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Canyonero! (85 F150)

willis_racing

willis_racing

Wee Todd Did
Joined
Oct 12, 2021
Member Number
4468
Messages
829
Loc
Edgewood, NM
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She's 12 yard long and 2 lane wide, she's 65 tons of American pride!

I got this on a partial trade for a little Honda CB200 I was trying to get rid of to lighten my load... I'm also an idiot that didn't think this through very well. Either way, the big bastard needs some help, and I think I'll have some fun chronicling the progress of getting it roadworthy again and shining it all up. Should be a fun time, if not a huge distraction from other, better projects :homer:
 
Does it have AC!? I might be pulling the aftermarket AC out of mine and it’s a very nice setup!
 
Anyhow, as alluded to in the title post, I was too focused on making sure the truck had a 351 in it rather than checking it over for signs of issues. That ended up biting me in the ass pretty hard when I got it home and started finding all sorts of frame damage wrapping around the steering box. Best I can tell, the thing got hit pretty hard in the drivers' side front, and the previous owners went to the junkyard, got a fender and some other parts, painted the thing, and never fixed the fatiguing and failing frame. So I decided to pull the whole thing apart and fix it properly instead of just piling more booger welds onto the issue. All this amidst getting settled at my new house, too!

So anyway my buddy and I rolled it into the garage and set about freeing the 351 from its bindings.
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With the smogged out old turd on the stand, I pulled the accessories off the front of it, junked the 18 miles of vacuum lines and solenoids, and broke off a water pump bolt in preparation for washing. So now I get to take the timing cover and probably the oil pan off too. Whoopee!
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Back to the frame issues. This morning, I called in a favor and got '84 Bronco II to come help me start stripping the suspension and other stuff off the front of the truck to start attacking the frame issues. We managed to get the truck jacked up on pipe stands, pull the TTB out of the front end, disconnect the steering, get the coil buckets off, and start inspecting the damage closer.

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Here you can really see what's happening. The frame rail is leaned inward significantly. This was fucking with the swing of the steering arm, and also causing a lot of ripping stress on the TTB crossmember.
 
And now it's time for gratuitous close-ups of the cracking. Complete separation of the steering box support, and the bottom of the crossmember ripping from the bottom upward. The previous owners also seem to have a habit of not actually fixing the cracks or the problems causing them, and just repeatedly boogerwelding more shitty fishplates all over the place :homer:
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Provience said:
That's damn sweet for a clean house trade :smokin:
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It fits in with the other kids around the house better :grinpimp:
Leadfoot21 said:
Does it have AC!? I might be pulling the aftermarket AC out of mine and it’s a very nice setup!
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AC and cruise :beer::grinpimp: If I get everything up and running properly in it, it'll be quite a nice cruiser
 
willis_racing said:
It fits in with the other kids around the house better :grinpimp:

AC and cruise :beer::grinpimp: If I get everything up and running properly in it, it'll be quite a nice cruiser
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Awesome ! I will be following along you don’t see many bull nose Fords being built !
 
willis_racing said:
And now it's time for gratuitous close-ups of the cracking. Complete separation of the steering box support, and the bottom of the crossmember ripping from the bottom upward. The previous owners also seem to have a habit of not actually fixing the cracks or the problems causing them, and just repeatedly boogerwelding more shitty fishplates all over the place :homer:
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:smokin: still a good deal :flipoff2:

Sticking with the 351?

Aod trans?
 
Provience said:
Sticking with the 351?
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Yeah, it fired, revved, and kinda idled on brake cleaner. It should do just fine. Edelbrock performer and Carter AFB up top, so it should at least be enough to move itself around.
Provience said:
Aod trans?
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C6 and NP208. Still bone stock 85 components. Although the c6 is a leaky gross turd as well, so I could be convinced to fuck with junkyard swaps if they're cheap and easy enough :flipoff2:
 
For anyone having to do something similar in the future, it is officially my opinion that trying to remove the TTB crossmember without an oxyfuel torch or perhaps a plasma cutter is a complete waste of time. The rivets getting stuck in thin pieces of metal and bending shit around instead of getting driven out, and welds you can't reach with a grinder are not worth all the effort.

Project gonna be basically stalled out until I get my oxygen bottle traded out. Hopefully that's coming up soon.
 
How the fuck did they get it to start cracking that bad in the first place? That's impressive.

willis_racing said:
For anyone having to do something similar in the future, it is officially my opinion that trying to remove the TTB crossmember without an oxyfuel torch or perhaps a plasma cutter is a complete waste of time. The rivets getting stuck in thin pieces of metal and bending shit around instead of getting driven out, and welds you can't reach with a grinder are not worth all the effort.

Project gonna be basically stalled out until I get my oxygen bottle traded out. Hopefully that's coming up soon.
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If you had asked I could have told you in advance that there's some inside welds you can't get at. Use a pneumatic hammer instead of a sledge and punch and you'll bend less shit BTW.
 
arse_sidewards said:
How the fuck did they get it to start cracking that bad in the first place? That's impressive.
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Long term effects of putting a lot of miles on it after a wreck from the looks of things. Plus nothing they did actually stopped any cracking, so it appears to be basically cumulative.
arse_sidewards said:
If you had asked I could have told you in advance that there's some inside welds you can't get at. Use a pneumatic hammer instead of a sledge and punch and you'll bend less shit BTW.
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On the list of tools I need. Along with a better air compressor. :homer:
 
Having your retired dad cruising Fbmp all day sure has its benefits. Picked up this '84 F150 frame that's in really good shape and local to me in Edgewood for $100 after work. At this point, I'm just going to go the easy route. Take some measurements, front half the truck, and graft this front end back on with fish plates and transfer the lift brackets over. And my oxy fuel and welding gas tanks are getting here this week. It's about to be on.
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With the front being bent that bad, what are the chances the frame is diamond shaped?

Might be easier to use the entire “new” frame?
 
rockota said:
With the front being bent that bad, what are the chances the frame is diamond shaped?
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By the time you get to the front cab mounts, it's straightened out and looks just fine by my eye. At least not bad enough that I can't jig it back together a bit for welding.
rockota said:
Might be easier to use the entire “new” frame?
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I would consider that if it wasn't a singlecab frame
 
Got my new oxyfuel bottles and went to work today. Cleaned the brackets off the new frame, cut it down, pulled the lift brackets, and measured out and went for the front half.
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Then of course marked out and transferred the cut scheme to the new front chunk
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While showing my dad something, I found this little crack on the steering box support on the new frame. I look at this as less of a fail and more of an opportunity to test and tune the welder after some stop drilling and crack gouging in the garage. Guess every old truck ever always have to have steering box stress on the frame :homer:
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Didn't get as much done today as I wanted to. It's been pretty windy for a few days in a row, so I didn't have much desire to try to stick the frame together with my shield gas gettingblown into the next county.

But I did get some stop drillin and crack fillin
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I did gouge the cracks out with a die grinder but I forgot to take pics of that stage, just in case someone was going to call me out for surface welding it and grinding it down lol
 
willis_racing said:
While showing my dad something, I found this little crack on the steering box support on the new frame. I look at this as less of a fail and more of an opportunity to test and tune the welder after some stop drilling and crack gouging in the garage.
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willis_racing said:
Guess every old truck ever always have to have steering box stress on the frame :homer:
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Not every old truck but definitely every old bull nose.
 
Got a lot done this weekend (mostly because I took today off to keep working on this thing)
Started off by scraping off all the gear oil cake off the driver side beam and 3rd member. Filled up an entire dustpan with crap, and that was just the one beam and the diff :barf:
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Went ahead and did the thing that every good Ford guy is supposed to do whenever his TTB is disassembled
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Next, tackled the pivot bushings. Both were good and wasted, but the passenger side beam had been destroyed for so long that the bushing cavity was really egged out. Darn good thing the bushing kit I had sitting on the shelfwas the one with the replacement shells.
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Then actually managed to get some stuff assembled today. The whole reason all this shit even came apart in the first place was to replace the axle seals and pinion seal, so I'll be pissed and probably just bitch and moan and do nothing if they all still leak.
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Both sides needed the wheel seals that seal the back of the stub shaft. Getting those tomorrow, then I can throw the spindles and everything else back on.
 
Been awhile since anything of note was accomplished. Holy shit I hate cleaning old caked and baked on oil. In the hours spent on this thing just cleaning shit with a wire brush alone, I probably could have had my squarebody project running :homer:

Either way, got those SBK4 seal kits installed, hydrolocked the slip joint with grease, cleaned it out, then figured out the binding was also due to the center u joint maxing out on the yokes :laughing:. Other than that, no huge setbacks. Got the truck finally sitting back on its own feet after work yesterday with a bunch of TREs and stuff from the cheapdick section on rockauto:smokin:
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In the meantime, I've also been regasketing and reassembling the engine. Not the usual "buy everything" build I usually try to do, but it weighs probably 20lbs less and shouldn't leak anymore, and unlike the last guy that put the intake on, I wasn't deadset on using 3 tubes of RTV whether it needed it or not:shaking:
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Overall goal for this weekend was to get the frame mod done and try to get around to stabbing the engine. Definitely met expectations there, although now I get to deal with some of the side effects from taking on a project like this with no plan and no dimensional verification :laughing::homer:

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Dad was over at my place helping me trim out my front door, and while he was here, we also decided to go ahead and stab the engine. That didn't go 100% as smooth as it should have, I ended up having to egg out the holes on the pass motor mount to get everything to fit properly. :homer:

With the engine in, I went ahead and test fitted the front clip, and found that it's riding a fair amount higher than it should be. We all should be seeing a pattern here at this point...
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So yeah, I probably have the frame graft angled upward a degree or two and it threw a few things out of wack. But nothing I can't fix with some cheap home made body lift pucks to let me fix up the panel gap at the front fenders :idea::homer:
 
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