I know its not a Ranger but I figured you guys would like it. Ok, it is a 1976 Ford F-350 Trailer Special which we call "Big Red". For you guys that dont know, trailer special means that the wheels are set back farther. My grandpa bought this truck new. It has around 78,000 miles on it. The engine is the 460 thats been bored and stroked with a C6 trans. Also, the rear is 4.10 gears and L/S. Grandpa finally decided that we could restore the truck since we found a new bed for it which has taken me about 3-4 years to find one. The one on it is totally gone. The truck has some bad cancer but the frame is sold. Plan on completly re-doing it.

Enough talking, time for pics.


As it sits when I brought it to my house


Lots of cancer












Today, I cleaned the frame and painted it with Dupli-color bedliner. Frame looks kinda funny in the pics cause it rained on it.

 

sweet! good looking truck

 

Cool Truck. I love those old style fords.

 

Here is the new bed for the truck that we got at the junkyard a couple weeks ago. Only $130. Yay for no cancer at all. :)

 

that hole in the side for the spare?

 

Thanks guys.

Yep. The extended wheel base trucks got the spare tire in the side of the bed. There is a panel that covers it up. Only trucks that had the extended wheel base was the Super Camper Special and the Trailer Special.

I am gonna have some questions for ya guys. My first one is what color should I paint the rims? It looks like they were white.

 

nice! can't wait to see finished pics

 

I would either paint the rims back white or black might would look good to. If you are goin for a stock look i would go with white though

 

Ya, tryin to go for a stock look. The front rims look grey though so I dont know what the color is supposed to be.

 

lol. I think this is three dentsides in the project logs now. I'm close to getting back on mine again. 1979 f250 flatbed with 460 and c6.

 

Gotta love that 460 man. I know I do. Can do a hell of a big burn out and pull almost anything. Does yours have the emissions stuff on it then?

 

it was all stock with around 56,000 when I got it. I added edelbrock intake and carb and removed a lot of "unneccesary stuff". The real emmissions on the 1979 is the low 8.0 to 1 compression ratio of the engine and the timing chain is not "straight up". Those two things will get taken care of on a rebuild.

Horsepower TV had two episodes devoted to our gen of 460. One was a stock rebuild that netted 400+ hp, then another episode they added some other goodies.

 

Sounds like you got yourself a plan man. We were runnin a big hollley on ours for the longest time. It got about 6 mpg. The power was the same though with our stock carb so we put it back on and gettin around 8 mpg now. You can see in between the exhaust manifold and the heads on the motor so its running really bad and loud. Thats the next thing I am gonna fix after the bed.

Do you know what the name of those episodes are or like how long ago they were? I'd like to watch them both.

 

That trucks a HOSS!!!

I'd suggest powder coatin the wheels white, would be more durable & easier to clean.

I know Indiana is a "salt-state", but WOW is that bed shot and hard to believe the frame isn't............

NICE project, specially since it's a one family owner!!!

 

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Horsepower TV is also takin that body styled crewcab & puttin it on a later model Dodge 3500 Supercab chassis w/Cummins diesel.........

 

Ya, the frame is good shape. The bed is in such bad shape because of my grandpa. For most of its life, the truck had a camper on it and sat outside. After the camper came off, he started hauling alot of stuff in it like mulch. He would leave a full load of mulch in it from July until May the next year. I wont let that happen ever again with this new bed.

 

The episodes were this year. I think you can replay them on line. it was a little dissapointing cause they didn;t give much specs. They said the pistons were stock replacements. Based on the deep dish on them (and it was a 1979 motor) I would say they put it back as the same compression ratio as before. I'm pretty sure 450 HP is what they got rebuilding it cheaply. Then they added goodies on the ther episode.

here is a forum dedicated to the 460:
460 Ford Forum - Powered by vBulletin

There are some good stickies there-like specs to achieve certain HP. My goal is to tow anything anywhere. High rpm HP is of no concern.

My cab is off. my next step is to remove the bed, motor, and tranny. I got a full set of urethane bushings. I'll paint and add bushings to the frame. Replace whatever else needs it.

 

Nice! go white on the wheels. for sure.

too bad she isnt 4wd.

Front drums?

 

Thanks Wayne, I'll give the forum a look

Zach, that truck would be amazing if it was 4wd. I dont know what the brakes are in front actually. I think their drum. I'll give it a look before I head to work.

 

I cant find a decent muffler that will fit the 3" pipe exhaust. Currently it is a dual in single out. I was trying to find glass packs for it but they dont make them that big. Anyone got any input?

 

Magnaflow? they would have a muffler I'm sure.

 

k, I am trying to find something locally at the auto parts stores. I want to get this thing back together so I can get the bed on.

 

Update

Got the old muffler out but it took the one of the pipes with it. Got the new bed on today. I need to get a couple new bolts for it still. Truck looks alot better. I will probably mount the tailgate tonight and get all of the chrome stuff off this week. Gonna start soaking the bolts on the exhaust manifolds this week also.

Time for some pics



Ranger doin work. Ol' 4 banger did good.


Only took about an hour and a half to get the bed on. Stupid chain hoist gave us problems.






One more of the Ranger cause I can

 

I need to get some new emblems. Anyone know where I can find them cheap? They didnt have to many trailer special emblems.







Got the tailgate on tonight.

 

love where its going too bad the orig bed had so much cancer