This 1983 Ford F100 XLT was my first vehicle and I drove it my junior and senior years of high school. I bought it when I was 16 for $900, not running, from an old man down the road. I paid him $50 a week and walked to his house to work on it while I was paying him off. Finally got everything sorted out and got it running, but ended up selling it a year or two later for $1400 to buy a Mustang. I told the guy it had some sentimental value and that I may want it back eventually. Four years later I called him and asked to buy it back. He said "Sure" and I went to get it for the same $1400 I had sold it for.

Since then, it's kind of sat around. It ran, still, but it had no AC, the suspension and tires were in rough shape from sitting (the guy I sold it to never even registered it in his name), and the engine had enough blowby that it'd fill the cab with smoke when you stopped at red lights. I bought a Focus for the gas mileage in the meantime, so it sat even more.

Finally got my Mustang running well and decided it would be nice to get the truck back to running right so I could haul my car to events with it. Started with new Moog front springs and isolators, KYB GasAJust shocks all the way around, new rotors and Timken bearings up front, Wagner Severe Duty brake pads, new pivot bushings, Energy Suspension radius arm bushings, etc. Then went after the steering with a new Redhead gearbox, Moog tie rods, and a new ragjoint. I had bought two new tires for the front in 2018, when I first got it back, but the rears were dry rotted. I put new Kumho HT51 XL tires on.

Then it was time for a fresh powerplant. The engine is a 1985 300 I6 I picked up off Craigslist for $300 last year. It was rebuilt by Rebel Rebuilders in Little Rock, AR. I told them I wanted it to go 300,000 miles, and to do what it took to get there. So we went with .030" overbore, .010"/.010" on the crank, redid the heads with a set of new valves, put in a Comp Cams 268 cam and lifter kit, Comp springs to match, Comp timing gear set, Melling oil pump and a beeeeautiful paint job.

I finished the "prettifying" job by cleaning, media blasting, and painting up all the old, nasty brackets, using VHT Engine Primer and VHT Cast Coat Aluminum. Then I reinstalled the brackets with a new AC Compressor and fairly new alternator. A new Offenhauser C four barrel intake replaced the rusty and restrictive one barrel intake. A 500cfm Edelbrock AVS 4 barrel replaced the Carter YFA single barrel carb. The log exhaust manifold wasn't gonna cut it, so I went with a very budget stainless steel longtube style header from Amazon.

Then I just added the other little bits, new Duraspark 2 distributor, new fuel pump, Moroso plug wires, Autolite plugs, and a new coil and plug.

I went ahead and had the C6 transmission rebuilt. I contemplated switching over to the AOD so I could have overdrive, but didn't want to sacrifice the sheer durability and simplicity of the C6. I bought a Hayden auxiliary cooler to run after the factory cooler to keep the trans temps down while towing.

After I got all that installed, it was just time to finish the other little tidbits, which took a while. I didn't work on it for a couple months because AutoCross came back and I was busy working on the Mustang and doing other things. Finally got started back a couple weekends ago. A new AC condenser, radiator, thermostat, fan clutch and the fan all went back on the truck. Got all the vacuum, fuel, coolant, air conditioning, and transmission lines hooked up this past weekend, along with the rest of the wiring. I had previously dumped Lucas 30W BreakIn oil in, installed a Motorcraft filter, and primed the engine with a drill.

Also got a later model permanent magnet gear reduction (PMGR) starter installed. I bypassed the fender mounted starter switch (it had a bad habit of sticking closed anyway) and put a new battery cable from the relay to the new starter's relay. The old cable was in pretty good shape, but wasn't quite long enough to route around the header and reach the PMGR terminal that sits further back than the stock starter.

After 6 months of (occasional weekend) work, we finally got to today! With a little gas in the carb bowl, and a little timing adjustment, the engine lit right off! Oil pressure came up immediately, higher on the gauge than I've ever seen on this truck. We ran it for a few minutes here in this video at 2000+ rpm to let the cam break in. Then we shut it off, checked for leaks (a little coolant leak at a radiator hose, no big deal), looked for anything else that didn't look right, then cranked it back up and ran it in for a little while longer.

I still need to hook up the vacuum line to the transmission modulator and fabricate a new throttle bracket (the 4bbl carb is mounted 90* off from the stock 1bbl), but it should finally be on the road this weekend!