1971 f250 DESERT truck- 10/24 race prep

[dolinick]

How did you make that Fordification logo on the fender? I want to put one on my new bumper.

[1971fordsdad]

Dolinick, I have a vinyl cutter at work and make all of our numbers and stickers. Make sure it is cool with Keith and I will make you some stickers, just need your address and overall dimensions you would like.

Tom

[1971ford]

Dolinick, I have a vinyl cutter at work and make all of our numbers and stickers. Make sure it is cool with Keith and I will make you some stickers, just need your address and overall dimensions you would like.

Tom

Better be prepared to make hundreds
I know everyone wants them!

[Racer Z]

Dolinick, I have a vinyl cutter at work and make all of our numbers and stickers. Make sure it is cool with Keith and I will make you some stickers, just need your address and overall dimensions you would like.

Tom

Better be prepared to make hundreds
I know everyone wants them!

Yeah, I would put one on my truck, but not a huge one like yours. Something small for the rear window.

[dolinick]

Dolinick, I have a vinyl cutter at work and make all of our numbers and stickers. Make sure it is cool with Keith and I will make you some stickers, just need your address and overall dimensions you would like.

Tom

Sweet!

[1971ford]

Ended up not towing the truck anywhere. Instead I am tackling the steering myself.

[1971ford]

Steering pretty much done just need to weld the bungs into the tie rods for good. I could not see any bump steer at all while cycling through out all 20" of travel
Mission accomplished.
Travel will be strapped before camber gets this extreme
And yes, the wheels on the cherry picker exploded while picking the truck up.

[1971ford]

Yeah I just run the super expensive stuff because it's what the tranny builder told me to put in, and the tranny is worth as much as the rest of the truck...
Bought 4 more quarts today. $60. fml.


-Made new bumper, mounted a set of lights
-Bumped truck out and mocked up bump stops. Tacked to the frame, need to weld the plates on
-Finished all steering except double shearing and reinforcing steering box area becaues it is twisting the frame as i turn at a stand still on pavement.
-Ditched the steering column and I made some removable tube supports for the steering shaft (poor man's steering shaft heim), and got the 4x4 steering shaft in after some modifications.
-Tightened bolts all over the truck, and put some gas in
-Mounted air horns/hella horn under the grill behind bumper lights
-dad set the optima up with new cable ends and cut the ground cable down, hooked up the shifter and put a temporary water temp. gauge in
-had 2 of the BFG's mounted on some spare rims and strapped down for now




Decided to whip up a bumper today

Cut me off, i dare you, i want to use my horns!


Waiting on another set of coils to swap in then I'll strap it















Driving it to school tomorrow. It it such a blast to drive!

[1971ford]

Rear sat too low with the spares on so i put 3 short, thick leaf springs at the bottom of the leaf packs to raise it up without affecting how the springs work. Made new center pins and was done. Perfect ride height now.
before

Now


Made some rear shock hoops and mounted the freshly rebuilt FOA's back in place.





Droop

[jp2005]

Very cool! When are you taking it out to get dirty?

[1971ford]

Tomorrow we're loading it up on the trailer and taking it out to go test! I'll get some air under the tires, don't worry!

[jollyroger]

wheres the updates? and what happend to the roof mount light bar

[evan_flatt69]

Looks like a mountain of fun. And once you have that mountain of fun you can ride your truck up it with no problem!

[1972hiboy]

THats awesome. the inside of the cab looks like a command center!

[1971ford]

Light bar is sitting in my room, it's just very last on the priority list. I have no lights to put in it right now and a decent set of HID's will be about $600 for it.

Thanks evan-flatt69!

Rich, thanks, Only more switches, buttons, knobs and doodads to come! All unmarked to confuse the theif (and my friends trying to find the switch for the air horns)






oops




Fixed. come-along'd it back into position, welded the cracks and then welded everything that should of been welded the first time.








TWENTY-ONE inches of strapped/bumped travel. I thought it was more like 17". Wow


Valving time



So far this is what testing has shown and i still haven't started prepping the truck for the next test session, just happened to notice some of these out of the corner of my eye.
-Shocks need big valving changes (currently re-valving to ride twice as nice)
-Right front coilover was blown (rebuilding both coilovers with re-valving)
-Steering tie rods need lock washers (added lock washers, still going to double shear as well)
-Bedside supports are complete crap, need to re-do all bedside mounting in the rear atleast
-Beam pivots wern't done (Fixed)
-Pitman arm about to fall off (Fixed - cranked down and tack welded)
-tie-rod with bends in it is flopping down and hitting frame, need to make spacers for heim(s)
-air pressure in tires was at 55 psi, now lowered to 30PSI.
-rear spare tire mount/rearbumper may need to be re-designed

Fixing everything and testing again, then full race prep.