Meet Clyde.

[dftuttle]

OK, so I've never done a build thread on anything before, so here goes.
Like I said in my Welcome Mat post, I "rescued" a '69 F250 off of Craigslist for $1000, mostly because I was bored & driving the wife crazy. I "NEED" a project car.

So I've had it a couple of weeks & so far I have gone thru the column shifter.
I looked like this when I pulled the column out.

The turn signal switch harness had been hacked into 3 pieces & the shifter had been assembled wrong. One of the ears on the top of the column had been broken off too.
This truck had a hard life!
Good thing my brother welds for a living. All I have to do is drop off a part to him, explain what I want & he drops it off on his way home from work.
So I got replacement shifter arms & bushings & reassembled the column.


Next came a test fitting & now I see why the shifter was hooked up backwards when I bought the truck; the 2-3 shift arm hits the fire wall. So I take off the steering wheel & take a measurement from the end of the steering shaft to the collet that centers the shaft in the top bearing. Then I loosened the set screws on the collar on the bottom of the steering shaft so I could slide the column all the way down. That got me an extra inch to play with, so take the column & steering shaft back out & have the shaft shortened the required inch.
So the steering column is clamped in place temporarily. I need to drill a couple of holes in the bracket on the bottom of the dash.

And now the shifter clears the firewall.

Now that i think I killed all of the spiders using Clyde for a home, I think I can crawl underneath & fit the shift linkage.

I would like to thank the owner & moderators of this site right now. In the couple of weeks since I joined, I have found a ton of info pertaining to this project.

[tsherry]

Welcome! Good looking truck!

[sargentrs]

Good work on the column and very nice truck!

[dftuttle]

That's the good thing about cell phone cameras, they make anything look good!
This truck isn't nearly as nice as it looks. The cancer in the doors & fenders is filled with caulking & rattle canned white. The good thing is the floor isn't rotted out, so it's good enough for me.

[Heirloom]

Good work so far! We are all with you on NEEDING a project sometimes

[flyboy2610]

Those sheet metal pieces to fix the rust damage are available from various vendors such as LMC Truck and Dennis Carpenter. Maybe you could get your brother to come over for an afternoon and weld 'em up for you.

[dftuttle]

So I had the time the last couple of days (Yeah, I got to play on Christmas!) to get the shifter dialed in, bend the rods & all that. The fun part was notching the the weld flange that joins the firewall the floor. I thought I was gonna set the truck on fire with the grinder. Some of the wool insulation was starting to smolder. Just what I need with 10 gallons of gas in the cab! Anyhow, the shifter seems to be adjusted pretty close.
The next part of our story is to freshen up the front end. I won't bore you guys with all the details since others have already covered the subject, but I will share a couple of pictures of what I have to work with.
Somebody had converted the truck to front discs at some point, but the beams that the used are a bit different. They aren't straight like others I have seen on here & in the wrecking yard.
These also have larger king pins I've come to find out.

The other thing is they used radius arms that are of the stamped variety, not the forged ones found on the older trucks. This required the shocks to be placed further inboard causing them to rub on the shock towers.



They also thought they needed 4 shocks on the front end. Were they planning on racing Baja?


So the bushings I ordered from energysuspension.com were the the round ones not the oval shaped ones required, so I am on hold until the UPS guy comes knocking on my door.
At least this weekend Pick Your Part is having a half price sale this weekend. I just hope the '70 F-250 is still there so I can get the radius arm off of it.
Maybe I can get in a test drive on New Years day!?

[dftuttle]

So I made a bit of progress on the interior this weekend since I still don't have bushings for the I beams.
The rust in the corner of the cab was worse than I thought, but I not to concerned. It should be fine as long as I don't go on my head.



First I made a cardboard pattern & then a stainless patch to rivet in place.




Once I got it all sealed & riveted in place I scrubbed the floor to loosen all the old paint & rust. Then coated it with some Permatex stuff that is supposed to neutralize the rust. Then the floor got coated with Herculiner.

I want this to be easy to clean since this thing is gonna go to El Mirage Dry Lake, which is a very alkali lake bed, & to Bonneville. The idea here is when in needs cleaned, I can just pull the plugs & hose it out!

[Heirloom]

Holy Carp

[sargentrs]

Good work! The floor looks great with the Herculiner on it.

[dftuttle]

I got the front end put back together yesterday. Read about that drama here. http://www.fordification.com/forum/view ... =5&t=74284
I also got to test drive for a couple of laps around the block. 1st lap the shifter refused to come out of 1st gear. I couldn't seem to find neutral.
Dive back underneath & go 1 turn in on the 1-R rod.
2nd lap was a success, all 3 gears! It needs a little fine tuning to get it to feel right. The 1-2 shift just does't feel quite right. Any tips for adjusting the shifter?

[sargentrs]

How's your linkage/lever bushings? My shift levers on the transmission were notorious for the nuts loosening making for sloppy shifting. Put locking jam nuts on them and they stayed put. As for adjustment, it was strictly trial and error for me.

[dftuttle]

Bushings on the shifter are new. The trans are not.
This was really a hack job that I'm rehabbing.
The neutral location feels a lot sloppier on the 2-3 arm then the 1-R arm. Just trying to get them as close as possible.

[pincheweddo]

Welcome aboard! Good project.

[ToughOldFord]

Looking good! More pics!