Fordmans 71 4wd woods truck

[fordman]

cab washed out of the dirt and mud in the hidden spots. so it cant set there and create more rust. gas tank went back in and the steerimg column is completely back in all the way. i need to change the steering wheel back to the two spoke type to get my horn working. tomorrows plans are to get the front driveshft back in. and decide on which wiring harness i want to put in it. the cs harness or the regular harness. and then put my guages in. then i will be taking a break from assmbly and disassemble the part truck completely so i can get rid of what is left of it. i am planning on saving the flex o matic set up from it to put on my 4wd since the rear springs have a broken leaf in them. that may also give me more weigh capcity on the rear. but it i will get rid of the broken leaf. maybe the bed will get swapped this weekend also. i am unsure which bed i am going to end up with on this truck now. i have three to choose from. they all have one problem or another. i think the dent would be easier to fix on the one bed. the rust is harder to fix on the other two beds.

[fordman]

more little stuff today and some parts truck stripping. i got the passenger door panel put on and the speaker wire ran back into the cab. i got the steerimg wheel changed back to the 70-72 style that the column is suppose to have and i had a good horn pad and button to match the wheel. i also removed the broken brake lines i broke when reinstalling the brake booster. i am going to use the brake lines from the f250 donor but i found out they are too long. so i have to take those back off and put a loop in them so they will not get kinked if i tried to force them in place.i bought a new u joint for the front driveshaft. i also R&R the rear sldier for a soild glass. since the slider was missing pieces. and i also found out to get the bedliner material offof the drivers door a propane torch will make that stuff bubble up . so i used a scrapper and scrapped off a small spot. i think i would rather use a heat gun. but i dont have one. maybe i will get one later on in the year to finish the door back to paint. slow day lots of other stuff to do around the house. not much got done. tomorrow brakes and work on the 70 parts rebuild.

[fordman]

i now have more brakes than i did when i got the truck. i replace the line from the rear rubber line coming off of the rearend. and bleed all of the brakes except the passenger front. the bleeder was stuck . i tried bleeding the line on the front differential. but the line turned when the nut did so i paseed on it for now. i also proceded to strip down the parts truck some more. i removed the aux fuel tank and some of the brackets as well as the underbed wiring harness. i also stripped down the front clip into all of the seperate pieces and scrapped the core support and both inner fenders. i have yet to scrap the outer fenders. i may use them for parts to get patch panels out of for other sets of fenders. tomorrow i think i am going to go get my flwheel and clutch setup. then maybe i can get the engine in it and the front clip back on this weekend. then it will all be down hill. except for some small patches for the floorboards.

[fordman]

looks like for sure its going to be a bed swap now.

[fordman]

nothing much has actually been going on with this lately. i have been concentrating on stripping down parts truck to scrap them out. i did get the ujoint put in the front drivesahft today. on sunday i got the bed bolts oiled up. they wont budge a bit. two of them fell through the bed on are still hanging in the frame. i did get the bed for it off of the parts truck unbolted finally. although its not that much better of a bed. i think tomorrow i might get lucky and have time to go junking. maybe if i can find the money i can get my flywheel matching clutch and disc . plus i need to look for some other small things.

[fordman]

i finally took some pics of all i have been doing to this thing. you can see my new seat. it is parts from two different seats. but its all good and not worn out. i am still probably going to put a saddle cover over it anyway. i got some other general pictures on showing the anteena i put on it. its nothing special. just a stock anteena. i also did get the front driveshaft u joint finally put in and installed the driveshaft. there are also some pics of the red door panels on a blue door. i have yet to do a whole lot else since i done the cab swap. i have started to try and get the old bed off but havent finished it yet. i did get my flywheel today though. so tomorrow i can finally finish cleaning up the bellhousing and start trying to put the engine in sometime in the next few days. i do have some work this week so i wont be doing much to it this week. i do still have some floor rust but i am still working on getting that taken care of too. i forgot to take pics of the passenger floor. i had a box full of trampoling springs in it i didnt want to move.

[fordman]

i was in the city on monday. i stopped by lmc and bought new poly bushings for the track bar. the next thing i will need for the steering is the correct pitman arm or the correct centerlink for the steering. hopefully sometime this weekend i will have time to put the new bushing in as well as the radius arm bushings. those are easier than a 2wd. everythnig just unbolts to put those in. the engine is going to be got ready to drop in also. i need to get a new oil pan gasket and put the 4wd oil pan on it and then the clutch and then it will be the hard part of putting the engine in with the transmission in place. i predict that will not be something easy for me to do. but who knows.

[FordTruck]

Looks like that seat back I used to have

[fordman]

yea thats it. i was going to put it in my 67 but changed my mind when i got this truck. im going to put a saddle blanket cover over it to help protect it when i start driving the truck.

[fordman]

just some thoughts or one atleast . i think i am going to put factory air in this truck. it had dealer air in it when i got it. but the shifter was hitting the dealer air and slightly damaged the outer plastic cover on the A coil. so just to get rid of the factory air. and to have it in case i drive this in the summer time i am going to put it in i think. i have all the stuff to do it with. but all i have is the factory air condensor. and flyboy tells everyone who converts to 134a to put in a larger condensor. but i only have the original and cant spend the money to put in a larger condensor right now. plus it is some extra work i will have to do now that i have made the decision to do it. i also have some running boards from a parts truck that i am going to put on. so my wife can get in and out easier. if i do the factory air i will need a factory air glove box then. i might build one out of wood. maybe. that might be too hard to do. i do have a copy of the liner so i could get the measurements. but how would i attach it without the correct space. well that might not be a problem. i could use 1/4 inch plywood to make it out of. i might need longer screws to hold it in though. that is a winter project. i could bevel the edges of the plywood so you wouldnt scrap your hand when reaching into the glove box. i would like a plastic glove box though. that would be good.

[fordman]

i swapped out the door and winodw glass on the drivers door today back to the tinted glass that matched the rest of the truck.

[fordman]

long time no work. on this anyway. until today. i took the front stablizer bar off of it yesterday to put new rubbers in the bar. the botls were rusted to the inner metal bushing so i soaked them down. today they are still rusted to the bolts. so i soaked them down again. i then clean the vin number on the frame. down to the clean metal. i uesd a wire wheel brush on my drill . i then painted chrome spray paint over it to keep it from rusting until i can restamp the numbers deeper. the last 3 digits have rust / pitting damage and are hard to read. then i moved the truck forward closer to the compressor and repalced the rear passenger leaf spring that was broken. that wasnt as hard as it could have been. i took off one of the u bolts and loosened the other one. i then jacked up the rear bumper with a farm jack. (hi lift) that brought the spring pack up off of the axle and block. i then had to put a pair of vise grips ont he spring bolt that holds the pack together and i took the nut off. i then had to get the spring pack holders apart then it was easy to get the old leaf out. i then pried with a srcew driver and got the new leaf back in. i then had to realign the bolt to the top spirng so that it would go back through. i kept jacking the truck up to get it high enough to ge the weigh off of it. when i let it down it wouldnt put the bolt back in the hole. so i jacked the rearend up to meet the hole. after i realigned the holes i put the nut back on. i then started to let everything down and had to realign the lift block to the spring bolt. i had to tap it with a hammer forward and tap the spring inward. it was real close so i jacked the rearend up and it went back into place. i then put the ubolts and top plate back on. put the spring pack holders back on. as close to center as i could. and it wa doen. it took around two hours. i had never replaced a single leaf before. it wasnt hard at all. i just used spacign and a screwdriver to get the spring in place. maybe on sunday i can try to put the enigne in. if i have everything here and ready to go this time. well except for that rusted bolt and sleeve.

[fordman]

finally. i got all the parts for the engine install last saturday afternoon. i got the engine plug and pan put on last sunday. today i got the engine put in the truck. it was way easier than i though it would be. the gravel driveway played nice with me and the cherry picker. but i cheater some. i pushed the truck forward up to the cherry picker. even thought the engine is in i cant find three things. the a'c bracket for the compressor. the throttle linkage (trapeze) and the engine side of the clutch z bar bracket. i know i have them i just dont know where they got put in the rush i was put into. the worse thing that happened was. when i was scrapping more grease off of the engine before i put it in. the engine fell off the cherry picker and onto the ground. it crushed the passenger side valve cover. so i now have to put another one on. or beat the dents out of the old one. i doubt it can be done. it was dented pretty badly right by the pcv hole. and that isnt accessible inside the valve cover.

[fordman]

ah ha. i found the a/c bracket. but nohting else. did i sell anyone a trapeze setup lately? i dont think i did. maybe i did. i cant remember. well i will get the one back off the rebuild truck and put something else on the rebuild truck.

[fordman]

i went out to the junkyard and just got another engine z bar bracket. i couldnt find the one i had. now that i bought one i will find the old one. of course. i also picked up a new passenger valve cover. when the enigne fell off the cherry picker is dented the blank out of the valve cover. i also picked up a different oil tube and dipstick off of a newer engine out of the engine pile. i hope that goes in and works. it seems like it will be a very tight fit. i also picked up the correct pcv hose to the carb. it was in better shape than the blocked off piece of heater hose it had on it. i picked me up another wiper dely. for one of my 3 trucks. i just need one more to complete the collectors set. i was busy cleaning up the mess i made looking for that bracket tonight that i didnt have time to even work on the truck. i did get the pcv hose put on. but not the valve cover. i didnt have a gasket like i thought i did. i might put the bracket on late tonight if i am still up late. then i can move on to the starter alternator and exhaust. then comes the front clip on sunday i think. then i can finally drive it up and get the vin inspection done.