Sprucing up my 1:1

[DRIPTROIT 71]

I’ve had this truck for 20 years now. I decided to spruce it up a bit.

Here is what it looked like a month ago:

 

Here is what it looks like now:

[espo]

I like the new look. I'll bet you have to turn up the radio a bit when you hit the hiway with those tires. 

[DRIPTROIT 71]

  On 8/3/2021 at 8:33 PM, espo said:

I like the new look. I'll bet you have to turn up the radio a bit when you hit the hiway with those tires. 

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Thanks! The tires are a bit louder than the old ones.?

[espo]

  On 8/3/2021 at 8:39 PM, DRIPTROIT 71 said:

Thanks! The tires are a bit louder than the old ones.?

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We had a JK Wrangler that we kept throwing money into ( Jeep = Just Empty Every Pocket) and had 33" on 9.5 " and a 4" lift. Next time your out look at how many people are looking in their rear view mirrors as you roll up to an intersection, or as you drive by them and they have their windows rolled down.  

[espo]

Childish but entertaining.   

[DRIPTROIT 71]

  On 8/3/2021 at 8:45 PM, espo said:

We had a JK Wrangler that we kept throwing money into ( Jeep = Just Empty Every Pocket) and had 33" on 9.5 " and a 4" lift. Next time your out look at how many people are looking in their rear view mirrors as you roll up to an intersection, or as you drive by them and they have their windows rolled down.  

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I had a few lifted trucks in my younger days 25-30 years ago. I had a 79 Ford on 44s once. I figured before I got too old to get in that I would try it one more time.?

[DRIPTROIT 71]

This was my 79 Ford when it had 39.5 Swampers on it. Unfortunately I never took any pictures when it had 44s on it. This picture was taken in 92.

[tbill]

Good looking truck! Most of those left in this area are missing metal up to and including the drip rails….

[DRIPTROIT 71]

  On 8/4/2021 at 12:10 AM, tbill said:

Good looking truck! Most of those left in this area are missing metal up to and including the drip rails….

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Thanks Tom!

[vincen47]

Looks like fun!

[Painted Black]

My brother has an 84 in the same color, he just went thru having to fix the cracked frame in the steering box area. \

That Ford its the way I remember them,

[bisc63]

Nice looking truck, but I'm more impressed with your place! Huge shade trees, and that porch just looks like a great place to kick your feet up and shoot the bull. Just an over all ol' timey welcoming feel to it. Congrats!

[DRIPTROIT 71]

  On 8/5/2021 at 12:41 AM, vincen47 said:

Looks like fun!

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I actually has been fun, but I still have a Paystar sitting on the bench that I have got to get back to.

  On 8/6/2021 at 12:59 PM, Painted Black said:

My brother has an 84 in the same color, he just went thru having to fix the cracked frame in the steering box area. \

That Ford its the way I remember them,

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 Thankfully this one hasn’t cracked. I’ve fixed several over the years. One particular back in the 90s was broken completely in half. The guy that owned it had us replace the entire frame and add the plates to it.

  On 8/7/2021 at 12:54 AM, bisc63 said:

Nice looking truck, but I'm more impressed with your place! Huge shade trees, and that porch just looks like a great place to kick your feet up and shoot the bull. Just an over all ol' timey welcoming feel to it. Congrats!

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 Thanks! It is actually old timey, of course I am too. It was built in 1937 out of used lumber taken from an old school house that was being torn down.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I have a box Chevy 4X4, too, but it's nowhere near as pretty as yours. I done WAY too much work to mine: all new brake lines, master cyl, transmission lines & TV Cable, filter & fluid, all new engine tin including oil pan.

A stainless steel muffler & stainless exhaust system  that i got in trade for a scrap car body at the junkyard. I don't know what the system came off of but i cut and fitted it to this truck. It will outlive the truck, for sure. New Taiwan front inner fenders. Door & Ignition locks replaced with lightly used and 3 sets new GM-logo keys cut to the code.

All new belts, hoses, RB Alternator & power steering pump with new hoses. Edelbrock intake and carb replaced with OEM aluminum intake, rebuilt Quadrajet, air cleaner replaced with OEM. New fuel pump. Junked the aftermarket FM-Cassette unit and installed a correct Delco AM-FM radio with correct knobs. Starter rebuilt with new brushes, Bendix & solenoid. Butchered battery cables replaced with uncut OEM used, side terminal.

I used some heavy gauge steel from a washing machine housing to patch the floor. The rudimentary computer is gone. Pulled the engine wiring harness and restored it to stock with correct color & gauge wiring with new GM terminals. No splices anywhere except in the plow headlights circuits. The aluminum mags are gone, replaced with multi-slotted stock wheels and tires that have less than 10K miles on them.

Distributor completely rebuilt and all new tune-up parts. New custom-fitted plug wires by way of an MSD Pro-Crimp tool. Bought the wires at a parts store liquidation. Have no idea what they were for but they have a spiral-wound radio-supression stainless steel core.

The engine is a beauty, though. A new GM replacement 350 that, when i had the tin off, clearly had only a few thousand miles on it. The engine block has notches for the dipstick on both sides. In spite of the low miles, the oil pan was rusted thru. The oil pan is a GM Dealer-only item. $160 is the cheapest i could find it. :(

Found a correct Century fiberglass topper in the next town over - $50 and brought it home on a tow dolly.

Anyhow, i have way more into it than it is worth. If the young guy i bought it from could see what i did he'd probably call me a fool and laugh his guts out. It came with a plow that i've used twice in 5 years. It's been out of the yard once to plow the driveway next door. If it doesn't get any use this winter i'll get rid of it. Anyone who appreciates top-shelf work is gonna be floored.

BTW, i bought it to take down an 80' tree that was leaning hard over my house. The house didn't get hurt ?

 

 

[DRIPTROIT 71]

  On 8/9/2021 at 10:40 PM, Foghorn Leghorn said:

I have a box Chevy 4X4, too, but it's nowhere near as pretty as yours. I done WAY too much work to mine: all new brake lines, master cyl, transmission lines & TV Cable, filter & fluid, all new engine tin including oil pan.

A stainless steel muffler & stainless exhaust system  that i got in trade for a scrap car body at the junkyard. I don't know what the system came off of but i cut and fitted it to this truck. It will outlive the truck, for sure. New Taiwan front inner fenders. Door & Ignition locks replaced with lightly used and 3 sets new GM-logo keys cut to the code.

All new belts, hoses, RB Alternator & power steering pump with new hoses. Edelbrock intake and carb replaced with OEM aluminum intake, rebuilt Quadrajet, air cleaner replaced with OEM. New fuel pump. Junked the aftermarket FM-Cassette unit and installed a correct Delco AM-FM radio with correct knobs. Starter rebuilt with new brushes, Bendix & solenoid. Butchered battery cables replaced with uncut OEM used, side terminal.

I used some heavy gauge steel from a washing machine housing to patch the floor. The rudimentary computer is gone. Pulled the engine wiring harness and restored it to stock with correct color & gauge wiring with new GM terminals. No splices anywhere except in the plow headlights circuits. The aluminum mags are gone, replaced with multi-slotted stock wheels and tires that have less than 10K miles on them.

Distributor completely rebuilt and all new tune-up parts. New custom-fitted plug wires by way of an MSD Pro-Crimp tool. Bought the wires at a parts store liquidation. Have no idea what they were for but they have a spiral-wound radio-supression stainless steel core.

The engine is a beauty, though. A new GM replacement 350 that, when i had the tin off, clearly had only a few thousand miles on it. The engine block has notches for the dipstick on both sides. In spite of the low miles, the oil pan was rusted thru. The oil pan is a GM Dealer-only item. $160 is the cheapest i could find it.

Found a correct Century fiberglass topper in the next town over - $50 and brought it home on a tow dolly.

Anyhow, i have way more into it than it is worth. If the young guy i bought it from could see what i did he'd probably call me a fool and laugh his guts out. It came with a plow that i've used twice in 5 years. It's been out of the yard once to plow the driveway next door. If it doesn't get any use this winter i'll get rid of it. Anyone who appreciates top-shelf work is gonna be floored.

BTW, i bought it to take down an 80' tree that was leaning hard over my house. The house didn't get hurt ?

 

 

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Let’s see a picture.

 I bought mine from the guy who bought it new. He had it 17 years, I’ve had it a little over 20. It’s a factor 4 speed truck with the original 350. This truck never had  any type of computer or external timing control, just a regular H.E.I. that I replaced with a N.O.S. Mallory H.E.I.. The original cam went flat and I replaced it with a mild Lunati mostly just to sound good. My wife had gotten me new tail lights for Christmas as the old ones were sun bleached pretty bad. I added the 4” lift a couple weeks ago. The wheels are 16.5”x12” and are at least 25 years old. They came off of a friend of mines Blazer. They were chrome and had been sand blasted. I primed and painted them and put the 35” Thornbirds on them. I cleaned and rubbed on it for a couple of days and was pleasantly surprised with how it turned out.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

HI: Mine is a 1986. On the inside of the firewall, above the glovebox, is a small plastic box no larger than a pack of ciggies. This is the rudimentary 'computer' that listens for signals from the Knock Sensor and if it hears any, retards the timing until the knock goes away. I wasn't having any of that so i junked the box, the distributor, the simple wiring and selected a late 1970's passenger car HEI from the pile. It was completely disassembled and cleaned in Berryman Carb Cleaner.

Then it got a new vacuum advance can which rotates the pickup coil to manipulate the advance. The white ring is a handcut (with punches) felt washer which gets oiled to ease the rotation of the pickup coil. Maybe you can see the new lightweight Mr Gasket mechanical advance springs. On the outboard ends of the springs are small nylon bushings which go inside the mechanical advance weights. These are usually wasted to the point that there's often nothing there.

At the time, i learned that these bushings were out of production by every manufacturer so i scoured the nation and bought all the old stock i could find. Think i ended up with about 30 pieces. Not much but enough to satisfy me.

The pickup coil checked with an Ohmmeter and found to be within factory specs, the ignition module replaced with new, and the distributor reassembled.

Below is the restored engine wiring harness. It's exactly the same as new so that any future owner can look at a schematic and not get confused by wrong color wiring. New split wire tubing as needed. As i recall, the blue wire went to the electric choke coil. It's not finished because i needed to have the harness on the engine so i could decide where to cut off the excess wire.

The red tubing is fireproof (seriously) insulation to protect the starter wires where they go past the exhaust manifold. The insulation is zip-tied in a couple places away from the heat.

 

 

[DRIPTROIT 71]

  On 8/10/2021 at 6:16 PM, Foghorn Leghorn said:

HI: Mine is a 1986. On the inside of the firewall, above the glovebox, is a small plastic box no larger than a pack of ciggies. This is the rudimentary 'computer' that listens for signals from the Knock Sensor and if it hears any, retards the timing until the knock goes away. I wasn't having any of that so i junked the box, the distributor, the simple wiring and selected a late 1970's passenger car HEI from the pile. It was completely disassembled and cleaned in Berryman Carb Cleaner.

Then it got a new vacuum advance can which rotates the pickup coil to manipulate the advance. The white ring is a handcut (with punches) felt washer which gets oiled to ease the rotation of the pickup coil. Maybe you can see the new lightweight Mr Gasket mechanical advance springs. On the outboard ends of the springs are small nylon bushings which go inside the mechanical advance weights. These are usually wasted to the point that there's often nothing there.

At the time, i learned that these bushings were out of production by every manufacturer so i scoured the nation and bought all the old stock i could find. Think i ended up with about 30 pieces. Not much but enough to satisfy me.

The pickup coil checked with an Ohmmeter and found to be within factory specs, the ignition module replaced with new, and the distributor reassembled.

Below is the restored engine wiring harness. It's exactly the same as new so that any future owner can look at a schematic and not get confused by wrong color wiring. New split wire tubing as needed. As i recall, the blue wire went to the electric choke coil. It's not finished because i needed to have the harness on the engine so i could decide where to cut off the excess wire.

The red tubing is fireproof (seriously) insulation to protect the starter wires where they go past the exhaust manifold. The insulation is zip-tied in a couple places away from the heat.

 

 

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I was a mechanic for 25 years much of when these trucks were in their hay day so to speak. Turned a lot of wrenches on these. My dad used to have an 85 that I bypassed the timing control on. Of course we re-geared it too. With a little help from a new carburetor the 305 did great on 33s pulling a 5,000 lb. tractor. My mom had an 85 Blazer. Like my dad’s truck it was factory 305 with 273 gears. It wouldn’t hardly pull itself on 31s.