Hey guys, Here is the beginning of the restoration of my 79 F-350 Crew Cab. The truck has p/s, p/b, a/c. It is brown and tan tu-tone. When I bought the truck from a friend a few years ago, it had no bed on it. Since the F-350 Crew has narrow frame rails I couldn’t use any bed. Every night I’d search Craigslist and E-bay for a bed. Well, one finally came up that was in great shape. But, it wasn’t close. I’m in Massachusetts and this bed was in Kentucky. It was a long drive, but worth it. The bed was recently off a California truck. The seller used the cab for a 4x4 crew cab 250 project with a short bed. I ended up buying the frame and a few hub caps too. The frame was really nice. It still had a lot of original paint. After a couple years of sitting in the humid Berkshires the frame tuned a nice shade of brown.
Here is the truck now. Unfortunately, the only picture I could find was of an old forklift I have with the F-350 in the backround.
The forklift isn’t lifting the bed. when I brought the bed home I set it on the back of the truck frame. After a storm I found a pond in the bed. To avoid standing water I used an 8x8 to prop up the front of the bed.
The first step in the restoration of this F-350 is to sand blast, prime and paint the frame. It took most of Monday to get the little odds and ends off of the frame and get it mounted on a rotisserie. I had to run to the local industrial supply house to buy a long piece of 2x2 box tube to extend the rotisserie to 25 feet.
The rotisserie and sand blaster are in place. Next I need to get the fresh air fed blasting hood. Wow, does this stuff add up. Luckily, I have a bunch of projects ahead of me, so I’ll be using this equipment for a long time.
When I get a good day of weather with a light work load I will sand blast the frame then hit it with a light coat of self etch, 2 coats of epoxy primer then use black single stage urethane with some flattening agent to make the frame semigloss. Hopefully things line up to let this happen soon.
thanks,
Mark
Berkshire Transmissions
North Adams, Massachusetts
This weekend was busy-busy. My thought was to get the frame blasted, primed and painted all in one day. Well, despite going full force with the blaster, it took 8 1/2 hours to get this frame thoroughly cleaned. You can see the black blasting media all over the tarp. Everytime the blaster ran out of media I’d have to sweep up and strain out any big pieces to reuse it.
Only an hour before sundown I rolled the frame back in the shop overnight to prime and paint the next morning. Again, I thought spraying the primer and paint wouldn’t take too long, maybe a half day. Nope, another full day of work. It is much easier to paint panels. Getting both the inside and outside of the frame and taking care to make sure the primer and paint gets into all of the crevices takes a bit of time. “Thorough” is the name of the game as I only want to do this once.
The first step was a light coat of self-etch primer.
Then, 2 coats of epoxy primer. 3 coats were put in certain areas, like around the front spring supports and the leading faces of anything that might be likey to see a stone chip.
An hour after the epoxy was applied I had then sprayed 2 coats of black single stage urethane with flattening agent to make it look like the factory frame paint. I think it is still a little bit more shiney than original. But, not much of this frame will be seen. At the end of the day, I was pretty tired and forgot to take a pic of the black painted frame. I will snap some pics of the frame in finished paint tomorrow.
The interior will be all stock. The only addition I will make is a decent stereo. I might just keep the stock Ford unit in the dash and add on a receiver for Ipod. An amp with some good speakers. Interior is a long way down the road. My Monterey will be finished first. I readied the frame now because I wanted to test out my sand blaster and I had all the supplies to get it done. The next frame, which will be from the Monterey should take only half as long. The crew cab is a big frame to prep.
Here is a couple pics of the black frame.
Plans for the drivetrain are a stroker 460, into a 545. A mild engine with smooth idle. I will be using MSD’s Atomic EFI. I chose the MSD because it looks a lot like a carb. The computer is integrated into the throttle body along with TPS and MAP sensors. So, it has a minimal amount of connections. Also, MSD makes a stand alone TCM that will plug right in to the EFI unit. I need a stand alone TCM because I plan to use an E4OD trans. Overdrive and lock-up should do a little to help reclaim some gas mileage. If the mpg is as good as the 460 in my F-150 now, I will be happy. Other than those mods, the truck will be stock.
The body will be brown and tan. I found both of the 78 and 79 paint color chip charts on e-bay. I ordered both and they should arrive soon. I love the tu-tone Ford pick-ups for as long as I can remember.
A bunch of fron suspension pieces were sand blasted. Just as I was getting ready to spray primer a few rain drops fell from the sky. Which wasn’t that big of a problem. It was late in the day and going to get dark before I’d even finish the first coat of primer. We moved everything inside the shop. Luckily there was an open lift that I could put some racks across to hang everything. For some reason the pictures make it seem like there weren’t that many parts. But, it took a while spraying all of these parts.
These are the sand blasted parts hanging in the shop. Note the row of fans to pull the overspray out.
This with the self etch primer:
There were two coats of epoxy primer:
Then finally two coats of black single stage urethane.
By the time the 2nd coat of paint was done and everything was cleaned up it was after 2am on a Monday night. Ug, work at 7:45am.
Sometime soon I will get the front suspension put back on the frame. The intent is to get the front and rear suspension on the frame so it can be rolled around. Then add the drive train and body parts as they come together.
More blasting, priming and painting. Rear axle housing, drum brake backing plates with other small suspension parts.
Parts completely blasted. It’s amazing how bright the parts get when they’re fully blasted:
Nason Self-etch primer:
2 coats of Nason Ful-poxy:
Finally, 2 coats of Nason Ful-thane in black:
Here is some suspension components installed on the frame (with a 70 Eliminator underneath):
Pretty soon the engine block will be back from the machine shop and it can be assembled. Then, mocked up on the frame along with the E4OD transmission case to see if the trans crossmember will need to be relocated.
Hey Brian,
Cool truck. I like those later wheels on these. What engine does this have? Remember the 78 F-150 I had when I stopped by a long time ago? I’m still driving it. In fact, I took it to Wisconsin when I picked up the 70 Eliminator. The truck was shabby back then and worse now. I think that is the last long trip for that old truck.
