Thread: 1989 F150, Back to life, back story and PICS

Hey guys,

I figure I'll go ahead and start a thread on my old Ferd. Believe it or not, this was my baby before the GTP came along, then the GTP was bought and became the focus of my Gearhead OCD for about 4 years. The story is my Grandpa bought the truck brand new when I was 4 and slapped a pop up camper on it. Whenever I was on a break from school, my Grandparents and I went travelling. By the time I was 17 or 18, I had been to 38 states in it. Here's one of the first pics I have of it. From 1991, somewhere in Oregon:

And the man himself:

He gave it to me for my 21st Bday with 55,000 on the clock. Knowing me, I couldn't leave well enough alone, and had to mod it (it was BONE stock when I got it). I started with a Saginaw PS upgrade (easier steering and no Ford whine), 130a alternator, and F350 brakes (booster, MC, and rear wheel cylinders). After that, she got dual Taurus e-fans which supposedly move 6500CFM each on High. Somewhere along the lines I installed smaller stuff, like a stereo, Autopage Remote start, 9007 conversion with relays, etc. About that time, I was laid off from BofA, with my wife 7 months pregnant with our son. We had decided on moving to MO after he was born, but BofA changed our minds for us. We loaded up everything we owned in the truck (no trailer) and moved across the country. Yay.

Once we got here and Danny was born, I was able to get back into playing with the truck. I had a battery die, being that an Autozone was over an hour away, I bought a Walmart battery, then drove to replace the Autozone battery. Since I ended up with 2 batteries, I put them both in the truck. I also picked up some GT40P heads, hot tanked them and had them milled\checked over, installed them, along with a Mustang Ho roller cam with roller lifters. Shortly after that was a 4+1 mod (more clutches) in the 8.8, a MAF swap, and some other odds and ends. Oh yea, my mother in law gave me some turbines off of an old van she had. Here's some pics of that,
GT40Ps:

During Roller conversion, I had to use sh*tty Foxbody headers because of the GT40P's plug angle:

Engine bay:

Truck:


Since the engine got so much loving I went ahead and installed a Transgo shift kit into the AOD. Whoops. It never shifted right again. I contacted Transgo and went through the entire install again taking pictures and showing them, checked the TV pressure in more ways than I can count (5), and it never shifted right. It'd hold 1st until something like 30 MPH no matter how much gas I gave it, and SLAMMED into 2nd, then when it got into 4th it'd drop out whenever it felt like...which was awesome. A combination of that stuff, along with some running issues, and the fact that my wife got pregnant with our second child led me to buying the GTP....brought me to this here site where I met you glorious assholes. The truck basically sat for 4 years at that point...like this:


In November of 2016, Grandpa passed away. I promised myself to do 2 things n 2017, go visit Grandma so she can meet Zoey (second kid), and get the truck back on the road. Well, getting to AZ proved to be fun, thanks to school and work, it happened in July. Good thing is I was able to save money and get a promotion during that time. When we got back, I got in touch with Silverfox and explained the transmission problems I had. For $310, he built me a VB and shipped it to me from KC, MO. I bought new batteries, changed fluids and filters, and disconnected the FPR and coil wire. I turned the truck over for about 30 seconds to prime the oil pump (I watched the gauge), then connect the coil and FPR up. She fired like I drove her yesterday, with a nasty belt squeak. I let it run for awhile to warm up, topped off the transmission, and went to drive it...just to find I had no brakes. A new MC and later a new Booster fixed that, and it drove pretty well, all things considered. Even passed inspection (although in MO that's not saying much). Here's what she looked like at that point:

To get rid of the belt squeak, I ended up installing a smog pump bypass, and gatorback belt. I did some cleaning up on the tensioner, too:

When I installed the GT40Ps, I never upgraded the valve springs, so those were up next:


Installed:

After that came the general tune up with wires (believe it or not, I have Chevy 305 wires on there due to the 90* boots), plug, another fuel filter, air filter cleaning, etc. Check out the plug wires:

And ends of the plugs:

Then, learning what I picked up here, I did an LED conversion on everything except the headlights:

Added some door lights, converted the interior (added a few more lights), added hood lights, and bed lights:




Enough with the boring stuff, fun stuff comes now. With some wheeling and dealings, I ended up with some Hedman LT headers. I hot tanked those, painted them with ceramic paint, and had them installed with true duals and FM40s. Pics:



Looks like I reached my 25 pic limit, so continued on post 2!

Headers Installed:


Then...to take car of these...they're only from 2006...

I had a bit of a change of direction with the truck. I decided to go for the whole street truck look. It's a long bed, but it's also a 2WD, if I swapped it over to 4WD I'd ding and dent it up playing around, and I want it to stay "clean" in Grandpa's honor. I picked up some Gen 2 Lightning replicas with some Nitto 295 45 18s on them...which gave the truck a gloriously horrible wheel gap. Looked like her skirt was hiked up everywhere she went...

So I went ahead and ordered a Belltech drop kit, lowering it 2 inches in the front on progressive springs, and 3-4 inches in the rear. I just got that installed on Thursday, still need to get an alignment:


Tuesday, I'm installing these:



That pretty much brings us up to current. Believe it or not, I have many, MANY more pics of it all. The only real problems with the truck now are a slight pinion seal leak (which I'm hoping to use as an excuse to goto 4.10s), an oil pan leak, and spongy brakes. The only thing that really has me stumped is the stupid brakes. I've clamped off all hoses with no difference from one hose to the next, done a full brake job, replaced the MC twice, bleed about 6 quarts of fluid through it, etc. At this point, I'm going to replace the 3 hoses, then replace the booster again. Then it's ALL new. Again. Sorry for the very length post, but what do you guys think?

Here's the rocker install. All of the push rods were a tad to short, so I rigged up a jig on the bench grinder to grind some off. I used a right angle to make sure they were still flat. I did check the contact points with the sharpie and whatnot, I just didn't get pics of it. 1\2 turn seemed to be the sweet spot. Here's a ground down pedestal:



One side:


Other side:

All done, with the rockers, lol:



I primed the oil pump until I saw oil pressure on the gauge, and the fired it. It's actually VERY quiet. I can hear them if I listen for them, but my GTP (which one has roller fulcrums) is louder. I've only driven it home and so far, so good. I didn't get into it, but I did notice a difference climbing the hills.

You have something to be very proud of. Looks great!

Amazing job man. You are (as usual) going all out.

Thanks guys, it's come a long way for sure. I still have plans, but for now...it's currently 13*F outside. At some point, I'll probably get rid of this ABS crap. It's got a poor design with a dump valve (no pump), and the dump valve is prone to getting stuck. I think that is the root of my brake problems, since basically everything else is new. Other than that, I've been tossing around the idea of a GT40 intake conversion. The truck intake has longer runners, but horrible distribution, so I dunno. Decisions, decisions.