it was fairly straight forward.

First I need to adapt the pattern, then I needed to adapt the height. Pattern was measured out between the two frames for the braces, each was cut 2” over length of outside (non-highboy ) bed bolt pattern. Two ½ inch holes were drilled for factory highboy pattern, one for each side, then two drilled for non-highboy pattern.

Each brace was located on frame matching where bed location was needed, then frame was drilled. Highboy bolts needed to be recessed so they wouldn’t interfere with bed braces, so I drilled the upper hole of box tubing out to ¾ inch so bolt head would slip down into box tubing. ½ inch bolts were inserted for highboy pattern, and brace was set onto bed.

This went on for the 3 remaining braces. Now I had two additional supports I needed for the bed. One was easy, one was slightly harder. The first non-bolted under-bed brace (second brace on frame) actually was a full width brace. All it needed to be was supported between bed and frame. Two of my 1 inch aluminum pucks were perfect as this brace was the same depth as the original highboy bed, and surprisingly, in the same position!

So I had to figure out a way to make these little puckers stay in place. Quick trip to the drill press, and I countersunk a ¾ inch hole deep enough the head of the bolt would say under the put height and I could bolt through frame with retaining lock washer and nut. These two pucks can be seen behind first brace which is nearest to the cab.

The second non-bolted brace was a bit trickier. It wasn’t a full width brace like the front one, and only had two tabs welded onto it that held it against the frame. Well, since these tabs were to the width of the non-highboy frame, once they were set onto the highboy frame, they were too wide and were just being supported by thin air.

That’s where my fifth stick of box tubing came in. I drilled and located that support properly and plopped it in. Problem was, it wasn’t high enough! So, a couple more aluminum pucks in hand, I ran over to my buddies house and had him chuck them in a lathe and turn them down to ¾ of an inch to make up the difference in brace height. I put the pucks underneath my box tubing, and now I had a PERFECT cross support at the right height with the bed fully resting where it should be on those two little tabs!

Additionally, the rear most cross brace had to be raised ¾ of an inch as well. Pucks went under that brace too. Bingo- after picking the bed up, dropping it back down, measuring, picking it back up, dropping it down, we had it fully supported as good as it came from the factory with zero loss of structural integrity!

Now came the REALLY fun part. Bolting it all down and seeing if everything lined up. Well, It's kinda funny... You can’t remove the brace bolts once the bed is in place... You can’t hold the top of the brace bolts with the bed bolts in place... But you can't position the braces without the bed bolts in place... Huh you say? Yeah, you HAVE to drop everything in place LOOSE to get the bed positioned perfectly, then tweak the braces to get the positioned properly, then remove the bed bolts once again, and then finally tighten the cross braces to highboy frame, and finally then retighten the bed bolts to the cross braces!

That’s accomplished by putting all bolts into place with no nuts. Get bed exactly where you want it, remove each bed bolt at a time, slip ¾ inch wrench into end of box tubing to hold inner frame bolt head, run lock washer and nut tight on frame (by yourself with one arm around outside of frame holding wrench and other inside holding ratchet). Do all 8.

Now, put bolts through bed to frame brace. Hold wrench in end of box tubing and pray to GOD you can drop the bolt directly into the nut and lock washer you slipped into outer end of box tubing. If you knock it blindly too far in, pull out with magnetic retrieval tool. Try again. When you get lucky, you can hold the wrench in one hand and reach around the bed-side with the other and ratchet tight while standing precariously on a rickety old wooden chair while the neighbor’s stare at your butt-crack. There was nothing easy about this, but it IS possible and I got'r'done!

After that, I stood back, admired my work and low-and-behold, the bed was PERFECTLY straight, PERFECTLY aligned, all my bolt holes lined up! It was tight, it was good, and most importantly, it was 2:30am and time for some freakin’ coffee…