Being friends with my co-founder, David Tracy, has some serious advantages, if you’re willing to really exploit some of David’s core traits. First, he’s incredibly — even selflessly — generous, and second, he has an almost uncontrollable compulsion to buy old cars. He can’t help himself, from either of these things. If you are lucky enough to be in his line of sight when these two urges surge up in his brain, consuming his thoughts entirely, making his hands ball up into fists and his mind attempt to probe Facebook Marketplace via sheer force of will, then you can make out like a bandit. I know because I did. You see, David bought a 1989 Ford F-150, and I get to effectively own it. Of course, nothing is ever truly free, as I paid significantly in shitshowery getting it back to my home.
David Could No Longer Resist The Legendary 300 Inline-Six
As you may know, David has been making a concerted effort to thin out his flock of cars, because he’s either thinking of moving or joining some cult or joining the Navy or some bullshit; I’m not entirely sure, as the plans change hourly and it’s pretty easy to tune it all out, but the point is David has decided he’s not in a place where he wants to add more cars to his fleet, but that does nothing to quell his powerful old-car-buying urges.
So, when David came across this “Bricknose” 1989 Ford F-150 on Facebook Marketplace, it had all those traits that his own peculiar set of pleasure neurons need to fire: a combination of honest wear, a certain workhorse sensibility, just the right level of mechanical stoutness, and a bunch of other ineffable but powerful traits that combine in David’s mind under the vague automotive category he calls “soul.”
I think it’s different for everyone, but in this case, for David, it worked out to a T18 four-speed manual transmission (the almost tractor-like kind with the ulta-low first “granny” gear); a bench seat; a rough, home paint job (in the pictures it looks burgundy but in person it’s very purple); and, I think most importantly to David, it had Ford’s 300 cubic inch (4.9 liter) inline-six engine, one that David has held in reverence for years, as you can see here.
It’s a legendary engine, known for its incredible indestructible nature, and I think David just desperately wants one to tinker with. So, now he finally has a chance to get one, and it’s conveniently wrapped in a whole truck, too.
I spoke with the seller, a nice man named Clark, who showed me around the truck via Facetime and confirmed that this old brute indeed had a mere 159,000 miles on it, which is pretty much just a healthy middle age for one of those Ford inline-sixes. We agreed on $2,500 for the truck, and and I made a plan to get a friend to drive me the three hours from Chapel Hill, North Carolina to the truck in rural Virginia.
David and I were as excited as a couple of schnauzers who’d just chewed through a plastic bag of frozen meatballs, and almost as smart.
My 11 year-old kid Otto came with me for this little adventure, and I loaded up all the supplies David demanded I bring: two gallons of motor oil, an oil filter, a gallon of this expensive gear oil that looks almost exactly like honey, my socket set, an adjustable wrench, an oil catch pan, and some other crap.
My friend T.Mike drove us up, and proved the fundamental tenet of truck ownership – that once you have a truck, everyone is going to want to borrow it – by asking me to move some furniture from his mom’s house (not too far away, in Virginia) before I even actually took ownership of the pickup. That’s impressive.
Our First Look At The Farm Truck
We got to where the truck lived, and found a verdant little bucolic wonder, complete with geese and chickens that my kid found delightful. 
Oh, and there were friendly, dirty little pigs, too:
And, of course, the truck looked very much at home in this storybook environment, complete with FARM USE license plates, front and rear:
I looked it over, rolling under it looking for rust (minimal! Frame rails look great!). The interior was quite clean, with its vast bench seat free of tears and the dash free of cracks. That inline-six started right up, I drove it around the block, and everything checked out just fine. Yes, I think this big old grape/eggplant/aubergine/Grimace-colored truck will work just fine.
I handed Clark an envelope full of cash, we did the traditional key-exchange/handshake photo, and I was now the owner of a truck someone else paid for — the American Dream.
At this point I was also told that the truck had a name: “The Marshall.”
As an aside, one of the details I like best about this era of F-150 is the badge typography, which is surprisingly whimsical and kooky for such a work-oriented machine:
Modern F-150 badging is much more serious and industrial-looking, without the odd, friendly curves and top-heavy look of the ’89 F-150:
I kinda like the goofier old badging, but that’s me.
Changing The Transmission Oil
The first thing David demanded I do was to change the gear oil in that old tractor-like T18 four-speed transmission, and since he’s the man who coughed up the money for the truck, I have to listen, so Otto and I found an empty industrial facility’s parking lot and crept into a corner where I could perform the oil change.
I haven’t done this sort of transmission gear oil change before; I’ve changed transmission oil before, but not this one, and doing it out far from home in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly my first choice, but what David wants, David gets. Well, at least for this.
Changing gear oil in these transmissions always requires use of a pump, and the thick, creamery gear oil we were using takes a good bit of firm pumping, which was kind of awkward under there, trying to keep the hoses from popping out and just the tiring muscling of that pump, in and out, in and out. I didn’t get a picture since I was, you know, under the truck, but it looked sort of like this:
Otto was surprisingly patient, for an 11 year-old, which I attribute to the wonder of being in an industrial parking lot full of strange, new forms of gravel and the occasional partially-crushed bit of metal.
I got the gear oil in (special “yellow metal-friendly” GL4, as David – who had seen too much water contaminated transmission oil in his day to let me drive three hours on whatever was already in the case — had requested), and was ready to head out on the road. My friend who’d driven us up texted me the address of his mom’s place where I would pick up the furniture, so we headed off.
This is the point where everything started to go to shit.
The Truck Won’t Start
For some reason, my phone wasn’t getting charged by the cigarette-lighter USB plug I had, and soon died. I needed it for directions, so we found a gas station where I could either find a little USB charger or steal some electricity from an outlet, which I eventually did. With the phone back on, I clicked the address link in his text, saw it was about two hours away, and followed my navigation.
But the truck wouldn’t start. The battery was dead. I wasn’t in a position to roll-start it, so I asked a guy with a new F-150 for a jump; he thankfully obliged. This is what your 9th grade English teacher would have called “foreshadowing,” and then underlined twice on the blackboard before turning his chair backwards and telling you that poetry is really just like rap, and old Bill Shakespeare is the baddest MC there ever was.
Driving Two Hours In The Wrong Direction Cost Me Big
We headed off, following the directions, and I was paying special attention to how the truck ran and shifted, which was very well and with some difficulty, respectively. I mean, I think that’s just how this very rugged transmission is – it takes some force to get into gear, and I think the clutch adjustment is a bit off, because it creeps a bit even with the clutch all the way in.
But, otherwise, the thing runs like a champ! It’ll do a comfortable 65 at about 2000 RPM in 4th which is better than I expected. It doesn’t feel nearly as sluggish as I thought it might, but then again, remember my usual daily driver makes about 53 hp.
The trip went fine, and we eventually got to the address and looked around to find that…it was the right address in the wrong fucking city.
I have no idea what happened, but when I clicked the link, it sent us two hours in the exact wrong direction, and I had no idea, being unfamiliar with the area and where my friend’s mom lived, and kind of focused on the truck. So all I could do when I realized what happened is to really swallow that gut-kicking slow burn of acknowledging a substantial mistake, and the parallel realization that there is precisely fuck-all you can do about it other than to just keep going.
I had to explain to Otto that our plans were going to be a bit shifted now, since we had a four hour drive back to get to where we needed to be, and then still two or so more to get back home. Luckily, I remembered some friends of mine were at their family’s farm which was on the way home, so Otto and I could get there and crash for the night, and Otto could get to see some Italian donkeys, too, so that seemed like the play.
I pushed down the pain of a dumb mistake, and we headed back, now on the correct path.
A couple hours in, we stopped for some gas and food. I foolishly turned off the truck to fill up, out of more muscle memory than anything else, and we needed yet another jump. At this point I was still thinking maybe the battery was just not holding a charge well, because of age? It took a bit to find someone to jump us, but we eventually were able to borrow a dozen volts, and off we went.
This time, though, things didn’t seem quite right. The voltmeter gauge in the dash’s needle wasn’t pointing where it was before, and night had fallen, so I had the lights on. As we were driving, the radio abruptly cut out. Then, I noticed the dash lights were dimming, and, really, all the lights were dimming. Quickly.
I realized that this wasn’t a battery issue, because it wasn’t an energy storage problem, it was an energy supply problem, because the alternator was clearly dying. Not wanting to lose all power – and with it the power steering and lights and everything – on a dark highway in the middle of nowhere, I made for the first exit I came to, which thankfully had a gas station.
I pulled in, drove into a parking place, and the truck promptly died.
Stranded At A Gas Station In Rural Virginia
So, now I’m pretty boned; the truck isn’t going to start again, and even if I could get a new battery in there, it’s not going to do much without an alternator to charge it, all of which just means that even though that straight six under the hood may be one of the most unkillable engines ever, you can sure do a good job of making it seem dead by denying it any electrical power.
I was trying to convince Otto that sleeping in the cab wouldn’t be so bad, when my friends Marian and Jeremy, of the farm with the Italian donkeys, called to tell me they found a nearby hotel and got us a room, which is a great reminder that everyone should have such good friends.
Otto and I walked to the hotel in Raphine, Virginia. Once there, Otto was excited to discover The Backrooms:
Find some kid to explain it all to you. Otto already explained it, at length, to me, but I’m not up to retelling it.
The Wrong Alternator
The next morning we went back to the truck to see if we could figure out some kind of plan: Would a jump get us to a Walmart for a battery? And with that battery could we make it to an auto parts store? I did have a stroke of luck when I found that behind the gas station was a repair shop for big rigs, and in this shop was Aaron, a Genuinely Good Guy:
Give it up for Aaron, everybody, because everyone should be so lucky to know an Aaron like this Aaron. He’d had a truck with the same Ford 300 I6, and respected the machine, which I think provided some of the willingness to help, along with what I assume is some innate kindness. He got me started with a jump box and let me park the truck by his shop. He then arranged for his wife, who was near the auto parts store about 15 miles away, to bring the alternator (David called in and ordered it, another big help!) to me so I could install it. She was heading over anyway, but still, what an incredibly kind thing to do for a stranger.
Oh, and Aaron’s wife drove this Jeep that she absolutely adored, so I’m going to include a picture of it because I think that might make her happy if we all appreciate it as well:
Lovely Jeep! Looks like it actually gets used for what it was designed for, too. I’m going to have David send her some Jeep PR swag he’s collected over the years.
Anyway, what luck, right?
Well, almost:
As you can see, the alternator that was sent over (on the right) was the wrong one. Crap.
Some Janky Alternator Wiring Got Us Back On The Road
Okay, so, Otto and I arranged for an Uber to take us to the auto parts store where we swapped the wrong one for the right one, except for some reason I can’t quite fathom, the right one had a connector different from the one that was in the truck:
Where the one in the truck had a three-prong connector for the upper connection, this new one had three separate wires. But it was all they had, and electrically, these wires must do the same things as the ones connected to the connector pins, so I had to make do.
Of course, that didn’t stop me from complaining:
Even though I complained, and was certainly not happy to be stuck because of a bum alternator, I do have to say I actually learned to appreciate a lot of the qualities of a dirt-common F-150 from all this. First, as someone who is more used to having to scour the internet for parts for my Nissan Pao and then have to pay crazy shipping money to get them from Japan or the U.K. or wherever, you can find an ’89 F-150 alternator in stock at a random auto parts store, no problem. On a Sunday. And it’s cheap.
Plus, it’s not that big a deal to install! It’s right there, on the top front of the engine, and while it looks like there’s a lot of stuff you’d have to remove to get to it, you don’t, because the alternator is housed in its own little C-shaped mounting bracket:
Two bolts, two plugs, and then someone with a pry bar to help you move the pulley tensioner (again, thank you, Aaron!) to get the belt off, and that’s it! This was a way harder job on my Yugo, which has the alternator on the bottom of the engine, or even on my Beetle, which has it in a good position, but the alternator shaft also is the shaft of the engine’s cooling fan, so that’s a whole other deal.
One other note about working on this F-150: As a short dude used to working on tiny cars, this was an adjustment. I’m used to looking down into the engine bays of the Pao or Yugo or Beetle; this one was at the sort of height that made me feel like a little kid trying to steal candy off a high counter. Plus, all the components are so much bigger than what I’m used to; everything feels like it’s made of locomotive parts. It’s just all about 40% bigger than everything I’m used to. But, I adapted. And stood on things to reach stuff.
I got the old alternator out, got the new one in with a bit of crappy wire-splicing, had Aaron correct my belt routing, and holy crap, it worked:
Just look again at how janky this connector solution is:
I’m still kind of amazed that held up.
[Editor’s Note: I’m Fixing this ASAP. There’s too much current going through that for me to deal with that level of jank. And I’m a jank connoisseur, as you know. -DT]
But hold up it did, and we finally made it to my friend’s donkey-haven about 15 minutes before they left, so we got to see donkeys, and I regret I didn’t take a picture of that. Sorry. But here’s the truck at the farm, victoriously, next to my friend Jeremy, and Franklin, his dog/accountant:
From there, we made it home without incident, though I didn’t turn it off when we got gas, because it just wasn’t worth the risk. We were tired and I was very, very filthy from being in and under that thing, but I’m very excited we made it home, safe-ish and sound-ish enough, and I look forward to doing all kinds of things – including Changli hauling – with this truck.
Oh, one little post-script to the story: after driving it around a bunch today, just enjoying it and getting used to it, I was heading home when I heard a god-awful sound, like I ran over a robot who was now struggling desperately to get free. I pulled over and looked behind the truck and saw this:
Yeah, that would be the muffler. Honestly, I can’t tell any difference in sound with it off, so I’m wondering if it was ever really connected at all.
I have a feeling The Marshall is going to keep things exciting for me.
This is all relatable, I spent a few years driving an 87 F350 dually for work and I like everything about this generation except the opera windows on the Super Cab. I’ve also pumped gear oil, fortunately only a BMW motorcycle transmission worth and had an epic alternator fail at midnight in Kansas City on the way to our wedding.
I appreciate my current truck which spent most of its life at a glass shop and is both low mileage and only has visible dents inside the bed. I got a lot of use this weekend towing an excavator, hauling lumber and cement and currently need to do a dump run since it’s full of lumber and dirt. Mine’s an 02 F150 4×2 Super Cab long bed and I value that 8′ box even when though it’s 20′ long and hard to park.
I always wanted to know who green lit the stylistic choice of the opera windows (I always called them the “stupid rear windows”). Were they windows that were used on another Ford product so it was some sort of cost savings? Or did they honestly think it looked good?
the only strandings I’ve had in a long and chequered career of driving cheap used cars, were all due to alternator problems..
lived in a $2000 1982 Ford Econoline 150 for a year once, early 90s. This had the manual 4sp and that 300 engine, ran like a champ all the years I owned it. Biggest problem was leaks in that tangle of vacuum lines related to emissions controls, causing weird idle problems. I had to give up my attempts at understanding those and get a real mechanic.
It was excellent for stealth, slept in many a hotel parking lot, with only two fails – a thief in Durango came around trying for an open car, woke us up; and Salt Lake City, cop trailed us into parking lot and told us to move on.
In San Francisco the cop stopped us as we got out, advised us to put the bikes inside the car or they would be stolen.. no problems in any other town.
In a Canadian wilderness somewhere, a small black bear woke us up by playing with the bikes on the rear rack.. he liked the way the wheels spun.
Once back in cubicle life and imprisoned for most of the working week, the van became a sort of getaway car.. canoes on top, bikes on the back, everything else packed inside, just needed to add a cooler with food and beer on Friday afternoon. Drive anywhere, park, get in the back and go to sleep.. Sold it in the early 2000s when we needed to fit a second infant car seat, still regret selling it.
Pictured with first infant helping me fit a new fuel line, https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52114038969_85a29c9acc_z.jpg
I really want to know what Otto thinks of the truck. (And kinda scared to find out what your wife thinks of it.)
He’s a big fan!
More importantly, what does Otto think of the floor mounted high beam switch? Man I miss those things. Wait……did the manual have the floor mounted high beam switch?!
I think it went away with the 1987 facelift. If it didn’t it must be the only US-market vehicle with composite headlights controlled by a floor dimmer switch (or at least the only post-1940 one).
Our 89 still had it but that was a two-pedal version. Curious if they still used it it in the more crowded 3 pedal version as wel…..
Years ago when I had my 89 with the 4.9, the alternator went out. so i went to the local chain parts store and got another one. It didn’t come with the pulley, so the guy at the store would take your old one and pull the pulley off and put it on the new one. I get home put it together and it’s not charging, so back to the parts store for a second one, that one didn’t charge either. So back another time, I watch the guy swap the pulley, wack it on with a hammer effectively ruining the alternator. I told him, give me a different one, I’ll put the pulley on myself. It was fine then. They also include a new pig tail as they would corrode badly (at the time this was an 8 year old truck).
It’ll run forever, but a part is gonna fail on every road trip. That’s an established Marshall law.
Wouldn’t an edit option be nice?
It’ll run forever, but a part is gonna til on every road trip. That’s an established Marshall law.
“Otto was surprisingly patient, for an 11 year-old, which I attribute to the wonder of being in an industrial parking lot full of strange, new forms of gravel and the occasional partially-crushed bit of metal.”
In one sentence you took me back to my childhood. Scouring the gravel while dad conducts whatever business/project/conversation he was involved with. Looking for little secrets the crushed rock might hold. All while a 1989 F-150 waits to take us down the road to our next destination. Paul Harvey playing on the radio.
Thanks Torch!
When I was racing at Brainerd a family with some kids stopped by. We sent them out around the track after racing was done. It was amazing how much junk they picked up out of the grass around the track.
Brainerd was the first nitro drag event I ever went to…..pretty sure I picked through the dirt while walking the pits with dad. He still loves telling the story of how high I jumped the first time a funny car hit a burnout!
I literally had a conversation with my 12 year old yesterday about The Backrooms. Amazingly, I was able to stifle both yawns and rolling eyes for what seemed like an eternity, or five minutes in real time.
I always think it’s ridiculous the things kids get excited about. For instance, his latest obsession is building entire shopping malls in Bloxburg. Then I rummage through trunk of detritus I have from my childhood and I’m amazed at the things I was obsessed with at his age.
Maybe they’re not so ridiculous after all.
I’m aware of liminal space as a thing and know that kenopsia isn’t the place Gremlins came from, but being kidless myself this article and the linked wiki is the first I’d heard of The Backrooms and the specific lore attached to it.
Torch, I feel your pain. I torched (yes, intended) a nice stereo this weekend by applying reverse polarity. Knowing there are others out others like you and David suffering in kind helped ease my desire to eat a bullet. Yes, that’s a selfish way of thinking, but nonetheless thank you for sharing your tribulations so fellow dipshits like me feel less bad about our own idiocy.
Also, Otto seems like a really awesome kid!
Oof – I feel for the delivery guys who’re constantly showing up at my house because I share my address with another house in the same city (minor quirk from amalgamation of several boroughs 25 years ago), and that’s only a half hour away. Going 4 hours in the wrong direction would cause some minor cursing.
That said, no AC and vinyl seats? I hope you’ve at least got the sliding rear window – I remember absolutely baking in my ’90, moving home in the middle of June (and that at least had cloth seats).
At first I was impressed by the $2500 price tag. I have a 94 F250 that will be up for sale. Market price is the only way to determine a selling price on these older trucks, so I really try to keep my eyes out on the selling prices for similar vehicles. But then came the Farm Plates and the issues… Yeah, that was a $2500 F150.
Oh man I miss my ’92. It had the auto transmission but that straight six was amazing. It was also the only part of the truck that didn’t have problems.
Am I the only one who knows the trick of buying a battery at Autozone, driving to the next autozone, and returning it and buying another one? I once made it home 300 miles this way, buying and returning 3 batteries. Hillbilly Hopscotch, I believe it’s called.
Holy crap, that is genius. Thank you for the morning belly laugh.
I’d love to see this adventure turned into an old-timey silent movie. Something about fixing cars by the side of the road just rings of the early days of motoring. Even driving two hours in the wrong direction sticks the plot.
“Plus, it’s not that big a deal to install!”
I’m glad the install went well for you. Replacing the alternator on my ’93 was a little more involved. You see that cast bracket the alternator is bolted to? Well that bracket is aluminum. The steel bolt fused to the aluminum over the years and would not budge. I ended up breaking the aluminum bracket in the process of trying to free the bolt. Turns out no one makes a replacement part anymore and used ones were hard to find as well. That’s how I ended up with a spare 300 engine in my garage…just for the bracket. Speaking of which…David…do you want an engine out of a ’96? I sold my truck so it’s just collecting dust in my garage now.
So, uhh… I might want one. Whereabouts are you?
I just noticed this post since you apparently don’t get any sort of notification if someone replies to you one here? Anyway, I’m in SE Wisconsin if you’re legit interested.
Also I might add…we could really use am edit button lmao. And I grew up in a 80.f150 with a straight 6. Up untill we had our 89 with a 351 we only used 300s.
We would make such good friends…we do what you guys do nearly on a weekly basis here in south Georgia. See inown a kustom car shop, my best friend owns an upholstery shop…other friends have custom rides we’ve done for them etc etc… So I buy a truck (79 Chevy Ramp truck) courtesy of 2am market ace stalking… A city over from us, paid the man and asked my friend to help haul it ( my trailer is a foot to short and my excursion is making God awful racket from up front). Should we use my 40ft good neck ? Good idea! Nope let’s just use Richards 18ft dovetail car hauler complete with winch! So I wait at Richards house on. A Friday afternoon for gary with his dodge 3500 diesel to come grab the trailer… Ride there with my friend and shops mechanics David on his air ride 67 C10.. Gary…I’m on my way 35 minutes.
Well 2 hours later he shows up…says..I’m right on time! Lol ???? so we hook up and stroke out! We get there with minimal light left. It’s at am old school body shop with 50eleven vehicles smashed around it. We have to push it backwards into a hole…. There’s no stealing column…sigh…get the pry bar and move the wheels. Luckily this 8000 lbs beast ( no engine either) rolls easily…honestly a sparrow fart could move this thing. Yay! Small victories! We line it up back up the trailer. Gary…where’s the winch battery? I tell him in the winch box, asks another question ” do you have the key?” POKERFACE….. No… Well he’s like I can’t remove my truck battery as I didn’t bring any tools! David steps in…I got some jumpers, so David off-roads his lowered bagged 66 C10 over and we hook up the winch via jumpers to his truck horray for another small victory! Winches right up on the trailer and about 8 inches to spare! Get it all strapped up and remember I said this is a dove tail right? Well it’s firmly planted into the ground on the rear. Eh? It’s just how we’re parked on the hill…ok we pull off…it’s ” kinda” dragging… Pull through the NEIGHBORS yard ( ditch wasn’t an option at this point). Did we hurt the yard? YES WE DID! HIT THE GAS GARY! SCEEEERRRRRRRHGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGG… Gary is just dragging the trailer down the road, we get what we think is a safe distance and down a side street to evade pursuit by the neighbors for cutting a new track in their front lawn to finally asses WTF we have going on. No engine and trans made a RAMP truck very heavy on the ass end…of a dove trailer. What do we do? We’re not leaving it, thinking…thinking. well if we put a larger drop hitch on maybe it will lift the rear enough to make it back! ZOOOM me and David take off like a nascar on cocaine to Walmart find a drop hitch that goes 6.75 down unfortunately only rated at 5000 lbs total… We’re like we easily got 9k total.. eh… Let’s send it. Get back and swap out hitches luckily we had a jack. Set the trailer back down. And proceeded to lift the back of his 3500 dodge a solid inch off the ground… Damnit now what? There’s an old trailer park next to where we stopped. Hmmm… I crawl under what I presume was an abandoned trailer and start bringing bricks back and piling them on the front of the trailer and rear of the truck bed. Now that the truck is finally back on the ground we have some operating room on the back of the trailer…a whole 3 Inches!.. just about that time the trailer door swing open and billybob with his shotgun runs out yelling it’s too GD late to be hearing all that shit and to get the hell out of here! Sir we’re leaving right now! Also don’t want to be around later when he find out the 20 middle feet of his trailer isn’t supported and or will know when it bends by the morning, I honestly thought it was abandoned.
So…1030 ish? We’re mobile but very slow.. 20 through town a few sparks here and there no biggie. Get out on the main road that connects towns… Get to 30mph…ahhh hell back end of the dually swinging like chubby checker on meth.,.. 28mph is now our sweat spot for 50 more miles!
.
David’s C10 barely shifts into 2md gear and so all we hear is the low drone of the big 2 chamber flow masters the whole way. Finally make it to my house/ shop just shy of 12 am. Unloaded and good to go by 1230.
We talk…what we getting tomorrow? Gary said idc as long as we take the gooseneck this time!
Brother, same.
Everyone in unison: “The 300 inline six is unkillable”
David Tracy, pulling out resume of all-iron inline sixes he’s pulled heads on: “Hold my beer.”
I’m kidding of course, love you like a brother, David. But a little griefing is okay. In all fairness, I got as close as I ever thought to killing one myself. I’ll cut and paste an earlier post about how my dumb ass almost killed a 300:
“That 4.9 inline six is unstoppable. Every exaggerated legend you heard is true. I owned a ’75 F100 Ranger with one. The antifreeze wasn’t up to the task of staying liquid in the -30°F ND winter I drove it in years ago. The antifreeze…well it froze in the block. The engine overheated spectacularly and I had to pull over.
A few days later, I had it towed to my garage where it sat until spring where I expected massive carnage. I was never so excitedly disappointed. Changed the oil and coolant and she ran like a champ after that. Helped me move all my stuff to my new house later that year. A year after that, I changed the head gasket as a reward for outstanding service and preventative maintenance, not necessity.”
Thank god someone said it…I just saw DT call this I6 unkillable and immediately recall just a few articles ago him discussing replacing 4 heads on another unkillable I6! ????
To be sure though I have the Jeep I6 and 21 years and 160k miles and it runs great in my TJ (apparently that makes a difference) despite having the electric fan cut out twice and me not noticing quick enough. Following DTs advice and getting an oil analysis done as las time was just a few weeks ago.
Oops…you were saying that this one actually is unkillable!
It’s one tough unit. I’d argue it’s possibly tougher than the 3FE, and they both have timing gears. A lot of engines get the moniker “bulletproof” but this one actually stands up to the hype IMO.
Oh the joy of the Borg-Warner T-18 transmission!
This was the big boy I had on my 79 CJ7 bolted to my 304 V8 (and according to the VIN, that’s how it was ordered! Also without power steering or brakes, but that’s another story.)
The great thing about it was that once you reached 25 MPH, you were officially done shifting.
Now about this – “(David called in and ordered it, another big help!)”. Apparently not. What you achieved was the equivalent of saying “It could be worse. It could be raining!” by calling his name.
All that being said, I saw a similar 150 Custom at a car show this weekend and it was super nice.
Yep. I have a T-19w in my Scout (a T-18 with synchro) and can confirm the 25mph shift ceiling, but with the gearing and tire ratio, I can cruise at 65-70 on the highway. Thankfully, it does have power steering and upgraded brakes.
I don’t know about that. I live in rural Virginia (and I don’t know that I consider anything north of Roanoke truly ‘rural’. Hmph) and people here just throw ‘Farm Use’ on anything to avoid paying registration. I regularly pass a Festiva with Farm Use tags that I can’t imagine doing any farm duty. I believe that law is changing soon.
I *need* farm a truck, though it seems this one was a little outside of my search area. I am more than a bit dismayed that David Tracy is competing with me for the clunkers we both probably don’t need.
I also see more late-model F Series “farm trucks” that say Platinum and King Ranch on the side than I do the classic beater truck. I’m in South Carolina so maybe it’s more of a tax dodge in this part of the country where the weather doesn’t make steel turn into red dust. I’m pretty sure any old truck worth a damn down here has either been restored or is collecting dust somewhere while the owner gets around to it.
My temporary repair woulda been to cut off the connector, strip both sets of wires back a few inches, connect them together with Western Union splices (Google it, I can’t do links here) and then give them some nice tight wrappings of electrical tape, at least three passes. Then I would fix it right whenever I got around to it, because realistically it would probably be fine like that forever.
Ha!
I learned the Western Union splice in shop class back in the early ’70’s.
Teacher showed us one already done, handed us a couple 6″ lengths of 12 gauge solid copper wire, and said have at it.
Kids without a clue stripped it about half way and started wrapping. Four turns in, they were out of wire. No do overs with solid copper.
I stripped all but the last ½” and barely got my eight wraps.
Thanks for the flashback.
Glad you made it. However, I guess that you didn’t get the memo on Ford 2g alternator harnesses burning to the ground. At one time, replacements used to come with a new harness to avoid fire.
Also, the clutch creep is a bad slave cylinder. It’s a 4 speed, so it uses an external slave cylinder, so it is easy to replace. DON’T mess up the hose those. Replacements were not available for a long time, so don’t be cutting and hacking the hose to replace it. There is a roll pin to knock out.
I bought him a new master/slave cylinder/hose. $115.
Glad they are available now. $115 sounds like a deal these days, especially if it is already bled.
I had one too! 1989 Custom with the 300, T18, 3.08 and 4×4. Bought it as a retired farm truck with an indeterminate number of miles (5 digit odo), allegedly had a long block replaced so I suspect well over 300k. Not too rusty but south east Kansas sun had baked off most of the paint, lots of bare galvanized. When I moved I rented the biggest trailer u-haul would give me, filled it with my record collection, my diesel tech tool box and everything else heavy in my house and drove it 800 miles across the midwest. Some of the bigger hills on I-35 required second gear, but she made it. Over that summer it got used as a tractor and an ATV in central Wisconsin, it was never the same after all that… it had zero oil pressure at idle and would clatter if it idled too long, would not start hot, but it always started cold and ran great. I drove it for 12,000 miles like that. Sold it when the original-to-the-truck transfer case started popping out of gear. Never could get the rear tank to work right… I’d appreciate a deep dive on that switching valve too.
David:
If you ever see a rust free, wood paneled, AMC Eagle wagon up for sale and want to scratch the car buying itch…Call me.
“a rough, home paint job (in the pictures it looks burgundy but in person it’s very purple)”
Nope, looks super purple in the pics as well. Congrats on the new wheels and surviving an adventure without any real harm done to you or Otto.