Dads 85 F250...Rebuilding an old friend

I've traveled all over the US and Canada and I have to say, the rustiest vehicles I have seen on the road were in upstate NY! lol. They rust just as bad up here in Canada, if not worse, but they get condemned here very early on, so they will no longer pass MVI once they get a little bit rusty. I see some on the roads that are very rusty, but they are often illegally on the road.

My most recent trips to upstate NY were in the Finger Lakes area and I laughed every time I saw a car or truck that you can actually see inside the body from the outside...haha. There was this one Toyota Camry I kept seeing that had the outer door skins almost completely rusted away.

In any case, it builds character eh Angelo?>..And you get to really hone your mechanic skills removing bolts with no heads and no threads.

I remember the truck pics from over on FTE. Nice work!

I liked the metal floor. Ford should have done them like that stock.

Frank Wyatt wrote

I liked the metal floor. Ford should have done them like that stock.

It was not that hard to make work so Ford could have done the same easily and I know of someone else that took my lead and did the same.

Don't get me wrong I like the look of the wood floor but for me to go back with it at the time, just the cross members were $1000, add wood, nuts & bolts, metal slats was just to much for a $800 truck LOL.

What is nice is the way I did this is I can get the cross members, wood, etc. and bolt the sides onto it like the factory did.

With this floor and being bed lined, it was done that way from the parts truck. I can throw stuff in the bed and it will stay for the most part and not worry about marking the floor.
Yesterday I had 4 - 2"x2"x4'square tubing I took to a buddy's house and other than not wanting to mark the bed sides I was not worried about the floor.
Dave ----

Rembrant wrote

I've traveled all over the US and Canada and I have to say, the rustiest vehicles I have seen on the road were in upstate NY! lol. They rust just as bad up here in Canada, if not worse, but they get condemned here very early on, so they will no longer pass MVI once they get a little bit rusty. I see some on the roads that are very rusty, but they are often illegally on the road.

My most recent trips to upstate NY were in the Finger Lakes area and I laughed every time I saw a car or truck that you can actually see inside the body from the outside...haha. There was this one Toyota Camry I kept seeing that had the outer door skins almost completely rusted away.

In any case, it builds character eh Angelo?>..And you get to really hone your mechanic skills removing bolts with no heads and no threads.

I remember the truck pics from over on FTE. Nice work!

Basically, NY doesn't care what it looks like as long as it's structurally sound underneath.  But it's not hard to have someone "run it through" the system. Once there is significant structural damage underneath, it not longer passes inspection. Usually we test frames by poking holes in them with a screwdriver. Sometimes, they can be repaired, but most places won't for liability reasons.

The rust was kind of part of the reason we opted to "bolt in" the floors vs weld. The truck will never see salt again, but in the event the floors some day rust out, we will in essence be able to unbolt the bad and replace it. Somewhere I still have the blueprints.

Anyways moving on. As some of you know we are currently converting over to MSD Atomic EFI and ditching the 4160 Holley. The truck is currently setup to run dual tanks like a factory low pressure 1987 year model. We have had some issues with the front tank when it gets low, I think the sumps in the 1987 tank vs 1985 tanks are different since this truck also has 1987 low pressure pumps. The pumps are to be removed and reinstalled with Aeromotive pulse type fuel pumps, allowing us to run the stock style sending units and retain a working fuel gauge.. This system will be dead headed to the throttle body from using pulse pumps. The low pressure selector valve will be removed and replaced with a Y fitting, with a check valve on each feed line. Each pump will be on separate relays tied to a fuel pump module that primes the pump currently selected on the switch in the cab for 5 seconds before fire up. This will allow us to run dual tanks without the super expensive high pressure selector valve.

Also, dad finally bought new chrome for the front end.