83F250 4x4 project 15 years in the making we call it "old school"

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So old school is the white truck with the red strip in the middle of the pic.

As you can see iam a bit of a redneck/hillbilly, hope iam in good company here...lol. as such if memory serves me well enough I was standing on top of a van to take this pic.

So this is kinda a long story on this truck, read if ya like or just check out the pics.

This poor truck came to me maybe 15 years ago with the tan f250 in the pic from PA via the great and powerful ebay.. When I got it it had a bed from the 87-96 f-series trucks painted to match. At the time of this pic I didnt really have time to mess with it so I sold off the bed. Wanted the matching rear wheel arches anyway. Poor thing could run, but the PO put a lot of time into the engine and body. Lots of new sheet mtl already welded in.

At any rate it pretty much sat for a couple years till I moved to my 1st house of my own...thats when the fun started..lol

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Fast forward a few years. Now iam starting to get a lil more serious about it. Snaged the bed off an 88 f150, and got a different 351w from a guy that used to be a great running motor "had the mtr before ya see" then after a few repairs/mods from that guy the motor didnt run so great anymore...lol

At any rate I fiddled with it off n on for the next several years desperately trying to get it to run right on a simple 2150 2 bbl. Never could get it, between that and the spark knock I nearly gave up on the truck...then out of the blue my "almost" dream truck popped up on CL for $4500... a 2002 F250 crew cab long bed srw with a gas motor....I ran to go get the truck the next day...that nearly made me send this truck off for scrap metal:(

So as you might guess the truck sat for another year or so as it was essentially replaced...but then a few years ago I saw a forum on binder planet how folks were talking chevy tbi and retrofitting it to IH and fords and anything....

I thought... yeah right! To be continued

So of course my brain just couldn't let this idea go. I hate carbs anyway, and as it happened I had/have an 88 chevy with a 350..

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.so it dawned on me why not buy a cheap 2bbl/tbi adapter plate and grab all the wiring temporally from the 88 and see if I could do it. So that's what I did, boy was I surprised when after a few lil alterations it can to life.

Thank you binder planet! "Where did they get that name"

Anyways back to the epic adventure.... so now I know it works, but I gotta give the wiring and ecm back to the 88 chevy. So reluctantly I did..

Now I gotta find the parts n pieces to make this a permanent installation. Years before I had the entire FI wiring harness out of a 90, but it accidentally got burnt up "fireworks gone wrong" so I just happened to have a caprice police car that was too rusty to bother with "or more to the point it wasnt a truck" so there was my harness and ecm at least, but sold the engine so I was still lacking some electronics from the engine...

Oh also keep in mind that several different times throughout this build I started going to austin tx chasing women..that really cute into my truck time up till about 2 months ago I had enough drama....sorry got side tracked

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After a fresh coat of paint with a brush "redneck remember" didnt last long

Lets see where did I leave off...so somwhere in the middle of this story line it has gotten all new brakes, new fuel lines, and a modified in tank tbi fuel pump. So this just about brings us up to date more or less..

So now iam waiting on a new set of 7.5-16lt tires that should be coming end of next week, prepping to mount a grill guard I just modified from an 05 chevy, and mocking up some custom mirrors.

The grill guard

Nearly forgot iam starting to price rust repair panels. And had to add a second battery to the truck so it would start when warm...its been a big journey with this thing

1 of my mockups of the potential mirrors...not lovin it yet

I like the sealed up extended cab windows.

Lol, plan to change them to 92 style windows. I hate the old style

And heres the tires that are coming..been dying for a set of these

I really want a set of those tires for my 1947 Willis cj2. I think they are so cool. I like where this is going!

Got the grill guard mounted today, starting to have second thoughts about the custom mirrors. Not happy with any design I put together..might just paint the originals black and see how that looks.

I like the original mirrors with small stick on convex mirrors. I felt I could see plenty and they were cheap to replace whe they got knocked off.

They do a fine job, I was just trying to beef up the appearance a bit

cdowd wrote: I really want a set of those tires for my 1947 Willis cj2. I think they are so cool. I like where this is going!

15 inch https://simpletire.com/multi-mile-715lt-aud36-tires

16 inch https://simpletire.com/multi-mile-7.516lt-aud50-tires

Keep in mind these are bias ply.

Found a few pics on my phone on the fuel tank mod and tbi fuel pump install..sorry not great pics, I got so excited I forgot to take pics till I had the thing sealed in the tank..lol

Had a great time burning out the residual gas vapors :) what interesting things a gas tank does when you ignite the vapors!

After all that, I got my fuel guage working again, and I can suck gas from the very bottom of the tank...nomore running out of gas at a stop sigh :)....the setup I had before was simply laid in the bottom of the tank (proof of concept before I put this much work into it)

Got the tires off another set of rims today

Believe it or not this cheesy setup worked like a champ...but

Found out I need a set of these.

So while the new tires will be here tomorrow it looks like, I will be delayed cause I didnt plan ahead.. oh well plenty of time for the new paint to dry at least

New tires showed up today :) love the skinny build and really deep tread...they are really soft though may not last long, but always wanted to try a set on a 4x4...these I hope will be awesome in deep snow...had a pair on an old 2wd 3+3 with an open diff that would almost keep up with small 4x4s

And rims painted

This is awesome, keep it up!