1959 F100 4x4 Frankentruck

[Michael Slade]

Sweet gooey goodness in this thread.

[Nick02]

I cut out and bent the final steering box plate out of 3/8


and tapped threads



Today I water-jet the Toyota splined portion out and pressed it and the steering ball into my own waterjet steering arm; check out the ford logo. It is made of one 1/2" plate welded to another 1/8" plate.


I also turned down a one ton tie rod and took it down on a lathe, and did the same to the Toyota tie rod. I slipped them together and plug welded them, the drag-link is one piece of solid steel throughout.

The spacer for the toyota arm.

[Nick02]

Sleeve spacer for the yota steering shaft to ford.

V notch weld turned down

then sleeved


Box mount all 3/8


"loosely hooked up"

still looking for a seat..lol

I got the steering mechanically together, it all works good. Draglink is parallel to the leaf spring and the pitman arm is straight up/down when going straight!.

I'am house-sitting and moving it into garage Saturday to finish it up, will have it there for a month.

[Nick02]

Been working my butt off 3-5 hrs a day on it and 10hrs on the weekends for the past two months.

I repainted the entire engine, repaced the intake with a 2bbl and autolite.


The craigslist radiator I got was junk so I got a three core aluminum one for a 75 f250 and waterjet some brackets to adapt it to the stock location. To solve some clearence issues I put some patriot headers on, they clear the axle, ps pump, gearbox and other things perfectly! I was able to get the factory slave cylinder to fit around the yota box by shaving the side of it; I also got the clutch free and it works.

When I ready I fired the truck up, runs way better with the 2bbl autolite then the holly. However cyls #1 and #2 were not firing, the plugs got wet. Valves are perfectly adjusted at TDC, timing is perfect, good compression, good spark @tdc, new plugs/wires and I just dont know what's wrong. The poor girl is dumping oil/gas out of the passenger exhaust.

Even with the bad engine I went for the first drive and had a great time. I've never driven a manual transmission before so learning on the on the clarke 5 speed was interesting. Made horrible noises, ran over a few things, bounced around, killed it a couple times and left some marks in the driveway. But she runs, steers and stops great! very happy with the Y-Block It was hard to kill when I started in 3rd or 4th gear lol.

The waterjet mounts for the radiator.

The exhaust, my buddy let me have his old setup off his 67 fairline


Interior or lack-of so far, I got a Repop steering center.



So the big 60 mile drive home went good, got run off the road by two truckers, stalled in a police scene one lane bypass route. It was a good time lol! It has a top speed of 55-60 on the highway but I can live with that.
Cool kids parking at work

After I got it home I drove it to work and discovered that I forgot to tighten lugnuts on one side of the truck. I ruined two rims and 16 lugnuts I spent the day at the junkyards looking for new rims and got the tires remounted. I painted the rims almond and slapped them on. The previous owner also used a wrong leaf spring retainer which caused the U bolts to have 3” of separation at the top and 5.5” at the bottom. So I cut, bent and welded a new spacer out of some 3/8 and went to a local carshow.
Here it is parked next to a company car lol!


Today I took my girlfriend to the movies and went out to eat.

Dropped her off at a nice historic home she’s dog sitting at, couldn’t resist taking a picture.


So blowing oil out of the exhaust and 7-8mpg was not my thing.
Well, I just so happened to have a 1957 312 engine lying around so I yanked the 292 put a new seal on the oil pan, cleaned the pickup and put it in it's place.
Lots of power and easy starting now, had no clue how worn the other engine was until I put this one in.

When I pulled it I found out that the 292 had some more epoxied cracks on the outside of the block then I expected.
Nice to have a forklift!


I don't normally wear my pants "gangsta" but in my excitement I ripped them and got too lazy to pull them back up


This should buy me some time until I put the 460in. I still have lots of "little" stuff to work out.

[toddz69]

Looks real good! My girlfriend and I stopped by the Pavilions a few weeks ago and I was positive that was your truck sitting there but never saw you to you talk about it. Looks like you're near my neighborhood (MacAlpines and an historic home). I live in Willo.

Todd Z.

[redthies]

Glad to see it's out on the road!

[1leglance]

Great to have another bit of Old Iron running around the phoenix area....now lets get you out on the trail and camping with that rig.
Todd has his Bronco, Nick-Nobin & I are running early 70's Suburbans and I know we can find some other fun old iron to join us for a weekend once the temps drop a bit.

Really cool project and I am amazed at all the custom water jet parts you make....I take it you have a shop to play in?

[Crypticracer]

This truck is one of my favs on this board, keep it up

[AA1PR]

this has tons of potential !

[Eaglefreek]

Cool as heck. Nice fab work. Are you sure about the 460 swap? We have a EFI 460 powered F350 4x4 here at work and it gets like 5-7 mpg.