Update here...I'm an idiot. The 428 that we pulled from the Q-code turned out to be a 390 short block with all the 428 dressings. At some point in its life the motor was rebuilt and replaced. I'm an idiot for not measuring the stroke when we first went to look at it, so when I took the heads off and measured the bore/stroke I was pissed at myself. Whatever... I've learned my lesson. 390's are still great motors, but if I was going to go the rebuild route I'd rather find a bigger cube motor or stroke it, which ends up being $$$. While I was still deciding what I was going to do something popped up on a local classified ad that was such a good deal I couldn't resist. 428 Cobra jet, complete from carb to oil pan, with a Tremec TKO 500. Motor was rebuilt by a shop in Houston (with all machining paperwork and receipts) with about 5,000 miles on it and trans is brand new. Shop pulled it from a Torino to do a coyote swap. So, instead of doing this motor build gradually I put the money up front and bought it. This was a great deal. Honestly, I could probably flip both of them and make a good chunk of cash so I knew I needed to move fast or some mustang guy would snatch it up. I definitely could not build it for what I paid. Other than that, I've been in a forced 7-day quarantine for an Army school I've got coming up next week, so I've been doing nothing but my truck. I painted the steelies whimbleton white to match the grill and bumpers, mounted the tires, and swapped the stock I-beams out for drop axles and disc brakes from a 76 F100 that bought locally. I'm definitely going to need to lower the rear to get rid of that stink bug stance. lol. Rear tires are 285/70r15 on 15x10 and 5in backspacing which just baaaaarely fit. I'm most likely going to need to massage the inside seam on the bed tub on the passenger side. The bed is about a half an inch off center, so I may try to scooch it over a bit to help. I rebuilt the rear drums, made new brake lines, and put a dual master cylinder in. I'm keeping the manual steering/brakes. I also lined the cab with Killmat, which I've never used any sort of sound deadening before, so I'm curious how effective it'll be. It was pretty easy to work with and didn't take long to line the cab. I'm planning on carpeting it, so that should help as well. ALSO (man, when I type it out I realize how much work I've done in such a short time) I found a dude selling a set of fabricated headers he had on his 64 straight axle 390 floor shifted F100 for a song, so I'll probably pick those up next week and see if they'll fit. The nicest thing about working on trucks is how much space there is to play with. Downside is I have to climb into the engine bay and sit on the fender because leaning over it makes my back hurt. (lol I'm only 30 why does my back hurt...) This truck will be a riot. I can't wait. I also got the 352 running... I don't think I mentioned that. Once the brakes are bled and some other miscellaneous things I'll be able to putz around in it until it's ready for the big boy motor. I'm already predicting the sheet metal oil pan is going to be too deep for the f100, so I'm most likely have to use a factory shallow pan and pump. I'm 90% sure NP 435 is much shorter than the TKO, so I'll have to shorted my driveshaft and move the trans mount back a couple inches. It'll be nice to have OD for my 1500 mile drive home to Baltimore at the end of this year. I have a complete 390 with factory 428 intake, carb, C6AE-R heads, power steering, A/C bracket for sale in Belton, TX. I'll let it go cheap. Contact me if you're interested.
If you are going to retain the bench seat you will probably want to convert the tremec to the mid shift position, its a really easy deal. Love the truck
I use to think those old Fords were the most ugly truck of all .... Then I bought a dodge Looking forward to your progress.
I cant believe steve messed up 1965 was a big year for Ford F 100 first year for 352 , 300 6cyl and twin I beam.
*raises eyebrow, questioningly* Lol IMO I think they're the best looking generation of trucks, period. I'm not a fan of the 67+ square bodies. I love early 60's styling. I'll most likely just flip it from the rear most to the 2nd-to-back position and then get a double bend shifter to accommodate the bench seat. I think I can get away with it, but I'll have to measure and see. I love bench seats and this one's not going anywhere. The Mexican blanket cover that's on it has probably been on it for 30 or so years, which reminds me I need to run it through the washer. heh heh
Been working on the truck. My wife came down to visit this week, so didn't get anything done. I'm getting really close. I think it may be on the road by the end of the week. I had an issue finding brake hoses that were the correct fitting size (frame side) and correct length for the disc brake conversion. I went through 3 or 4 different variations of 76 custom cab, 76 4x4, etc. and ended up getting brake hoses made from Inline Tubing. The price was excessive, but hey, now I have the brake system complete. I'll have one of my buddies come over tomorrow and we'll bleed them. I think I lucked out when I found these drop beams because the rotors and pads looked practically new. Way better shape then my daily driver lol. I also was torn between trying to repair the original sun-baked steering wheel or buy a new reproduction. Because my goal is to get this thing running and driving and down the road I opted to just buy a reproduction. The original was pretty beat up. The only color the repop wheels came in was black, so I bought some Duplicolor Ford Medium Blue paint, but when I test sprayed it, it had too much metallic in it. :/ I'm not sure what the paint code for this '66 Ford blue is. The door tag indicates Medium Blue. I'm just going to run it for now and at some point in the future I'll see if I can have someone color match it. Or not. lol I picked up an autolite column mounted sweep tach. It matches the factory gauges pretty well, though I wish there was a redline indicator. No biggie though. Somewhere along installing it I lost dash lights, so it took a day to figure out where the bad ground was. All is good now. I haven't developed a plan for the big honkin' hole the previous owner's son cut in the dash when he was a teenager. I'll probably make an aluminum plate for that. Or not. lololol Next on the agenda is getting the front windshield glass as well as the rear window seal. I'll probably pick them up from Denis Carpenter and have a local guy install them. I also acquired some rear lowering shackles to level out the stink bug stance. I'm hoping the 2 inches will be enough. I can tell just by eyeballing the wheel tub lips that I'm going to have to flatten them out to keep from contacting the rear tire sidewall. If I can get it driving/stopping this week and everything goes as planned I may drive it 2-1/2 hours to the LMC truck show in Dallas next weekend. Seems like a good idea. Truck hasn't been on the road in 20-something years what can go wrong?
I have welded a bunch of those up over the years and they can be uglier than that one. I may have a stock '64 radio somewhere that I am using in my '65. It is only AM but I'd rather hear the engine.
Yeah I hear you. With the overdrive trans though I know It'll be pulling alot of highway duty, so I'm eventually going to put a radio in just to break up the hypnotic drone of the engine.
Vintage air is just a few hours drive from where I am, so I may buy one of their set-ups and road trip down there to pick it up. This summer will be my first Texas summer and people around here keep telling me it gets hot here. How hot can it be???? (famous last words right before my brains boil). Undecided on the big dash hole. I would make a plate and put my gauges here, but for the first time in my life I have an old car where I actually have factory AMP, Oil Pressure, a working fuel sender, a speedometer that isn't all out of wack due to an insane rear gear ratio lol. This truck is honestly too nice for me. I'm very fortunate to have bought it when I did and to have it to keep my hands busy. I've been keeping the previous owner updated with pictures and videos, which she's very appreciative for. Since I'm here, I may as well update... The ol rust tractor is finally insured and registered by the great state of TEXAS! The 352 smokes like a steam engine, there's a horrendous vacuum leak someplace on the carb base, and the clutch adjustment is all out of wack because the PO son replaced the clutch sometime in the 90's and did a 3/5 star job on it, but that being said I drove it on the road the first time. New disc brakes stop great, the ol New Process transmission is like driving a semi-tractor trailer. Man, you really gotta get into the RPMs to keep it from lugging in the 2-3 shift. It's fun. I'm used the the close ratio 4 sp toploader in my fairlane, but this really feels like I'm driving a truck. I put some lowering shackles on the rear leaf springs to get rid of the stink-bug stance. It looks OK. Definitely looks like a hot rod. I don't have any pictures at this time, but I'll get some soon. I would mess with the carb and clutch and all the other little things, but I've got this sweet sweet 428 sitting right next to it in the garage and I'm itching to get it in. Originally I was gunna drive the truck around for a few weeks with the 352 for a bit and iron out the brakes and make sure the rear end isn't complete junk, but SCREW IT! We're yanking the 352 this weekend and getting the 428 in. I drove it up and down the road a couple times, filled up at the pump once. That's good enough for me. I had to swap the deep sump pan on it out for a stock-style Cobra Jet pan and in the process inspected the motor. Everything looks great, oil looked good. Definitely some good bones to this motor, so the paperwork isn't fake. I noticed there was a external "hatchet" counterweight balancer behind the harmonic dampener and after some googling read up that this motor is a Super Cobra Jet...apparently. The seller kept calling it a SCJ and I just figured to myself, "ehhhh this guy doesn't know what he's talking about he's just calling it that.", but either this is a SCJ or they used the crank from a SCJ that's externally balanced. The block would be one that was used for a SCJ, so... go figure. After reading up on them there really wasn't much different about the two, the main thing being the connecting rods (now replaced with aftermarket ones) and the external crank balancing. Not that it really matters to me either way. I just find it funny that again, I end up with something kinda novel that some numbers-correct-knee-high-tube-sock-dad-shorts-wearing-dork would want for his "nut and bold" mustang or torino restoration. At least I know my truck has re-sale value now. LOL
Sarcastic helpers decided to poke fun at the fact that I bag and label all my bolts and smaller parts.
You do know later model power steering box is a bolt in addition , don’t you . Maybe you don’t want it , but it’s easy swap and sure makes it nice to drive . You may have power steering spindles , with the disc swap .
I always chuckled at the amount of clearance between the cross member and the oil pan and throttle cable through the fire wall . Ford didn’t waste and inches of space here ! Looking good , one of the ones I built was a 428 C6 combo , it would flat scat .
I actually have an ugly billet one that came with the motor, but I'm opting to keep it manual steering. It doesn't bother me and I love the look on peoples face when I tell them it's manual steering and non-power brakes. I don't doubt it'd be more thoughtless to drive, but if I'm gunna drive it, I'M GUNNA DRIVE IT, MANNNN!!!! lol Yeah it sure is a tight fit, even for a truck. I can't imagine trying to put the headers in on a mustang. PO had some type of fabricated high volume pan on it that I swapped out for a factory CJ one. Thought it was pretty trick they had factory windage trays, but disappointed I didn't look closer beforehand so I had another gasket set!
Here's the current state of affairs. Just a few loose ends to tie up, but should have fire by the end of the weekend. Can't wait to hear it run.
Realized I never posted any videos of this thing running. The driveshaft is being made this week and should be in the truck by Wednesday, depending on my work schedule. I am currently having an issue with the clutch being stuck to the flywheel. I wish I had known this prior to dropping the motor and tranny in, but now I'm trying to think of strategies to get it freed. The output shaft will not spin with the truck off, in gear, and the clutch pedal depressed. It spins no problem out of gear. I've messed with adjusting the linkage, but doesn't help. I may just put the rear up on jack stands and stab the brakes with it out of gear and see if it frees it up. I've read a few things about Centerforce clutches sticking after sitting for awhile. Anyone have any suggestions? I'll have to have a buddy come over and press the pedal in so I can look at it with the inspection cover off. Anyways, here's a video of it running. Please note the '41 Ford hubcaps.
Almost forgot... I put the new carpet in today and threw a cheap-o blanket/seat cover down on the seat overtop some foam from Micahel's so I'm not getting poked in the butt from the springs. I also have a 61-66 Custom Cab trim for the carpet ends, but am debating drilling holes to install them. It ended up looking much better than I thought it would.
No exhaust, no hood, no problems. First shake-down drive I motored down to the local lake here to disturb the peace. The lake goers met me with a mix of amazement and destain. I don't blame them to be honest. heheh. Will be getting pipes early next week. Picked up my drive shaft yesterday from Jimmy's Driveshop in Austin. They did a great job, though a bit on the more expensive side, they did make it from scratch. The welds look good and they even painted it saving me some time. I think the driveshaft is the nicest thing on my truck now. LOL. I picked up some freakin expensive stamped steel "Powered by Ford" factory Cobra Jet chromed valve covers that I think look much more stock (more stocker? More stocky? More like the engine did from the factory) better than the cheapo ones I had on there. I'm not one for bling, but they look awesome. Things that need work: 1. Carb needs tuning. The engine diesels on a few rotations after I shut the engine off and it idles too high. I double checked the timing and I'm ~10* initial. It's a Holley 4150 750 cfm which I think is appropriate for the engine. I'm just going to take it off and baseline it and square up the transition slots, then set idle and cruise using a vacuum gauge. The jetting probably isn't too far off, though I'm unsure of the power valve size. The previous owner PERMETEXED the freakin carb on, so I just wanted to get it up and running before I deal with that mess. I'm also going to add a phenolic spacer to help with the Texas heat soak. 2. Temp gauge is not working. It was working on the old motor, I probably switched a wire around when re-wiring, so I'll just have to double check it. I don't want to drive anywhere without one. Especially not in this heat. 3. Alternator is not charging or the gauge is not hooked up correctly. I need to revisit my wiring diagram and see if the factory amp gauge is wired through the voltage regulator because I straight up removed that garbage. Honestly, I could live without one, but... I like having working factory gauges. This is the first old car that I've had with one that worked ahahahahaha.
Ford used shunt-type ammeters in these and they're notorious for failing. Not connected to the regulator at all, but had a parallel shunt connected to the output wire from the alternator to the solenoid that fed the gauge. The shunt is also supposed to be a specific ohm value so the gauge reads semi-accurately, but I don't know what that value is. But don't be surprised if the gauge is bad....
I seem to remember that the CJ pan was notorious for oil control problems. The factory solution was to run an extra quart of oil to keep the oil pump from sucking air. That was one of the reasons they added the windage tray.
Even with the extra quart and windage tray, one could still do that. I had a 428SCJ in a Cougar and ended up putting a 7 quart pan on it to fix it...
I will never be running this thing to 7k RPMs so I'm not worried about it. I have the windage tray and an extra quart of oil. Should be fine. A high volume pan isn't necessarily going to solve the problem as the problem is over oiling the top end. The solution is to add restrictors in the oil passages in the heads so the mains are oiled.
I had a local small hotrod shop weld up my exhaust and I'm officially on the road! I've been driving this thing all over the place. Longest drive so far was about 60 miles on Thursday. Pulled the Holley on and off a couple times until I got it where I wanted it, but it idles great, cruises well, is violent when you stop on the gas and pulls hard in the upper RPMs. I'm loving it. My wife will be down here in TX to visit for my birthday next weekend, so we'll be driving up to Dallas for the Goodguys show at the Texas Motor Speedway. 2.5 hours should be no problem in this truck, just not sure at this time how often we'll have to stop to fill up the tank. This 428 is a real gas hog. In it's previous life it towed stuff around the farm and hauled a camper around, so it's got about 7 holes on each door from sheetmetal screws holding towing mirrors on. I'm going to get my hands on a welder, fill them up, and touch them up with paint. I also ordered a window/door seal kit from Dennis Carpenter that I'm going to take to a glass place for them to replace the front windshield. This truck is becoming way too nice for me. I am VERY pleased with how the exhaust turned out. It is super mellow. The lope hints there's something there, but it's very quiet on the highway which paired with the tremec overdrive makes it really easy to drive. This being my first old truck, I know what people mean now when they say something "drives like a truck".
The Jalopy Journal
