I just sold the truck. The biggest reason was that a full-size 2WD pickup just isn't worth the space it takes to store it. It was great for hauling stuff to the dump and building materials back from the home store, but it's useless in the winter and doubly so...
Yeah, that's right. My truck goes from 5520 to 4840 pounds in 22 minutes. P.S. 8000 gross....
It seems the yellow haze is worse this year than in the past. Everything is covered....
This is what happens when you drive a lowrider. The ball bolt gets all jacked up on pavement—in this case, the bolt was way mangled long before I bought the truck and I actually cut the bottom of the bolt off a while back with a cutoff tool so I...
Apparently my truck is so low that the rental guys insisted on moving the trailer tongue down from its initial position (pictured) onto the bottom-most holes on the flange. The trailer is bottomed out at this point against its stand—it's technically possible to drop it more but I agree with...
Rob needed a small front-end loader thing to lay soil all over his lawn. So he rented this, and according to the rental guy, his Ranger was not up to the task of pulling this ~2200lb. trailer. Having towed this up and down the hills of Bellevue and Redmond, I...
I trucked the mess to Jarrod's earlier for some mulchy compost insulating goodness. Saves me a trip to the dump (and the cost), so that's cool. The whole mess just about filled the truck. I estimate the total at a bit less than 1.5 yards in all. The streak of...
The gasket around the PCV valve in the truck has started leaking a little bit. It's made of ancient rubber. The amusing part about this is that sometimes when the engine is decelerating with the throttle closed, the gasket whines like a kazoo....
Apparently shifting into 2nd gear on Ford C6 transmissions will cause it to lock completely into that gear, even when moving at speeds when 1st is typically selected (and when accelerating from a stop). I wish I had known this when it was snowing a few weeks ago. That would...
Not this old truck, this old truck. I took the F-250 down to Dan Fast Muffler & Brakes yesterday and they did a great job fixing the horrendous exhaust problems on the vehicle. In fact, they fixed it too well. See, the truck used to make a ton of grunty...
I'm planning on getting the exhaust fixed on the truck tomorrow morning. I've lived with a huge hole just past the passenger-side header since I've owned the damn thing, and it's noisy enough that I'd rather not live with it forever. I don't (yet) have a welder so I can't...
Now that the snow has melted a bit, I fixed a bunch of stuff on the truck that has gone wrong over the last few months. I lost a dashboard lamp a while back and finally pulled everything apart (again) just to replace it. I also took this opportunity to...
This actually works pretty well. I'm not sure if it's the chains or the mountain of snow in the bed (and on the cab) but I actually have traction now. This is my first year using chains. Amazing amount of traction they afford. Bonus question: what is one half of...
I started my drive to work this morning with a uniform 2" layer of snow on the hood of the truck. The airflow swept a bunch away and the engine heat melted some off, leaving this pattern....
I'm making up for all of those weeks of bus riding by driving the truck for the last few days....
I too have a Ford with a center-mounted tach....
My truck goes through a lot of fuel. It's got an ancient 390 cubic inch (6.5L) V8 topped with an even more ancient Motorcraft carburettor, and the whole boat weighs in at around 5,000 pounds dry. A substantial portion of the time I'm driving it, it's got lots of cargo...
In an attempt to weasel out of the lawn-thatching I promised yesterday, I decided to move some more dirt. About 7,000 pounds more. As you can see at right, the rear suspension on the Ford can't take much more than a solid cubic yard of topsoil. I'm guessing here that...
The thing is that Ford used now-popular model names like "Explorer" and "Ranger" as lines of their F-Series pickups. My truck happens to be an F-250 Explorer Custom. And I get to stare at that hood ornament the entire time I drive it....
I'm usually skeptical about automotive parts or chemicals that aren't somehow used by manufacturers, mostly because the vast majority of the time, they're complete snake-oil. Any product which makes big claims but isn't yet snapped up by an automotive manufacturer or oil company (or something similar) is almost exclusively full...
A few unexpected oddities I've encountered with the truck so far:Even though it's a 1976, it's got disc brakes in the front. Hoorah! The power steering doesn't groan like crazy. The transmission leaks ... a lot. I'm guessing I've put a half-quart of Type F into it already since I...
Now that the truck is largely operational, I've got a chance to make it functional, as well. Do any of you have experience with those roll-on bedliners (e.g. Rhinoliner)? I looked into it years ago (for, you know, coating the exterior of a VW bug) but even then wasn't able...
After a grand total of about six hours hammering at it, I've solved the brake light problem. The culprit? See the connector at the right? Well, this is the connector that ties the wiring harness into all of the functionality on the steering column—specifically, the turn signal, hazard flasher, horns,...
Oh, the hidden pleasures of car ownership....
I stuck the F-250 in the garage yesterday because the taillights don't appear to be working properly. I'm really scratching my head over this one—not the taillights, but how the hell I fit the truck in that garage. No seriously, I'm still baffled about the tails, too. Given the condition...
Stuff like this amuses me. Oh, and the rust. At least there aren't (too many) penetrating rust holes....
So uhh, due to my somewhat abbreviated schedule, it seems I didn't really give a whole lot of time between when I first queried about full-size pickups and when I actually took the plunge. On to the details: it's a 1976 (sixth generation) Ford F-250 standard-cab/medium-bed with a 390 FE...
To all you other car nuts out there: I'm looking at buying a cheap fullsize pickup (around, say, $1,000), and have found a handful of late-1970s Ford F-250s out there. I'll be checking all of the usual things when I inspect possible candidates—is there anything specific to these trucks that...
