terry dean's '68 f-250

[tdc]

i've been lurking here for a while now, ever since i picked up my truck. just now decided to make an account and participate since i'm trying to get this thing ready for a drive from sacramento to la at the end of the month and i'm very likely going to need some expert advice here and there.

the truck is a 1968 f-250 2wd with the 300 i6, four on the floor and a dana 60 rear end with 4.10 gears. picked it up for $500, put about that much worth of tires on it and drove it over the hill from reno to sacramento.


my goal with this truck is to be able have power enough to haul and tow some pretty good loads (car on a trailer, bed full of mopeds, etc) over passes and wherever i want to go, and still get decent gas mileage when not carrying or pulling a load.

graham's build (Graham's '68 F-100 "Buck" the truck - http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... 22&t=71650) has pretty much the same goal in mind as i do, plus i know that guy from doing moped stuff, so i'll be keeping an eye on his build for sure. i hadn't considered a turbo build really, but that's a super interesting thought! hmmm.

but for now i'm just trying to get it going down the road safe and happy.
i'll be updating my blog as i go along, if you can find it here if you wanna - http://terrydean.wordpress.com/tag/ford/
the blog thing is kind of a mixed bag of stuff i've got going on - mopeds, motorcycles, the truck, whatever, a lot of stuff i'm sure most of you would rather not waste time looking at, so i'll try to keep this updated as well.

thanks for the awesome site, it's been a great resource already.

[tbone6]

Nice truck, good luck with it!

[motzingg]

Good to have you on board buddy, IMO this is the perfect platform for what we want to do. I wish i had a longbed 3/4 ton and not a short bed 1/2... but whatever.

I've got a nice antique off-white bought for my truck too, just need to get it registered so i can drive it into work and spray it.

I love your door lettering too, I've even been planning on doing that as well... 'Moped Factory' .. tax write off on the truck!


Guess what, i'm moving to austin in December, gonna finally start hasslin' you west coast duders.

[mcheath]

Nice looking truck, and for 500 bucks a great buy. What kind of mileage are you getting right now?

If you wanted to get really creative on the engine there is a guy on the Fresno Craigslist selling the 7.3 turbo diesel and C-6 out of his truck for $750, says it runs good.

[motzingg]

Good to have you on board buddy, IMO this is the perfect platform for what we want to do. I wish i had a longbed 3/4 ton and not a short bed 1/2... but whatever.

I've got a nice antique off-white bought for my truck too, just need to get it registered so i can drive it into work and spray it.

I love your door lettering too, I've even been planning on doing that as well... 'Moped Factory' .. tax write off on the truck!


Guess what, i'm moving to austin in December, gonna finally start hasslin' you west coast duders.

[tdc]

Good to have you on board buddy, IMO this is the perfect platform for what we want to do. I wish i had a longbed 3/4 ton and not a short bed 1/2... but whatever.
I've got a nice antique off-white bought for my truck too, just need to get it registered so i can drive it into work and spray it.
I love your door lettering too, I've even been planning on doing that as well... 'Moped Factory' .. tax write off on the truck!
Guess what, i'm moving to austin in December, gonna finally start hasslin' you west coast duders.

oh man, it'll be rad to see you at some best coast rallies! you can take ciaociao for a spin!
when i went looking for a truck, i more or less knew exactly what i wanted. 1975 or older (to get around ca smog laws) dodge or ford with an inline six, 2wd, manual transmission and under $1000. i grew up a mopar guy so was leaning towards dodge, but i knew the ford i6 was one of the best truck engines ever built so i was very open to a ford. after doing the cl dance for a few weeks this thing came up and i had to go for it.

Nice looking truck, and for 500 bucks a great buy. What kind of mileage are you getting right now?
If you wanted to get really creative on the engine there is a guy on the Fresno Craigslist selling the 7.3 turbo diesel and C-6 out of his truck for $750, says it runs good.

haa while a turbo diesel conversion would be super rad to behold, i don't think it's the project for me. i'm not sure what i'm getting as far as milage at the moment, i THINK i got something like 15mpg or so from reno to sacramento, not horrible considering there's a pretty big hill in the middle.
i just picked up a stromberg 2bbl for $15 (and it came with a rebuild kit!) and am going to either make or buy an adapter to fit it on the log, hopefully before my la trip. it came off a chevy 305 v6, so it should be pretty close to jetted properly, i think?
i'd like to do an adapter ala graham's build, but it's been years since i've had access to a mill, so for now a bolt on adapter will have to do.


does anyone have a good source to pick up an ignition switch? and maybe the door locks? even better if all on the same key? right now i have a screw driver hidden in the cab to start the thing and am using a combination lock* on the doors.



*the combination is as follows - roll up driver side window, close and latch driver side wing window, close driverside door, walk around truck and climb through cab to lock driver door.
close passenger door with window down and wing window open. reach through window and lock pass door, reach through wing window and roll up passenger window, close passenger wing window and hope no one notices it's not fully latched.

[motzingg]

i'm thinking i'm just going to get an alarm system and leave my doors unlocked. where i come from old cars are more likely to get their windows broken than anything stolen worth more than the cost of a window.

nothing like some asshole breaking a 300$ window to steal your $25 wal-mart cd player...

basic alarm systems with inertia switch are like 30-50 bucks.

[tdc]

there's nothing to steal in the truck, i'm more worried about the truck itself getting taken. i've got a club thing on the wheel that a friend loaned me, but i'd like to have keys for it. i'm sure there's something available, i haven't looked around too much.

[motzingg]

you should probably know that the real key switch is slightly easier to hot wire than a moped, anyone with a screwdriver and a 4th grade education could probably get the thing started in about 2 minutes. the terminals are all open on the back and its pretty obvious what everything does.

i'd probably stick with the club if i were you, but you should be able to get the switch and door locks from LMC or Dennis Carpenter. The LMC catalog is really nice to have in paper because it has lots of good cross reference stuff for junkyard-ing and some good assembly drawings.

[tdc]

awesome, thanks graham. i understand the thing's easy to hot wire, but i've been doing mopeds and motorcycles long enough now that i'm all about making things as difficult as possible for a potential thief. i'll check out lmc.

so i've been putting miles on this thing driving it to work all week - mini shake down tests for the la trip next week, i guess. the first day i almost turned around and took it back home before i made it 10 blocks, it was running like a total turd. it kept loading up a bunch like it was running super rich. for a minute i thought maybe the auto choke on the carb that some previous owner slapped on might be stuck, but then i realized the problem was obvious and i was being a total noob and over thinking everything. i pulled over and pulled off the tiny 5" "hot rod" air filter someone had installed and threw it on my floor board. hopped back in and now the truck is running beautifully. still not perfect, but it's night and day.
saturday i'm heading to the pick n pull to grab a stock air filter housing, if i can find one. i'll pick up a new filter element while i'm out.

i was wondering, are the efi exhaust manifolds for these 300 engines that much better than the stock log style? should i grab a set while i'm at it on saturday? i probably won't get around to installing them and dealing with the exhaust before the la trip (it's mostly hanging from the truck by wire), but i've read here and there that the swap helps with fuel efficiency and performance, is that generally the case?

this weekend i'm also going to pull the lifter cover and oil pan to replace the gaskets. the thing leaks a bit from everywhere, but i think some new gaskets will go a long way until i can give everything a proper going through.

[motzingg]

i've got a weird valve cover on mine, not the 'powered by ford' one, but a different one, my engine has casting code for a car not truck... buuuut the valve cover gasket they had at o'riley didn't fit... bummer. now it leaks worse. make sure you get the right gasket before pulling the old one off or you'll be a sad panda. There are alignment tabs around the outer perimeter that either line up or dont. I'm pretty sure the head is all the same, just different tabs engaged into the stamped cover.

i had the exact same thing happen with my air filter. hilarious. dollar store ***** hot rod filter, probably the same choked up plastic thing i had on mine. might want to swap plugs out too, it fouled the crap out of mine.

i'm not sure how you'd get the EFI manifold to bolt on a carb. It would certainly flow bettter but you'd have to fab some kind of plenum that would probably bolt to the lower runner casting, in which case your carb would probably hit your hood. And you'd have no carb heat, which i think is kinda important on this engine. What you need is six mikuni TM28's.

i dont think flow is a real big deal on these engines, i'm kinda thinking i'd rather have a single instead of double barrel carb right now as i've been off the road for 4 damn weeks from screwing up my other manifold. If i don't like it after all the mods, i may end up just going back to 1 barrel with a junkyard mani.

[motzingg]

i've got a weird valve cover on mine, not the 'powered by ford' one, but a different one, my engine has casting code for a car not truck... buuuut the valve cover gasket they had at o'riley didn't fit... bummer. now it leaks worse. make sure you get the right gasket before pulling the old one off or you'll be a sad panda. There are alignment tabs around the outer perimeter that either line up or dont. I'm pretty sure the head is all the same, just different tabs engaged into the stamped cover.

i had the exact same thing happen with my air filter. hilarious. dollar store ***** hot rod filter, probably the same choked up plastic thing i had on mine. might want to swap plugs out too, it fouled the crap out of mine.

i'm not sure how you'd get the EFI manifold to bolt on a carb. It would certainly flow bettter but you'd have to fab some kind of plenum that would probably bolt to the lower runner casting, in which case your carb would probably hit your hood. And you'd have no carb heat, which i think is kinda important on this engine. What you need is six mikuni TM28's.

i dont think flow is a real big deal on these engines, i'm kinda thinking i'd rather have a single instead of double barrel carb right now as i've been off the road for 4 damn weeks from screwing up my other manifold. If i don't like it after all the mods, i may end up just going back to 1 barrel with a junkyard mani.

[tdc]

graham why you always double postin

the guy i bought the truck from had just done the valve cover, so i'm not going to bother with that right now. the lifter cover and oil pan seep, though, so i'm going to bust that out, probably tomorrow. hopefully that will take care of that.

the efi exhaust manifolds (there are two) bolt right up, on the head at least. the exhaust pipe is another story altogether. i've read that others who have done the swap usually set up some kind of coolant carb heating something, that shouldn't be too hard to work out.

here's a picture that shows how lovely my engine bay is. i've replaced the dizzy cap, rotor, plugs and plug wires since this picture, and that's the air filter that was killing me.

that greenish wire going from the carb up to the firewall and through that hole into the cab is for the autochoke. it's just hanging out under the dash dangling down by my gas pedal. this thing doesn't like not having a choke, so for now i'll probably just hook it to the hot wire on the back of the brake light switch. the whole wiring in the cab is cut and spliced and hacked and mostly just hanging under the dash. that'll be a fun project for sure.

[KRob]

Why is there a chain on the engine to from.?

Very good looking old truck.

[tdc]

thanks! i've seen people chain down the "pull" side of an engine to help keep from breaking motor mounts when the engine twists under power, i'm not really sure if the motor mount on that side is already broken and this was someone's fix, or if someone added the chain just to help prolong the life of that mount. i'll check the mount eventually, but for now i'll just assume it's ok and the chain's there as a back up to keep the engine from smashing the hood.