Club Hauler

[Luva65wagon]

Hey folks,

Just a note to say I closed the deal to acquire our company F350 flatbed today. It's a little rough, but will clean up pretty easily. I think after it's presentable I'll paint the club logo on the doors.

It needs a few things, so if anyone has a 78-79 Ford Pickup they are parting out, let me know.

Here's a pic from when I used it a couple years ago to do some yard work. We used it as a club last year as well for the swap meet.

[redfalken]

Awesome! And I have your cell number so does this mean I can drop my towing insurance??:ROTFLMAO:

[Jeff W]

What parts are you looking for?

[Luva65wagon]

Grille surround and headlight doors, front bumper, door window weatherstripping. Do you know of something?

[Luva65wagon]

Awesome! And I have your cell number so does this mean I can drop my towing insurance??:ROTFLMAO:

Sure Kenny, if you don't mind dismantling the car to get it loaded up. :cool:

[Jeff W]

Grille surround and headlight doors, front bumper, door window weatherstripping. Do you know of something?

I don't have anything but we will keep our eyes open. I think F100-F350 has shared cab parts...

[Luva65wagon]

I scored a complete grille assy, bumper, wing widows, and dash pad from a 73 f250 @ Pull-a-Part yesterday, all for about $60! It's all in very good to excellent condition. 73-79 are all the same bodies as well as F100-F350, so a few mods are required only to go to an earlier grille assy. I think I'll get few other things from that truck as well, and what I can't get used, I'll get from NPD. [thumb]

[Nathan289]

Don't forget your good friends at LMC truck.. they have a 73 to 79 ford F series catelog that has alot of neato stuff in it..

My friend has a 79 bronco with a 429 in it.. so he has their catelog laying around.


Nathan

[Luva65wagon]

I've used them as well. NPD seems to have had the better parts when I've tried them both. But I do have their catalog I believe. There's a couple things I don't see in the NPD catalog -- I should check that out. Thanks for reminding me.

I ordered about $230 worth of things for the truck this morning. the largest value item is the window weatherstipping kit. So, I'm up to about $300 total investment. :D

I mean you can't go wrong with this thing. It has 6 brand-new tires, all new Ipana (?) "iron-wood" bed decking. I built the engine in it in 1987'ish and it still runs great. New steering box and clutch. Just a spit-polish and she'll be good as new. [thumb]

[68FalconSC]

Roger,
I've got a '79 Econo custom van that was hit in the drivers rear corner. Anything you need, is yours, except the N 9" rear. It's an original AZ van w/ either a 302 or 351w. Last ran about 2 years ago or so. Jon

[Luva65wagon]

Thanks for the offer Jon. I've looked at these at the Pull-a-Part and there's not a lot on those that work on the same year trucks. I think I've got all the bits and pieces I need to finish it up - give or take a bolt and washer or two. :)

[68FalconSC]

Thanks for the offer Jon. I've looked at these at the Pull-a-Part and there's not a lot on those that work on the same year trucks. I think I've got all the bits and pieces I need to finish it up - give or take a bolt and washer or two. :)

Too bad there's not much of anything you can use as everything is there, including the drivetrain. It was my daily driver from '01 until it was hit in '03. I bought it from the original owner when I still lived in AZ. All I'm going to do with it is pull the rearend {a nodular 9"} and the rest is off to the crusher as scrap. It'll be gone in the next week or so, so if you do decide there's something you want, let me know soon. Jon

[Luva65wagon]

Well just a quick update on "this" project. After almost two months non-stop work I'm down to just building the new side-boards for the flatbed and doing a little more rubbing on the old paint and I'll be getting back to my Falcon stuff. :banana:

After scoring the new front grille assy and bumper and getting those put on, I went to start it and found the "newly rebuilt carb" was spewing gas all over. I managed to get it over to the carport where I was going to do all the interior work... but first I pulled the carb to see why a new rebuild would do such a thing.

As I started taking it apart I found the shop (next to the BurgerMaster we have our meeting at) had only put new gaskets in it and didn't even try to clean the old gaskets off in places and didn't even boil it out. After hunting down a new kit I rebuilt it myself and am still debating what to do about shop and the $250 they charged the company for that "rebuild."

Then I gutted the interior and fixed a lot of the wiring (added the intermittent wipers to it), replace the cab running lights since they were all cracked and broken, put in a stereo, new headliner from P-a-P, and fixed all the other wacky things in there.

The cab and interior done, I moved it back to the driveway and cut off the old back bumper and proceeded to install the class 2 hitch and rework all the rear wiring and running lights. That's what I finished up today.

So if it isn't raining tomorrow -- I'll get 'er done! [thumb]

[BillP 98201]

Nice job Roger. You will have to post some pics. Thanks for taking lots of your time to benefit the club. :BEER:

[Luva65wagon]

Whether I use this for the club more than just for the swap meet, I don't know, but the price was right, so I couldn't pass on it (though I thought long and hard on it... even "free" isn't free).

Of course, it rained hard on Sunday, so I didn't get the bed-sides done, but that's about the last I have to do.

Here's a before shot (grille and bumper were smashed in) and a few after shots.

[Luva65wagon]

and backwards...

Here is a few pics of the inside of what was supposed to be a "newly rebuilt carb" the company I work for had just paid $250 for (in fact, I had to finish installing it to get the truck home -- so it was supposedly "that fresh.") Couldn't believe what I was seeing.

Note pic "carb7.jpg" as it shows a gasket on the housing -- and on the power valve.

You just never know what you're going to get these days at the ol' auto mechanics shop...

[BillP 98201]

Now some torque thrusters, a subwoofer, stacks coming up behind the cab... :ROTFLMAO: Nice work, it looks like a beast

[Nathan289]

Roger the new power valve gaskets split into two after being run for a few hours.

I've rebuilt my carb on the sprint trice times now and every time I take it apart the power valve gasket looks like what you have..

Nathan

[Luva65wagon]

Roger the new power valve gaskets split into two after being run for a few hours.

Then the new gasket they installed grew in thickness too (while under compression), since the new gasket in my kit was the thickness of either of these two I found on the carb.

FWIW, The truck ran with this carb for only 45 minutes (the time it took to drive from my work to my house) and then I had to take it off again. Somebody else here (at work) had installed it after getting it back from the repair shop and I only hooked up the fuel line when I took possession of the truck.

The shop obviously did a piss-poor job. No attention to removing other old gasket material from all the raised sealing flanges.

Anyway, as the old saying goes -- if you want something done right, you got to do it yourself.

Sadly this saying doesn't work for a shop since it doesn't say you can make a profit doing it right. Shops clearly have only so much time they can spend on things, so the cut what corners they can, I guess.

[68FalconSC]

Definately doesn't look like they took the time to do it right at all. Sucks to spend a nice chunk of change on a repair that isn't effective due to sloppy, crappy workmanship. Some shops get it and some don't.

I still remember the shop I took my original Falcon to in San Diego to have them rebuild my front end. This was a chain store {Winston Tire} but the manager was 1st rate. The day I picked my car up, this lady was in saying that what she brought her car in for wasn't fixed. The manager jacked up her car and creepered under it for a few minutes and then came back up. He asked the lady if the service mechanic showed her the parts he replaced. She said "No". He looked at her copy of the work order as well as the shops copy and then called the mechanic over. Asked him point blank if he had replaced the parts on the car that the repair called for. The mechanic said that he sure did. The manager said "No you didn't. You're fired. I don't employ liars OR lousy mechanics". The manager apologized to the lady, had her car pulled into a bay {to begin the real repairs} and told her the repairs were on him. Even had 4 new tires put on for free.
I went for an extended test drive and stopped back by a couple hours later to let them know I was happy with the work and the ladies car was just getting done. I asked her what she thought of what happened and she stated in no uncertain terms that as long as that guy was the manager there she'll never take her cars anywhere else for service or repair. Ever.

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer examples of good customer service like this every day.

[Luva65wagon]

I assume that "Q" would stand for quality, as opposed to quick, which seems to be more common these days than quality is. :confused:

[68FalconSC]

I assume that "Q" would stand for quality, as opposed to quick, which seems to be more common these days than quality is. :confused:

While I agree with your sentiment, "Q" was the name of the cat I had a few years back. Helluva good cat and he was always bringing me "things" {and leaving them on the back porch, lol.}

[Luva65wagon]

Well, I was able to finally build the new bed stake-sides yesterday before the heavens opened up. I also finally took it on its first drive since I brought it home 2 months ago -- almost to the day. It drives so much better now for some reason. :D

One thing I didn't experience when I drove it here from work 2 months ago, I did experience yesterday (and prepared for by ordering the part). There was brake bleed/fade. So the master cylinder will have to get swapped out - and bled - soon.

I have not done a full brake inspection on this yet, but was debating whether to take it someplace to have that done -- since most places will do this for free (lift it and yank the wheels and point and say "See you need this, or that" in hopes you'll just say "Do it"). My problem, as some of you know, is the lack of flatness at my place to get out the jack and lift this beast in the air. It does not fully fit into my carport. It's got a very long wheel-base.

I need to do this sooner rather than later, so I'll be looking into my options this week.

[tylers_62]

i really like this body style! if you ever need welding, i have access to the sno isle weld shop every day in the morning[thumb] again freakin sweet truck

[Luva65wagon]

Thanks for the offer Tyler. I was a production welder for about 5 years and I have a small mig welder at home and access to some big units (mig and tig) at work anytime I want to use them. [thumb]

And yeah, I always liked the earlier Ford trucks from about this era all the way back to the 50's. Had a '56 F100 Panel for over half my life and a '50 F2 before that. And I have a '67 and this '78 now (goes without saying; more trucks than one guy needs). This '78 isn't the straightest, but it's pretty rust free. Will be put to good use this summer, that's for sure.