1972 F-250 2wd to 4wd build

[dignifiedWT]

I agree with '84 Bronco II. Swapping your R&P over to a new carrier shouldn't be a big deal. Even if you decide to use new carrier bearings, I don't think the pinion will need to be messed with. Compare the old carrier next to the locker when you tear it down. Measure distance from bearing surface to ring gear surface on both stripped carriers. If there is any difference - swap shims around accordingly to cancel out any offset on the new one.

Good luck finding someone that actually knows how to set up gears for a reasonable price that actually is competent. I am sure you would do a better job than anyone else you can find.

 

[rattle_snake]

Ok cool plan to move locker up on the list.
I haven't reused carrier bearing before, not sure I can removed them without damage so probably easier to just get new bearings, shim kit and ring bolts. One wheel peel is already sucking I need to get the rear locked soon.

 

[rattle_snake]

Passed emissions today with just a few miles on new motor. HC levels were 1/3 of limit and CO at about 1/2. I figured with EFI at 14:1 AFRs should have no problem but you never know with all new everything. Ecstatic to say the least. Got registration, so legal to drive again now. Calibrated speedo.

Truck pulls to right at speed. Jack up and spun all wheels, right front is dragging considerably. Have to pull it apart and inspect.

Started rear bumper moch-up and plan for frame brackets. It's a mess but for what I want to tow with it will be fine.

 

[350TacoZilla]

Cool deal on getting it on rd man, when do we get some outdoor pics of this thing?

 

[rattle_snake]

Hopefully soon. The limiting factor I think for actually taking it out and wheelin are the rear wheel opening (going to section/enlarge) and the front driveline. Once rear wheel wells are done I can get the all important poser flex pic.

Then take one upper arm off and get a better one.

 

[evernoob]

Hopefully soon. The limiting factor I think for actually taking it out and wheelin are the rear wheel opening (going to section/enlarge) and the front driveline. Once rear wheel wells are done I can get the all important poser flex pic.

Then take one upper arm off and get a better one.

I'd be happy with a poser walkaround and rev video at this point.

 

[rattle_snake]

Right front caliper was sticking and dragging. I rebuilt the turd myself and didn't want to fuck with it again so swapped it out for a reman unit. Bleed and it seems OK now. Still need to drive it.

Driver door lock has never worked. Trying to get it fixed so I can secure my money pit a bit more. Got an agreed value insurance policy so it it gets hit or stolen I'm covered.

Started on rear bumper. Some fuckwits built a home made receiver hitch onto the bumper. Had to cut almost all of it off as it was really ghetto.

Got exhaust parts including 2nd muffler to hopefully get rid of shitty sound @ >50% throttle. Trying to not rush the job, and improve the hanger geometry. Guess I will re-paint the right header and see if it boils off again. Install O2 bung in that side so I can monitor it.

 

[rattle_snake]

Reworked the exhaust to quiet down the annoying >50% throttle aspect. Was too blatty/raspy and loud under heavy throttle. I want a deep burley rumble not just obnoxious noise.

So I decided to add another short, free-flowing muffler in series with the existing Jones muffler/y-pipe. Not ideal from a flow perspective, but this is not a drag car operating only at WOT. I chose a Jones flow pack JFP300. It is a chambered style bullet muffler, was hoping to get a mix of straight through perf/chambered sound.

Since I like to change up exhaust setups, I added a 3" V-band behind 2-into-1 muffler. This also makes the whole setup easier to install and work on. It was one long piece from right collector to tail pipe.

The tailpipe was already close to the right rear shock and reservoir so I also added a jog in the piping to increase clearance.

While I was modifying the mid pipe I also added another 02 bung to the right bank. Currently the left bank has EFI 02 sensor in it. Repainted the right header that go hot during cam break-in. I think the original paint from L&L was part of the issue, as it boiled off everywhere on the header but not at all on other side of collector.

I also addressed a stability/stress issue with piping by redoing the hangers. The long strait pipe would wobble back and forth along the length. I reworked the rear support to a dual opposing hangers to dampen the oscillations.

But how does it sound?
Awesome.

Idle is similar to before but improved. The straight piping and straight-through muffler allowed individual exhaust pules to come out at high velocity and it had an odd sound at tailpipe. Somewhat of a spitting sound as each pulse was tearing though the air around it. The 2nd muffler's baffle provides reflections to clean this up, and idle tone is a little deeper and had a taste of a chambered sound. Overall it's still loud and nasty at idle and you know it is packing some cubes.

Tip-in and part throttle cruise are similar to before. Deep and throaty. I intentionally put mufflers back behind cab and in-cab done is not an issue.

Heavy throttle and WOT are all cleaned up and rasp is completely gone, which was the goal. Overall I like the sound, not overly loud. Aggressive but tasteful. It makes the right roar at WOT as tack sweep past 5k.

Overall a good complement to the deep howl the 40s make as they loose traction!

 

[rattle_snake]

Replaced the right front brake caliper and the dragging and pulling are resolved.

Also checked toe-in and adjusted from neutral to 1/8" in.

Pedal had long dead spot so re-adjusted read drums and fiddled with p-brake levers. No p-brake cables, need to buy new ones. Now pedal is tight but brakes are just OK. Once hot the left front wheel starts to hop. I re-used that rotor but it's junk so I ordered a new one. The right side had a brand new rotor for some reason.

Truck drives great under 50 and has no bump steer. Tight and well controlled. Above 65 it takes more attention. Body roll from a lane change upsets stability some, but expected with no sway bars and high COG. Had it up to 80 and it still pulls hard. Runs 2600 rpm at 65 mph cruise.

 

[evernoob]

Replaced the right front brake caliper and the dragging and pulling are resolved.

Also checked toe-in and adjusted from neutral to 1/8" in.

Pedal had long dead spot so re-adjusted read drums and fiddled with p-brake levers. No p-brake cables, need to buy new ones. Now pedal is tight but brakes are just OK. Once hot the left front wheel starts to hop. I re-used that rotor but it's junk so I ordered a new one. The right side had a brand new rotor for some reason.

Truck drives great under 50 and has no bump steer. Tight and well controlled. Above 65 it takes more attention. Body roll from a lane change upsets stability some, but expected with no sway bars and high COG. Had it up to 80 and it still pulls hard. Runs 2600 rpm at 65 mph cruise.

I know it's bleeding edge technology but a small ride-along would be nice.

 

[rattle_snake]

I have some shitty videos. Will get something better at some point to share.

Continuing to work through minor issues. I started with just water in cooling system, because murphy's law. I was surprised by the amount of rust in cooling system. Other than block and heads that were hot tanked, everything else was new. Took four, 30 min hot flush cycles to get most of the rust out, and made a hell of a mess in driveway. Put in 50/50 antifreeze.

Changed out the break in oil, using Gibbs driven HR2 10/30. There was no metal in used oil, but that is how the filter is supposed to work.

I was able to improve no load (in park) idle surge. I had re-programmed idle AFR from 13.5 to 14 for emission purposes, which ended up not being necessary. I noticed that RPMs would drop as AFR rose to target, and system would then add air. Setting idle AFR back to 13.5:1 resolved most of the RPM surge magnitude. Period is still the same, the behavior is due to interaction with distributor vacuum advance.

Replaced the front left brake rotor (yes still working on @#$ brakes!) whole hub has to come off and apart, but nice to work on clean new stuff though. Air hammer makes short work of stud removal/install. Got pad bedded into new rotor. Overall brakes are working well and panic stop performance should be enough. Got e-brake cables, need to install and connect the three somehow.

Man this thing love fuel. 1st half tank was 5 mpg. Yes, 5. This is all stop and go miles. I don't drive slow but taking it easy on the new everything. Hope it improves some and can get better on highway, will see. Was hoping for 300 mile range with 32 gal tank.

 

[rattle_snake]

Still farting around with improving high speed handling. With soft springs and traction bar lifting the chassis, there was some bump steer above 50 mph when getting on and off throttle hard. Front end cycles up 6-8". I did the math and moved the bar up a hole on axle end. Got worse, so tried lower hole and now it is good. Still pulls to right over 50 mph on crowned roads. Currently has 0/0 ball joint bushings and 6* caster. I did my best effort at front axle alignment (radius arm length) with plumb bob. Toe is 1/8" in. Probably should try to find a shop that can do thrust alignment. Not sure how good I can actually measure, or how good it needs to be. Since I built all new hangers the rear axle may be crooked too.

 

[350TacoZilla]

Should I do placeholder post now for when the 6.2 swap is done? lol Hope you get it figured out to get few more mpg's out of it but your kinda doomed with 460-3spd and big tires to be sub 9mpg range.

 

[rattle_snake]

No I would go right to the 7.3 gas motor

I expected 7-10 mpg. Will see what an actual full tank fill up yields. The goal was old school BBF power and noises. Gas is cheap (for now, haha).

Truck finally had an electrical snafu. Died while at stop light. Radio reset like battery disconnected, aka a 'crowbar' short event. Restarted fine. Thinking the 5+ yr old battery may have shed some plate and had a temporary short.

 

[Snowracer]

awesome to see you are driving this thing. such a clean build

 

[rattle_snake]

awesome to see you are driving this thing. such a clean build

Thanks. It was a long road but it is finally giving some enjoyment back. Not a typical truck anymore.

 

[rattle_snake]

Got the old ford up on the lift again. Had to build a wedge to safely use the front lift arms. Did some math to make just one cut in a piece of 2x2 rec tubing to get the angle I needed. Welded some studs in that fit the holes from the old radius arm mounts.

Lift point is at a decent place. Down side of long travel track bar type suspension is that it wants to push vehicle to one side when lowering, off the arms.

Up in the air again. I can actually sit up underneath it when on ground so it took awhile to justify getting it back up on lift. One of few upsides to a ridiculously tall truck.

How it will look when jumping..

 

[rattle_snake]

Long ago I made a 40" cardboard tire and put 2wd truck on lift to determine right height

Same pic after a few dollars and hours. Axle forward, fender sectioned.

Math is good.

 

[rattle_snake]

Lifted truck to full droop to check everything now that the axles have weight of wheels and tires. The high angle TRE on pitman arm end of drag link gets bound up right at intended full droop. The 14" coilovers allow 1" past that and I planned to add limit straps at some point. With the driveshaft angle, I will have to limit droop further, another inch or so. This will yield about 10.5" of travel which is still more than enough. Once I get shorter springs will lower and set height around 4.5" up/ 6" down.

Will have to dis-connect drag link to remove coil overs.

Rear at full droop. 7" down, 6" up. Traction bar forces pinion angle.
Plan to swap out 4" block for a 2" to lower right height. After enlarging wheel wells will see how far tires will stuff. May have to adjust bump stop to limit up-travel. This will limit travel to around 4" up 7" down, but again more than enough to park at the mall or gym.

 

[Gravy]

Air pressure change will help on crowned or deeply rutted roads.

 

[rattle_snake]

Ran the old Ford across the scale.

Guess the weight of the truck itself....

 

[arse_sidewards]

5640 with you in the driver seat.

 

[dignifiedWT]

4835 lbs with a half tank of gas. Tank wouldn't be full if you drove it more than 5 mins!

 

[rattle_snake]

5640 with you in the driver seat.

Aghh, very close...
5520 with me and ~25 gal of fuel. So about 5170 empty. I put extra emphasis on not adding un-needed weight throughout the build. I 'needed' a BBF, tons and 40s, though.
57%/43% distribution

This is missing front driveshaft and read bumper. Those will add 150# so approx empty weight will be ~5300 lbs.

4835 lbs with a half tank of gas. Tank wouldn't be full if you drove it more than 5 mins!

Hey this thing sips gas like a Prius with a hole in the tank.

6000lbs. Big block, big axles, and big tires make her a hefty girl

She's hefty but not that much. Yet. With addition of spare tire/winch/passenger/gear it will be about 6k.

 

[rockota]

7
Hey this thing sips gas like a Prius with a hole in the tank.

 

[rattle_snake]

Decided to prioritize rear bumper job. The bumper is a 'Safe Tee' brand likely dealer installed in 72. At some point a hitch was fabricated onto the bumper and frame. Torch cut plate and tube, stick booger welded on crooked, so bumper, hitch and even the bed could not be removed. After a tirade of profanity I cut shit apart and set bumper aside.

After assessing what I had I decided to cut off the rest of the 'hitch' and the bumper's mounting brackets. With rear spring hangers and fuel tank relocation I moved the mount holes so the existing brackets didn't work anyhow. At that time I drilled 8 new holes and welded captive nuts on frame, as access with tank would be difficult.

I made some new mounting pieces out of 1/4 plate that fully tie into the bumpers 0.25" 2x4 'C' channel. Added a cross bar back in that connects the receiver tube. A few gussets and weld'd er up.

Couldn't help myself and had to clean up rust and paint the underside of the bumper. Left the OG paint on the outside, did some touch up after these pics. Put on a strip of weather strip to prevent squeaks.

The bumper had a 7-pin trailer plug on the lower edge that kept getting smashed as it was the lowest point. I cut a hole and mounted in on the face. Looking back I should have put it up underneath. License plate doesn't fit at all below tailgate, I put it back on the face like it was which isn't ideal but works for now. Using LED bolts to illuminate. AZ law required 'splash shields' on lifted trucks so have to do something to appease the man.

 

[Projectjunkie]

stock 72 2wd auto column
Borgeson telescopic shaft & joints
80-97 Ford PS box
Ruff stuff TRE linkage kit, TRO
Axle are from 94 F350 so Sterling 10.25

Do you have a pic of the fab work to the frame?
Would you do this box again?

410 gears?

thanks, and truck as always

 

[rattle_snake]

Sure, I did it twice.... Yes the 80-96 box seems to work fine and is plentiful/cheap. yes 4.10s.

Didn't really need to recess. could use spacers on the bolts. Why I have to complicate things I don't know.

 

[rattle_snake]

Spent some time crawling around on the floor doing an improved alignment. Got ahold of a real plumb bob that allows measurement accuracy to a 1/16th. Picked 2 origin points on frame, one at engine cross member and one on hitch to verify axle alignment. Rear end was right on, which is good as it isn't really adjustable other than hogging out the spring pin holes. Front axle was forward 1/8" on left side which would explain pull to right. I spun in the radius arm heim a turn and a half and centered the axle with tack bar adjustment. I re-measured everything and all was good, but the cross measurements are off a bit. close enough for an old Ford. Adjustments helped noticeably. Still pulls on crown, and even to left if crown is that way. Guess I will swap front tires and see if that make any difference as it is east to do.

 

[FleshEater]

I love this truck. Seriously on the top five list of favorite builds.