New member, new project, old truck.

[goldenage]

Hey all,

New member from beautiful Central VA here, and proud owner of "Betsy", a new-to-me '66 F-100 longbed. Was the previous owner's DD for a number of years, but had been sitting for some time when I bought it from him. It's a Custom Cab (very cool), originally painted two tone white / light beige, currently painted more of a tan. Engine is a 300-6 (originally a 240); transmission was originally a 3-speed-on-the-column, now floor-shifted. I love these trucks, and feel quite fortunate to be able to restore one of my own. That said, this one's going to need a lot of work, and I'll probably be asking a lot of really basic questions as I get deeper into this. I know just enough to be dangerous, but am far from an expert.

Once I get past disassembly / frame cleanup, the plan is to drop it a little, and replace the 300/3-speed with a warmed-over 390/C6 (or maybe a 5-speed? Who knows). From there to bodywork, paint, etc. etc. etc. Plan is to make it into a fun daily driver used occasionally for light work / hauling. Trying not to think too hard about it at the moment, and focus on getting everything disassembled and catalogued.

Alright, so this is what she looks like without any doors - unfortunately, don't think that I have any photo evidence pre-teardown. Oh, and excuse the crappy cellphone pictures. Lighting in the shop isn't the best. PO did a bit of customization on the trim and added red tape in certain places. Definitely worked for him, but I'll probably take all of it off once I get to that point. I do like those red wheels, however.



Since then, I've gotten the front clip disassembled, thanks to helpful posts in Hints and Tricks.



A few fun surprises, like this rust around the frame mounts for the core support. Woof.



Cab will need some work. Okay, a lot of work.



Anyhow, looking forward to learning a lot from you folks, and sharing progress as I have time to work on it.

[jkimbrel65]

from Al.Lots of helpful folks here.Ask away/

Mike

[pikupmn]

:welcome:from Nebraska, looks like a good start. I started out dumb as a box of hammers but these nice folks have helped me tremendously. jeff

[FORDMANLCRACKEL]

from North Carolina. You got a good project. Any question you have someone here can come up with an answer.

Lonnie

[olliesshop]

from Michigan

Great project !!!

[Shadow]

Welcome From Topeka Kansas. Nice Start To Be Sure! This Site Was Sure A Step In The Right Direction For Me. Invaluable Info On Here. Good-Luck With Your Project.......

[ThinLizzy13]

from NY. Looks like a great truck to start with. Lots of good stuff on this site. The extent of my knowledge before this site was basically that trucks were cool and they could carry stuff. Learned a lot from here.

Also I have a c6 390 combo in my 74 F100 and I love it. It can work when it needs too and it can get up 'n go if you got an itch for speed.

[Hunter's 64]

From Florida the Sun Shine State


Danny

[goldenage]

Thanks y'all! Yeah, it'll be a cruiser mostly, so the C6 is appealing. Pretty easy to find, too. Still not totally sure about the 390 - I think the FEs are cool, but if a reasonably priced 351 or 460 comes my way, I might just go with that.

A propane torch, can of PB Blaster and I are going to get the bed off this weekend. Pretty sure nobody has touched those bolts in, oh, 47 years or so.

[Hunter's 64]

might be just as easy to get a breaker bar and tighten them till they pop !!


Danny

[goldenage]

Haha, yeah, that's Plan C.

[Toyz]

I'd stay with plan "A". More possibility of rounding off the square bed holes with plan "C", IMO
BTW, from the third coast!

[1965fordf100]

Welcome from Reno, NV!

[kstones63]

Welcome from Phoenix. Good looking project.
Keep asking questions and someone will answer to point you in the right direction.

Kevin

[goldenage]

Alright folks - get to work on the truck all day tomorrow. Plan is to remove the bed, which leads me to a couple of questions.

First, any extra tips for removing the bed? Anything to watch out for? I know that these bolts are likely going to be a real pain.

Second, from the photos in my first post, you can see that I have an unfortunate case of frame rust where the core support mounts used to be. Have any of you had to deal with this? Is fixing this just a matter of welding in a patch on the frame and re-drilling a hole? Want to make sure that I don't cause any problems with fender alignment, etc. once everything is put back onto the frame.

[goldenage]

And by the way, thanks for the warm welcome(s)!

[goldenage]

Made a little progress today. Got the bed off of the truck, and moved it to its temporary home next to the front clip. In retrospect, I probably should have thought through the whole lifting-with-an-engine-hoist process a bit more thoroughly. Moving the hoist around with that bed on the other end of the lifting chain was not fun, and it looks like the engine hoist and bed sides swapped a bit of paint. Ah, well - nothing too bad.

The bed itself is not in the best of shape - some rust around the stake holes, and quite a bit of the typical rust near the front. Will have to make a decision soon about what I'm going to do with it - right now, I'm thinking that I'll probably cut out and reconstruct the bed.

On the positive side, after a lot of heating / PB blaster, the bed bolts came out without too much trouble. Frame looks pretty solid back there, too. Next up, tackling the cab.

A few photos:

[jwh f-100]

You have good taste in trucks and tractors!!

[goldenage]

Thanks! My grandfather bought that Ford 3000 new in '70 or '71. Still runs great, still used around the farm. There's also an 8n/9n/something-N hanging around that I need to ID. I'll take a photo of it next time I'm out there.

[totten]

Great start on new project.