1976 Ford F250 Crewcab Highboy build 76fordcrew

[Mannysouza]

Okay,
I am going to post a build thread from the start. So her we go!

In 2019 I picked up a 2012 BMW 135i.
I was the first car I have ever owned. I only pwned trucks up until this point. I bought it cheap because it was neglected but I saw that it could be cleaned up. Anyways this is a whole nother story but this car is what started the crew cab build. On a very cold morning with summer tires I wrapped it around a pole. Like sliding on a hockey puck.



With the insurance money which was way more than I had in it I started looking for a crewcab ford. An old one. I wanted something to cruise around with the family. Oldforcrewcabs2 posted a crewcab that wasn’t a bad price for sale down in Baja. Completely stock crewcab 4x4 steps side with a straight 6 and a 4 speed. Me and the guy talked briefly and agreed on a price and he would meet me in San Diego with a title. So I bought two plane tickets and drug my son with me for an adventure. This was March of 2020. It was a week before the Covid lockdowns, only three other people were on the plane.




The truck was running but no way ready for a 450 mile drive home but we were committed. Stopped at home depot to buy some nuts and bolts to make it more road worthy. Well we would stop every 75-100 miles to pound in the leaf spring bolts and fill up the coolant. Well ate breakfast in Beverly hills and stopped at Oceano Dunes. We made it home after 12 hours.





Well after getting the truck home it sat for a while while I tried to figure out how to fix the butchered work that was done on the truck. It had a Camaro steering box with a 24” draglink. It was going to be a bigger project than I originally thought. Covid was in full effect and we were locked down in our house. So I pulled it all apart. I had lots of time to work on it.


Time to throw in some superduty axles in it. I built a radius arm front suspension with Coilovers and put a Giant Link Killer kit in the rear. Ii shortened the wheel base 6” and bobbed the finer bed. t was just going to be a decent cruiser. Then I got stupid busy at work. It started to sit. As it sat I started thinking that the truck was so cool that I was going to just do a bucket list build and make something I can do it all in. I ended up picking a fab shop and sent the truck to them. This was the day it left. I actually drove it on the trailer.

Told them I would like a three link front, 4 link rear with full cage. I wanted to race the NORRA with it. Something that could do everything good nothing great. After a year and a half I needed up with the initial fab work complete. First time I met the guy was the day I dropped the truck off.after a few months some pictures started to trickle in.



After several phone conversations, changes to something’s and lots of time went by it was time to pick it up for me to finish it up. Truck looked amazing. I was extremely excited to say the least!



Time to get it home and get it running.

I looked for someone to build the exhaust. I contacted a local guy but he said he would contact me when he could get it in. Meanwhile a friend suggested a guy that built his exhaust. So I said yes and brought the truck to him. Once I got there I almost left because the guy wasn’t very organized and didn’t even have a lift. A few weeks later he said it was ready and I went to go pick it up. I was pleasantly surprised with how nice it turned out minus the butchering he did to the exhaust holes on the bed and part of the cab.

 

[Mannysouza]

After I got the exhaust it took me about a month to get it running. I was doing all the wiring, plumbing, brakes, fuelsystem, gears everything else myself. It was a huge task. I never went this deep in a build before. Lots of learning!
Probably a year after I got the truck back it was a driver.



Truck had a junkyard L92 (truck version of the ls3) with 180k miles and brand new 6l90, Off Road Design magnum underdrive, modded NP205 tcase, tom woods driveshafts
Super duty axles with 4:88 factory rear elocker and Eaton front.

So the truck was a work in progress and still is but it was a driving project.

Started chipping away at all the little things that are time bandits one at a time. Got it all put together for a guys trip rzr ride to Arizona peace trail.
A quick shake down run at Hollister hills
Had King Shock do a fire tune on the suspension for the guys trip.



Then oldfordcrewcabs invited me to the crewcab get together so painted it to be one color.


While in AZ, AZwillis asked me to go wheeling with him a some friends. We did the sledgehammer in AZ. I was pretty nervous but the truck did pretty good.


It’s was a mild trail with a few tight spots. Me and the wifey had a great time! Met new friends.
After the wheeling trip my friends arrived to AZ and we headed out from Parker and did a 500 mile loop. I broke bolts on the upper control arms about 2 miles from the start. It wasn’t looking good! (cheap ace hardware bolts) now upgraded to F9’s from Kartek now and shanked.


Got to stretch it legs for the first time . Such a rad trip! AZ has some spectacular views!

Finally bought a proper PowerPC t for the truck. LSX454 and bought a fancy PTR at on it just sat in the corner of the barn.

Then I wanted to go racing! NORRA 500 was the race. I had a bunch of friends running their side raises in the race. So I contacted KDM to do a tune on the shocks. I never liked the way the trick did off road and wanted to get it dialed in to race it. It wasn’t cheap but I had so much money and time invested that I thought it would be foolish to cut that corner. I was super sad how high they set the truck but he said it was right and who am I to argue with a professional. It was a great experience. Would highly recommend.



Truck was now way more predictable and handled everything minus the monster whoops very well.

 

[Mannysouza]

So he’ll in one month we went racing. I was hoping the truck would fit into the heavy metal class but with a cut frame they put me into unlimited prerunner class (1450). I felt like I would never place so we drove to finish. Only solid axle truck in the class and the heaviest machine too.

I painted numbers on the truck to finalize the items needed to race.

We arrived in Ensenada, tried to pull the truck off the trailer and it wouldn’t start. Thanks to all my friends and some new ones the truck was up and running for contingency the next day. To be honest I would have not raced if it wasn’t for all the help. They actually fixed it themselves without my help. I was mentally drained and they new it!

Killed a front differential on the first day so we unlocked the hubs and raced the second day in 2wd. So much fun to say the least and something I always wanted to do. Literally a buck list item!









After the race I had to fix the the front diff and started doing little trips to pismo (oceano) here than there.

Then Harrysituations posted a snow wheeling trip so I said fuck it and asked a friend to go. We loaded up and unloaded the truck off the trailer in Sacramento the. Provided to drive it to Reno in a blizzard. Nothing was going to stop us from snow wheeling.
I80 in a blizzard and a car spin out right in front of us! Thanks god for the heated seats and the heater wasn’t making the truck very warm.



Such a rad day! Got to meet Frosty4wheeler and Harry. Plus a bunch of other people I have seen on Instagram over the years.

After that tread magazine put me in their spears. Great write up by Solomon ( Fordera) he also did a whatthetruck on YouTube.



Ended up buffing the truck out to to shine up the paint. All the black marks came off and I kind of liked it nice and clean. So it stayed!

Next on the agenda was the rubicon.
I posted on instagram that I wanted to do a buck and back trip. Well it happened and it was possibly the best trip to the rubicon ever.





One of my favorite photos of the truck. taken by badlinesgoodtimes crew.

Next was Full size invasion in sand hollow. Front locker died but made the best out of it.

 

[2012SVTSC]

Sweet ass sweet.

 

[Mannysouza]

Even got some duning in!

Not a lot of good jumping dunes but still fun .
After full size invasion we loaded up and drove straight to glamis for a couple days.

After that me and the lady loaded up and went to Jawbone canyon to motor around with my side by side friends . Drove the truck there from the SF bayarea. Truck was pretty reliable at this point.



It was after this trip that my son wanted to build a truck for him. So I pulled it completely apart to install the new engine and paint the undercarriage. I may have gone a little buck wild.


The truck is all back together and will be at the off-road expo.

Sorry for the lengthy post. After the expo I will post up the photos of it all back together.