To continue project or??

IDIoit, I really love to see people make things like this...to me it's functional art.

Thanks for posting that...it's an inspirational photo for me.

I am still at the stage of figuring out how to re do the dashboard on my van. I want to build a "Back to the Future" style contraption and mix very old and new technology...just for the clash of the latest touch panels, and ancient tech.

Still a plain old white panel van outside.

The whole shebang will be started up by keying in some Morse code on a telegraph key. If it's the correct code, the van will power up. Else it will just play games with you and display technocrap on it's displays.

I will even have sound effects.


The computer programming and electronics is no problem. I've done that for 50 years. However I am going to have to get help for the mechanical stuff. Even something as trivial as building a replacement dashboard is beyond me.

I am going to spend money for transportation one way or another...

I echo dgr.... The cab's gone. Swap it out. Get some help. Your physical truck has worn parts, which need to be replaced.

But, your truck lives in you. It's your memories and knowledge of it. The cab, the engine, water pump, or light bulb are only parts. It's the assemblage of all those parts, in precise order as reflected in your being, that constitutes your truck.

Once you have adopted it, it is like anything else you have loved, pets, people, places, and removing it leaves a big empty space. Many memories involve your truck. They all tie together. Maybe, consider it as a souvenir.

I intend to make a lot of memories in mine. And leave it to my family.

It's only a truck? Consider Sulaco. Towcat's truck. I believe everyone here has feelings about that truck, even if they only knew Towcat by the reputation he left here.

These are works of art once someone adopts them and pours their heart and soul into them, much like an artist transforms stuff into a creation of his own. I sure like reading here of IDIoit adopting the Sulaco and what he's doing with it. Towcat lives on with the memories he left. The Sulaco is not just another truck.

Neither is yours, once you've adopted it

BeastMaster said:

IDIoit, I really love to see people make things like this...to me it's functional art.

Thanks for posting that...it's an inspirational photo for me.

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Agreed.

Plus: https://www.oilburners.net/threads/1989-f-250-7-3-project.83864/page-9#post-1035587

Not meant to be a dig, insult, or anything like that. But what a contrast to considering getting rid of an entire truck because of a little rust.

Pelky, maybe hacked89 can share a bit of inspiration with you?

Have you thought about buying another car/truck so you could drive something reliable while you fix your truck?

Selahdoor said:

Agreed.

Plus: https://www.oilburners.net/threads/1989-f-250-7-3-project.83864/page-9#post-1035587

Not meant to be a dig, insult, or anything like that. But what a contrast to considering getting rid of an entire truck because of a little rust.

Pelky, maybe hacked89 can share a bit of inspiration with you?

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In his defense, I don't see where he talked about junking it (I'm not giving you a hard time, I'm just defending him ). Simply asked if a cab swap was worth it with limited time and resources.

I completely understand. A cab swap is not a quick easy job. No it's not horrible but it's a good bit of work and a single father (kudos to you BTW, tough job) with limited time it's quite a chore.

I'm sure you could knock it out in a weekend if you have help. Given your current situation, needing a vehicle, limited time, I'd pick from two choices.

1. Get something else reliable to drive in the meantime (even if it's the Bronco) and just do the cab swap.

2. Find a nice crew cab, swap your stuff to the nicer truck, then do a cab swap at your leisure and sell it. This way if you have second thoughts, you can always sell the new one instead. Sure the truck is crush value with rust in your area, but crew cabs in decent shape are getting harder and harder to find. If you can sell it for a couple grand, sure beats crush value!

Either way I would fix it. or... at least I would intend to for years while it sat in the yard.... dont be like me

Seems like you are burned out as was already mentioned. Don't give up! I think you are on the right path with the idea of pulling the dash (might find a nice JY one while it is out) and do a thorough repair. Do a firewall cut and splice. while it is being repaired add some reinforcing material so the clutch always feels stable. Nice truck, you just need some encouragement. Do you have any pic-n-pull buddies that can dive into this with you?

chillman88 said:

In his defense, I don't see where he talked about junking it (I'm not giving you a hard time, I'm just defending him ). Simply asked if a cab swap was worth it with limited time and resources.

I completely understand. A cab swap is not a quick easy job. No it's not horrible but it's a good bit of work and a single father (kudos to you BTW, tough job) with limited time it's quite a chore.

I'm sure you could knock it out in a weekend if you have help. Given your current situation, needing a vehicle, limited time, I'd pick from two choices.

1. Get something else reliable to drive in the meantime (even if it's the Bronco) and just do the cab swap.

2. Find a nice crew cab, swap your stuff to the nicer truck, then do a cab swap at your leisure and sell it. This way if you have second thoughts, you can always sell the new one instead. Sure the truck is crush value with rust in your area, but crew cabs in decent shape are getting harder and harder to find. If you can sell it for a couple grand, sure beats crush value!

Either way I would fix it. or... at least I would intend to for years while it sat in the yard.... dont be like me

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True. And a good point. I hope I didn't come across as insulting. It certainly wasn't my intention.

To be honest, my "intention" was to try to encourage him to maybe take a lesser route than replacing the cab. If he is the one who will be driving it, wouldn't reinforcing the firewall be easier?

Cut out the rust while you are at it. And treat the remaining metal. Now the rust is gone, the firewall is reinforced, and it's back to being the reliable daily driver that you already know everything about...

pastorjeep said:

Seems like you are burned out as was already mentioned. Don't give up! I think you are on the right path with the idea of pulling the dash (might find a nice JY one while it is out) and do a thorough repair. Do a firewall cut and splice. while it is being repaired add some reinforcing material so the clutch always feels stable. Nice truck, you just need some encouragement. Do you have any pic-n-pull buddies that can dive into this with you?

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Burned out. Also a good observation.

And good suggestions to get past that.


Seriously, Pelky. In the long run it would be cheaper and easier to just fix the problem, without making a major re-fit of it. And you'll end up with a truck that you already know all about.

As opposed to buying someone else's problems. You buy any other vehicle, and you have zero knowledge of what kind of problems are about to occur, or what problems they hid, so they could sell it.

Selahdoor said:

True. And a good point. I hope I didn't come across as insulting. It certainly wasn't my intention.

To be honest, my "intention" was to try to encourage him to maybe take a lesser route than replacing the cab. If he is the one who will be driving it, wouldn't reinforcing the firewall be easier?

Cut out the rust while you are at it. And treat the remaining metal. Now the rust is gone, the firewall is reinforced, and it's back to being the reliable daily driver that you already know everything about...

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Cliche but the metal that's welded in is usually stronger than what's around it, I wouldn't worry about that.
Example - the surrounding cab beams would break before my new cab mounts break.

Anything can be fixed. Even the frame.
Towcat told me my wiring harness was the worst he's seen in his 30 years of trucks.

There's not much more to discuss.
Your truck would be advertised as "Super clean, desert truck, no rust" in my area.
My trucks craigslist ad didn't mention anything about rust or wiring.

I'm not going to speculate on your mental state.
But..

1.
If you're burned out from working on it - give it a couple weeks and see how you feel

2.
If you're tired of it and over it - get rid of it. It doesnt make logical sense but if it makes you happy then do it.

I know once your mind is made up and you feel negative about it then you just want something different.
You asked if it makes logical sense or what direction you should go in.

It doesn't make technical or logical sense to get rid of that truck instead of fixing it.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

I’ll just say this, if it were my truck I would put another cab on it and it would be worth 6-8k in my area easy.

Thewespaul said:

I’ll just say this, if it were my truck I would put another cab on it and it would be worth 6-8k in my area easy.

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Yeah that’s why I wouldn’t be able to sell it because I know a cab swap would bring the value up to 6x how it’s sitting, say if I were to decide to sell it “as is” even with all the current work I’d be lucky to see 1500$ in my area because we don’t have rust issues any rusted trucks with damage like mine are condemned to the salvage yard or crushers after the hot ticket items are gone. Looks like I’m gonna attempt to fix it and drive the gasoline chugging beast of a bronco after the tear down begins just gotta find a set of half decent 33’s of market place for the bronco to be mobile as it’s sitting on 15 year old smoothed Toyos lol

pelky350 said:

Looks like I’m gonna attempt to fix it and drive the gasoline chugging beast of a bronco after the tear down begins just gotta find a set of half decent 33’s of market place for the bronco to be mobile as it’s sitting on 15 year old smoothed Toyos lol

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Sounds like incentive to get it done quickly.

Okay so now it’s been raining a few days and this year my windshield is leaking everywhere, my visor is leaking and a old cb antenna mount is leaking dead center of my roof into my dome light and has now ruined my headliner, what sealant would be best to cover all these holes and leaks up before my trucks interior is ruined? I’ve got 1-2 weeks of solid sunny and 70’s weather before it starts raining for the next 4-5 months and snow. Windshield I may just have replaced it’s cracked anyway but the rest needs some attention and the rain gutters are probably leaking too from what it looks like. The maybe some clear stuff or white would be best but trucks lifted on 35’s can’t really see the roof unless your higher than the truck

Here's some motivation, one of my long time local customers owns a 84 crew cab f350 with a 7.3 and ZF swapped in, solid chevy axle conversion and steering, complete hypermax turbo kit and intercooler with a custom flatbed. Unfortunately, earlier this year his truck was in the middle of a highway pileup and he got hit by a school bus, luckily he was fine but the truck was totalled. I gave away a spare crew cab I had for $200, and he straightened the frame horns with a porta power, did all the body work and cab swap in his driveway, and just scheduled a tuning session next week with me which hes going to drive the truck down for the first time fresh from the rebuild two hours down to my shop. He doesnt have any special tools, he painted the cab on the back of a flatbed trailer which he built into a temporary paint booth, and the paint looks better than a lot of professional paint jobs I see on these old trucks. I hate to see these trucks rust away, lets keep the old iron on the road!

Thewespaul said:

Here's some motivation, one of my long time local customers owns a 84 crew cab f350 with a 7.3 and ZF swapped in, solid chevy axle conversion and steering, complete hypermax turbo kit and intercooler with a custom flatbed. Unfortunately, earlier this year his truck was in the middle of a highway pileup and he got hit by a school bus, luckily he was fine but the truck was totalled. I gave away a spare crew cab I had for $200, and he straightened the frame horns with a porta power, did all the body work and cab swap in his driveway, and just scheduled a tuning session next week with me which hes going to drive the truck down for the first time fresh from the rebuild two hours down to my shop. He doesnt have any special tools, he painted the cab on the back of a flatbed trailer which he built into a temporary paint booth, and the paint looks better than a lot of professional paint jobs I see on these old trucks. I hate to see these trucks rust away, lets keep the old iron on the road

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That trucks gives me motivation to fix mine and keep it.

The motivations there, the time is hard to come by these days. The truck started out under a tree covered in moss and full of mice, basically on its way to a scrap yard until I offered double scrapper value at 600$ as they thought it was hopeless but I drove it away with only needing to jump the starter solenoid and 1 minute of cranking I drove off after it sat for many years and then it just never quit lol now I need to stop this water leaking though because it’s gonna ruin the interior, it’s literally raining inside my cab

pelky350 said:

now I need to stop this water leaking though because it’s gonna ruin the interior, it’s literally raining inside my cab

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FlexSeal?