I did it again .....Empire '69 F250 ranger

[popeyes71]

Nice looking truck! Looking forward to seeing more of her; enjoy!

[briansbronco]

I'll be a lot more happy with it when that bed is gone and there's a flat bed or service body there to replace it.....

[Manny]

or service body there to replace it.....

Instigator.....

Yep that's me so i know where a genuine 1960's crown metal and fabrication ford service body is....It's a odd length for a 62 crew cab truck....but you can then add a flat deck in front of the box for welder spare whatever you want... Lived in alabama it's whole life. Long ways from you but only one like it and also price should be good. I will get pictures..

[briansbronco]

I have a friend that runs cars all the way across the country from Montana. Anything is possible especially if I could get them coming back empty or with a partial load.

[briansbronco]

This might be the "truck that was built from crap laying around in my shop". While looking for some black implement paint to have a go at the frame rails on the old girl I found two gallons of Military CARC 383 green..... Hmmm, thoughts.

[briansbronco]

CARC green, powder coated black bumpers and trim. I think I might have a direction here. I'm planning to pull the bed to do some work under there. I haven't given up on the original bed but it will take a lot of work to save it. It would look good with a new tire carrier tailgate and tool box all black though. I hate these sorts of thoughts as they usually mean a lot of work for me.

[briansbronco]

Today I decided to make a few changes and go ahead with the install of the eclectic winch in the rear of the truck. The drop steel bumper is a heavy duty unit. 3/8" steel box welded and bolted to the frame with 1/2" grade 8 hardware. It's a solid platform for a 9k pound winch. I will route the wiring into the back passenger side of the bed. The control box will be installed inside a smaller ammo can that I had laying around the shop. I have done this before and it worked out well. Plug is flush mounted to the outside of the can and control lead can be stored inside and out of the weather. best part is it looks like nothing in the bed of the truck. Just an ammo can sitting there.

[briansbronco]

Pic

[briansbronco]

Gotta make a trip to town for some cable to get everything installed but should be operational tomorrow.

[67mann]

idea... nice truck

[briansbronco]

2g cable, cable ends....grommets, solder....circuit breaker. Lots of heavy wiring to do today. If any of you guys want to reproduce this setup I'll give you a couple tips and save you some money. On these winches I always ALWAYS upgrade the cable size from 4g to 2g at least. These more inexpensive winches work really well for light duty and intermittent use. The failing point on them is that the solenoids get hot because the cable diameter is too small to carry the electrical load. Upgrade them and your harbor freight winch will last a long time. Also installing a circuit breaker inline between your power source and winch will give you a fail safe if you work it too hard. It will save your motor in the winch. You need one, trust me. If you get into serious crap and pop your circuit breaker it's an easy enough thing to take it out of the system and continue winching should you need to.

On this truck I will also be adding an additional battery. It will charge off of the alternator but be dedicated to winching and off-road lights. Redundant systems. Being isolated from the starting battery it will also allow you to jump start yourself should you need to. Which I can certify is a wonderful thing when you have a drain on your system that doesn't appear until the worst possible time. I also like to use a deep cycle battery in this location VS a traditional starting battery they will winch longer and can be charged and recharged without much issue. A starting battery is only going to die so many times before you have a dead cell.

[briansbronco]

Well it snowed last night but that didn't stop me from getting the top end on the 360 torn off. I forgot how heavy those damn intakes are. I had to use the dang engine hoist to break it loose, then lift it out of the engine bay. What a pain in the butt. Soaked up all the antifreeze and started cleaning things up under there. Anyone need a good boat anchor? I got one in the form of the stock intake and I'll throw in the 2100 for FREE!!!!

I'm scraping old gasket off now and hopefully tomorrow you'll have new pictures of the 360 performer intake and the Holley avenger truck carb sitting up there looking pretty. I think while it's out I'll paint the valve covers and give the distributor a once over. I have an excel points eliminator setup that will go back in there and then we get to see where the jetting is at. According to Holley....2 jet sizes down per 3k ft of elevation. Then the tech said, and I quote " before swapping the jets just bolt her up and see how it runs". Comforting.

[Lone Ranger]

Awesome truck! Where abouts in MT? I was close to great falls for ten years- miss that state so much. I like the idea of flat bed but you could paint it and run it till it's junk or rusty. I saw this the other day and think somebody should do this to a bump-

[briansbronco]

That's pretty cool! I wouldn't mind cutting this bed up to do something like that. I hate when I have new things like this pop up.

Anyway, I'm about 50 miles east of great falls, MT. Up in the little belt mountains.

Update: It's freakin' COLD outside. It was 28 or so today and I had to keep running back in the shop to warm up my dang hands. Got the intake installed, everything put back together and attempted to crank it but I think I might have missed my timing. Did I say it was cold? Anyway I buttoned everything up, need to get some vaccum lines connected tomorrow and check my timing but other than that.....she's done.

[briansbronco]

Well just when things were rocking along perfectly. I had some dinner, went back out to give it another hour of work. Got everything connected up in the dark with a headlamp and I got no spark.....crap. I wonder if I installed that points eliminator correctly. Might just throw the points back in there for the time being. I know they work.... damn electronics.