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1968 F100 4x4 Refurb

Discussion in 'Quitters' Club' started by bigjohn, May 23, 2021.

  1. Jun 11, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    Mar 18, 2010
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    After about twenty attempts on Tuesday morning I got a state patrol vin inspection scheduled for June 28! This appt enabled me to get the 60 trip permit. So she’s all payed up, and insured and yesterday I got the permit which enabled me to drop and pick up my son at kindergarten today. He still still prefers the white 74 cj but it was raining today and I think he really liked the old Ford experience.

    Once I headed up the hill one of Anna’s former coworkers with state patrol followed me up the mountain home. At every wide spot to let him by he seemed to dropped back. I’m pretty sure he was just hanging back to see if the old girl made it. It did and I put another half tank through her today. Still a long way to go, the manual steering is lame, the motor runs like it has 3 cylinders south of 100psi, but I’m ecstatic to be potentially daily driving a 68 Ford again for the first time in nearly a decade. And I’m biased of course but there’s simply not a better closing door than a bump side Ford door.
     
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  2. Jun 13, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    Mar 18, 2010
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    The old girl got about 100 test miles this weekend. Here are some lessons learned.

    -she heats up after about 45 minutes of idle time waiting to get thru my local dump. I don’t know how exactly warm, I didn’t think to bring my infrared heat gun. But it climbed close to 3/4 up the gauge. On the road and pulling my hill it stays perfectly in the normal range.

    -driving in the rain is a wet experience. I remembered my heater valve was shot so I “temporarily” deleted it this winter. So running the defrost requires the window down to keep from self cooking. The window down then creates the “wind tunnel” between it and the hole in the drivers floorboard this pulling rain water up to my leg. I found placing my crock clad foot over the hole stops the rain from below from soaking my leg though so that’s sort of a win.

    -it turns out those hubcaps are from an early bronco. eBay says they’re apparently worth something but I’m guessing the real world would suggest otherwise. I’m more than happy with the old man look though.

    -there’s a clutch in my future. The clutch shutters if not engaged perfectly.

    There’s still plenty of work to do. Fix the bed floor, fix the cab floors, new tires are some point, pick up the rebuilt fe distributor from my buddy and install it in the short term. It also needs a few seat belts and a rear bumper. But for now I’m just enjoying being behind the wheel for awhile.
     
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  3. Jun 14, 2021
    DrDanteIII

    DrDanteIII Master Procrastinator

    Milford NJ 08848
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    Mar 21, 2007
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    I bet a fan shroud would go a long way towards solving that.


    This is a cool truck, definitely an ambitious DD project!
     
  4. Jun 14, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    Mar 18, 2010
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    Good call in the shroud. The entire cooling system is new so I’d agree. I’m headed to Tony’s Ford truck parts in the next few weeks. They specialize in 1960-1997 Ford trucks and have a ton of bump and dent side parts.
     
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  5. Jun 18, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    Mar 18, 2010
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    When I got home Tuesday night I decided to put the timing light on her and do a bit more tuning. It was still running the factory 6 degrees. So I bumped it up to 11 degrees, and blocked the first port on the distributor, which is a timing retarter for emissions purposes I imagine to work in conjunction with other emissions gear no longer there. I wanted to test drive her but among carb tweaking tasks, it badly needed the front shocks replaced.

    That was a whole different set of issue’s. I eventually found Napa brand shocks for my application. The old shocks I’m almost sure were the original motorcraft heavy duty shocks. The passenger side you could effortlessly compress, then would do with zero resistance when the bottom was released it would drip with zero resistance while holding the top eye. The other side was marginally better but not much. It turns out though finding replacement shocks for an f100 4x is pretty difficult.
     
  6. Jun 19, 2021
    wheelie

    wheelie beeg dummy 2024 Sponsor 2023 Sponsor

    York, PA
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    Mar 6, 2004
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    Hmmmm.......anything Bronco seems sought after these days. You could probably sell them if they are in good shape.

    Crocks ehhhh? Maybe a bigger shoe would help cover the hole in the floor and keep you dryer.:D

    Keep plugging away. This is a nice truck and worthy of the attention you're giving it.
     
    bigjohn likes this.
  7. Jun 20, 2021
    FinoCJ

    FinoCJ 1970 CJ5 Staff Member

    Bozeman, MT
    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2013
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    5,593
    Went to the liquor store and saw this 68 (according to seller) bumpside for sale yesterday and thought of you...
    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: Jun 20, 2021
    bigjohn likes this.
  8. Jun 20, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
    Joined:
    Mar 18, 2010
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    [​IMG]

    went to Tony’s Ford truck parts in Friday, with the 68 of course. It was a pretty successful trip. Came home with a driver and center seat belt that match mine, and scored a fan shroud Tony didn’t even realize he had. That seemed to work well during our current heat wave. The temp gauge never burned climbing either my mountain or green mountain. I still need to get some clips and screws to replace the zip ties holding the shroud.

    Then it was to Vancouver to grab the rebuilt 352 distributor with electronic ignition installed from a buddy. Got that installed and timed yesterday, but still playing with which vacuum port seems to work the best. I have it in the timed port where there’s very little vacuum at idle, then rises one rpms are stabilized. I’m going to try the port off the tree ,re time and time and see what that feels like. That gets the full 15lb at idle, but probably won’t help without changing the centrifugal springs and or weights. And all the while I’m trying to perfectly tune a motor that has 3 cylinders below 100psi of compression so there’s that

    The real disappointment though was losing a as hubcap on the highway headed out of town. Tomorrow I’m going to try and pick it up with the work truck (it has an arrow board).

    Lastly I got a few pictures of her state a little over a year ago.

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
     
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  9. Jun 20, 2021
    Fireball

    Fireball Well-Known Member 2024 Sponsor 2023 Sponsor 2022 Sponsor

    Pullman, WA
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    Man, you have done a wonderful thing bringing that poor truck back to life.
     
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  10. Jun 20, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    Thanks dude. Honestly I ordinarily never would have looked twice at this but it was about all I could afford, on a hobby truck anyway.
     
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  11. Jun 21, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    Ha, rescued the hubcap from the overpass! One small dent from hitting the jersey barrier but otherwise unscathed from its overnight outing on the highway. This seriously made my day this morning!
     
  12. Jun 22, 2021
    Fireball

    Fireball Well-Known Member 2024 Sponsor 2023 Sponsor 2022 Sponsor

    Pullman, WA
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    You remind me of a friend of mine. He used to drive his dad's 2wd '68 F-100 like a maniac in high school and we always had to go back to look for the hubcaps so he didn't get in trouble.

    His dad eventually gave him the truck and I ended up owning it for a while. I upgraded the 360 to a 390 while I had it and ended up selling it back to him. About 10 years ago he sold it to a guy who did a complete resto. I'm sure it still running around in south King County somewhere.
     
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  13. Jun 28, 2021
    Jeepenstein

    Jeepenstein Me like Jeep..

    North Central FL
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    352.. the bastard child of the FE family haha.. I had a 69 F250 with a 390.. man I miss that thing..
     
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  14. Jun 28, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    I’ll be honest I really liked the 352 in my old 67 crewcab. It wasn’t particularly strong like most fe motors but ran like a clock.
     
  15. Jun 28, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    Well today was a day. I was still on vacation so the little daughter and I ran it into town for jeep and Ford parts. It was already in the 90s by the time we got back. So I changed the oil, gave her a good look over and left for an hour drive north to get it vin inspected by the state patrol. I left an hour early to allow time to deal with any issues, so it ran flawlessly of course. Despite being well north of 100 degrees the temp gauge never moved. And the aged tires survived just fine. Then it was down to castle rock auto licensing where it was 111 degrees. Got my plates, got them installed and more importantly are survived trial by fire, literally.

    Did I mention my love for kick panel vents and vent windows? The driver kick vent did make a mess of my leg though. I cranked the speed to 70 on the last leg home and that was apparently the required speed to blow free all the trash in that vent.
     
  16. Jul 4, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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  17. Jul 4, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    This is how my 4th of July went. The previous picture with the moving blanket illustrates my want to not go up in flames for those unfamiliar with Incab fuel tanks. The cab mounts aren’t great but not awful so I let them ride. Strange how floor pans can rot totally and the cab mounts seemingly survive. Today when the local paint stores reopen I’ll pick up some rust inhibitor and paint the welds from above and below, then reinstall the rubber floor and seat.

    [​IMG]
     
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  18. Jul 5, 2021
    bigjohn

    bigjohn Active Member

    Kelso Wa
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    All done. Por15 and Seam Sealer applied. I ran out of seam sealer before finishing below so I’ll mess with that later this week. The rubber floor and seat are back in so it’s ready to take me to work this week. I’m pretty jazzed not to have engine bay air coming in from the floor board. And maybe next time I drive in the rain I won’t get so danged wet.

    [​IMG]
     
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