Two days ago my buddy brought me a '71 F250 to put a heater core in so he could sell it for profit. He had gotten it from the neighbor of the original owner. The neighbor got it dead and replaced the fuel pump (the lever wore through the aluminum housing
) and played with it for a year. The neighbor deals in scrap aluminum and copper so my friend got the truck for @ $700 worth of metal he got for free. The truck is straight and unmolested with 98k miles. It had been repainted years ago the original Bahama Blue (I like blue) and doesn't need any heavy body work (I suck at sanding putty). It has the typical rust in the floors and cab corners. It even still has to tool box under the bed. The 360 looks like it's leaked oil since 1971 and ran like crap. Fuel was leaking out the accelerator pump housing and kept catching fire everytime it backfired (which was often.)
While replacing the heater core I basicly fell in love with it. My buddy stopped by and asked how much he owed me for the work. I replied that the title was all I needed. A little haggling over the labor charge for the last few jobs I did for him that he hadn't the money to pay for won the argument. Last thing he said was 'Enjoy your new truck'
Last night I rebuilt the carb (a gallon of old heating oil makes great carb cleaner) and I had to replace the vacuum advance on the distributor (from backfiring). Motor runs great now, just sounded like crap from the passenger side manifold leaking bad. Spent today removing that and resurfacing the manifold with a big file to get a decent seal. I also refabricated the choke stove lines from the manifold to the carb.
The goal for the truck is to do jobs the ranchero can't (pull the boat, pull the car trailer, get fire wood, etc) It will get the disc brake and power steering swap as soon as a donar shows up. It will either get an overdrive tranny adapted to the old toploader style bell or may get an EFI 302 or 351 swapped in like the ranchero did. I already have a small block five speed tranny. The 4.10 open rear will get replaced with a 3.54 locker setup so it can run the interstate as needed.
As you can see I'll need some help and can give some too. A quick tip I noticed was the armrests on my truck had fairlane build codes (C8OB) so I scrounged up a set of like new armrests from the back doors of a four door '68 falcon (same part as the fairlane/ torino, just in better shape) in the local salvage yard for $10. Not much demand for four door falcon arm rests
Jamie
and 
from Okla 
