Bronco Forum - Full Size Ford Bronco Forum banner

My F250

18K views 96 replies 29 participants last post by  reptillikus 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
This June ill have owned my F250 9 years. This November ill have had the bronco 13! :eek: I must be getting old. At least this one is still in decent shape though. Just finished cleaning/polishing the wheels, and doing a good clean on the body, couldn't resist snapping a few pics.








Theres been a few dents & scrapes along the way, but she's gonna be around for the long haul, so in another year or two, the body is getting the full resto treatment :thumbup
 
See less See more
4
#60 ·
Thanks. Yeah youd think a big Co. would have been able to build something a little more robust and nicer looking, but maybe im just wayyyyy over-engineering it too. Im currently hanging out with the little guy, but im gonna head out there later while he's napping and start building the other half, so maybe pics tomorrow. I think im gonna go 3/8" again, and try for double shear. We'll see. Its gonna be overbuilt for sure :toothless



Dude, if you havent used a needle scaler, you are missing out. I use em at work all the time, so had to get one for myself. I needle-scaled/wire wheeled/primed the entire back half of the passenger frame rail (~9' of frame rail) in about an hour. They will strip scale ~1/4" thick like its nothing, and not damage the clean steel underneath. You need a big air compressor though, i have a homebuilt 220v 3HP and it can barely keep up. If i had a bigger compressor i couldve gotten it done even faster.
 
#61 ·
I, like you, tend to over build things. That being said, are you sure you built it heavy enough? I think I woulda gone with a 1" bolt on the pivots, and maybe a thicker spacer.








:goodfinge

Looking pretty cool! Like owning a jackhammer or chainsaw, all that dump bed means is work haha
 
#63 ·
Originally the hinge has that brace that extends forward to tie into the next bed xmember. But it doesnt fit so i cut it off. once the hinges are done and the bed can be tilted up, ill build all sorts of braces under there to stiffen it up.

The kit is designed to lift 2 ton, which is more than the truck can carry. So no worries about ever overloading it :thumbup





Yeah i know :toothless
Their hinge is 3/8, which is why im building mine out of 3/8. But i figured out how to make mine double shear, so i probably couldve done 1/4 at that point but whatever :toothless At least this way, the hinges will outlast the rest of the truck :toothless



If all goes well, ill have one hinge done and the second mostly done, today. So maybe pics later or tomorrow, nothing worthwhile to post yet.
 
#64 ·
Made some progress yesterday!

So here's the frame side hinge installed. The plan for the bed side is to have two tabs that come down, one on each side. So i cut two tabs & when i went to put them in, i realized the inner would have to be spaced fairly far away, in order to have clearance for the nut that holds the hinge to the original bed mounting bolt.


Obviously im not going to use a ton of washers, so i scrounged around the garage to try and find anything i could use, to make a spacer. I found my solution, in an old broken Dana 70 shaft!


Turns out theyre only case hardened, so it was actually pretty easy to drill


Made two while i was at it, and welded one to the first hinge


The rough idea. You can see the nut for the bed bolt hidden way up there


And the finished bed-side hinge




I am intentionally leaving that heavy tab off the side for now, so i have something to add bed bracing to later on, once the bed tilts. It will most likely get trimmed down at that point.


So, i want to be able to grease this thing. But, when the bumper goes back on, the hinge will be totally hidden. So instead of adding grease fittings to the hinge, im adding them to the bolt.







Done!


So of course its currently raining and looks like its gonna all day, so probably wont get anything done today at all.
 
#67 ·
Ugh man i know. Grew up with a huge one in the back yard. This place we've got 8 of em, so messy. The spotted lanternflys are wreaking havoc on them though, so not sure im going to get too many nuts from them this year.




Ok, so!

This is the stock bed bolt. This is the only one that came apart, all the others got destroyed. Im not reusing them.


Instead i used a small wire cup brush in a die grinder to cut a nice round hole in the bed liner. Then used said die grinder to open the hole up a bit, and slid a piece of 1" pipe down in there to beef the area up. The other side the bed is messed up, so its not nearly as clean a job.


Conveniently a 3/4" SAE washer fits the hole perfectly. Currently have 3/4" bolts down thru, but i have Gr8 carriage bolts on order.


Both hinges done!


Had to cut off the exhaust, no chance of everything fitting under there with that massive muffler


Frame-side hinge for the hydraulic scissor


Bed-side hinge installed. Thought i had apic of it before installation but i guess not.


I made sandwich plates to back up the bed xmembers so they cant crush in


The hydraulic scissor


...and installed! This was a huge PITA to do by myself




Hydraulic pump installed on frame rail


Building the wiring harness for it. Its power up, gravity down. Its a pretty simple system, and it came with plenty of wire to do the job.


200a circuit breaker installed on fender. Its power source is below it; a 300a winch relay, that i use for my remote winch wiring. So, flip a switch on the dash to energize system, and then flip switch to run dump bed. This way i only have live power lines running down the frame rail when its in use.


pump all wired up!



Not pictured is the installed hydraulic hose. Need to figure out if i can cut it down, or make tabs to hold it up cuz its so long it lays on the driveshaft :duh
 
#68 ·
pause for dramatic effect :goodfinge



It works! :rockon







So, whats left?


  • add bracing to bed at hinges
  • remove hinges - they still need to be painted, but not until the bed bracing is done, in case im welding to them.
  • add bracing to frame at hinge for hydraulics
  • finish control wiring - right now im testing it with a switch thats attached to wires under the hood, but plan is a switch on dash + some sort of wireless control
  • new exhaust system? Dont think current exhaust will fit back in the space
  • new rear shocks on order; mine were shot
  • gas filler necks! Need to be modified so they dont need to screw into bed (gotta stand up on their own somehow)
  • rubber bumpers for bed so it doesnt rattle on frame
  • rear bumper? dunno what im gonna do here, bumper brackets or a new bumper thatll be clear of bed/tailgate when tilted??
  • relocate CB antennae
  • water-meth injection! Bet you forgot that was in the toolbox! Gotta relocate it, or rewire/replumb it.

So its in and works, but theres still lots of things to do before i can call this project complete.
 
#69 ·
Holy crap, finally an update. This weather is nuts, it has rained every single day except i think sunday; took me all day to mow the jungle that was my yard! So i have updates. I was waiting until i was done to post, since ive basically been running outside in breaks between rainstorms to get stuff done.

So for heavy use they recommend adding a brace, from the xmember the hydraulics bolt to, to the xmember under the cab to stiffen it up.





Next up is wireless control. I bought this from Harbor Freight


the case comes apart; its got a nice rubber seal in there


The guts:


Its a standard 5-pin winch connector on the end. Only uses 4 pins. Power in, ground, and 2 power out. Well, thats eay enough to wire up! Cut the end off, hardwired it to the winch solenoids, and mounted the box on the frame



The range is impressive; its like 60-70'! More than ill ever need. And since the system has a kill switch on the main power, theres no concern from a rogue signal making the bed move on its own :toothless Speaking of wiring; ive finished all of it. The winch relay has the same kill switch on the dash it always had, and i put the supplied toggle switch next to it, for a backup in case the wireless remote quits.


Also, as it would turn out, the exhaust fits! Barely, but it fits.
 
#70 ·
Ok, filler necks!

Well, they bolt to the bed. But they cant since the bed moves. So Pierce Arrow wants you to build a brace and aim them both into the wheel wells to fill the tanks. Lame! So i came up with a (arguably) better solution.


Starting on the rear neck


Built this, which didnt work :toothless The fender strut hit it.


Modified version:






Had to cut the hole for the filler wide open, but you cant see it with the filler door closed anyway



This actually works; the bed can go up and it holds the neck in place; when the bed comes down it guides the neck right into place :cool:


The front was much more challenging. The bed full on collides with the neck and pushes it down.


So this is what i came up with




It holds the neck right where it needs to be. But, because the bed hits the neck on the way down, you have to hold the neck up and tuck it behind the fender as it comes down. Then the bracket guides the neck into place:



No way around that one, w/o cutting a notch in the bottom of the fender to clear the neck, which i think would look dumb.




Ok so then i got to looking at the bumper. Well, no chance in hell of the stock bumper going back on. The bumper has to tilt with the bed, and there is just no room with the trailer hitch there.




Mockup with a pice of 2*4 to simulate a bumper:





Im going to have to build my own rear bumper, and its going to have to be small, so it clears everything. I also still need to re-do the water/meth injection & move my CB antenna, but i think that might be it!
 
#71 ·
Ok, so weve got 4 main projects left to finish this thing. Gotta solve the bumper problem, fix trailer plug wiring, rewire/plumb the water/meth injection, and relocate the CB antenna. Well, ive got 2/4 done now :thumbup

All this work on the bed; so i decided to work on the bumper.

Since its got to pivot with the bed, i started building brackets to attach to the hinges






One bracket done, shown attached to the bed-side half of one of the hinges. It attahces to the 5/8 hinge pin, plus 2 bolts up thru the hinge and into the bed. Should be sufficient.


Both brackets done, + hinges finally in paint!


Now to design a bumper.
 
#72 ·
Bought a piece of unequal angle (3x4) from the scrap steel yard to begin mockup for a bumper




bumper brackets


So heres the rough idea


Seems awfully small, but with the bed tilted, you can see its a tight fit


No room for a license plate on the bumper


Trimming the corners


Adding a piece of 2" plate to the bottom


Now its starting to look like something


All done and ground


For lack of a better place, i put rivnuts in the tailgate, to hang the plate off it. This gate is beat up anyway, so not too upset about drilling holes in it


All done & painted!


While i was waiting for it to dry, i fixed my trailer wiring. Turns out Clips & Fasteners sells replacement pins for Ford Wedgelock connectors. Male + female, and both the large and small pins. They get crimped on using the same tool as weatherpaks do, which i already have. Since i had broken wires i cut all of them back to fresh copper and repinned all of them





So all thats left is to bolt it on, and its done!






Its a tight fit against the hitch


Look closely, youll see the bumper brackets all but touch the hitch, and there is actually a vertical groove in the bumper to clear the hitch. Its tight!




The bumper is a little smaller than id prefer, but as big as i can make it. Overall i think its looks pretty good on there though. So thats two more items off the list! So next week i need to tackle the water/meth injection, move my CB antenna, and then i think im done :rockon
 
#73 ·
Made some progress on the water/meth injection :cool:


My wiring harness uses 7 wires, so rather than build an extension, i bought 7 wire trailer harness


More OEM wedgelok pins being put to use




Original harness on the frame


...and the new extension plugged in and looking OEM


The harness runs up the bed here. Next to it is a hydraulic hose connected to some 3/8 stainless tube via some swagelok fittings for the water.


The route up the bed.


Another OEM connector, where my extension harness ends in the toolbox. In the top left you can see where the tubing enters the box. 100% stainless tube from the bed hinge to the toolbox.


The original toolbox harness modified with a mating wedgelok connector installed


...and the whole water/meth system is now reinstalled and done!


I turned the system on to check for errors and didnt find any, so i removed/cleaned the injector and then purged the system. Holy shit i think were done!!! I still need to find a place to relocate my CB antenna to, but aside from that she's 100% done! :rockon :rockon

After sitting for 7 weeks under a black walnut tree the truck needs to go to the carwash pretty badly, so i guess thatll be my test drive to see how badly the bed rattles around :toothless The kit comes with these guides to keep the front of the bed aligned with the cab, but i never installed them because my hinges are so much more sturdy than the ones that came with the kit, and the bed doesnt flop around like it woudve with their hinges. So we'll see after the test drive (hopefully tomorrow) if i need to put them on or not.
 
#74 ·
So the dump bed works pretty awesome :rockon

You cant really tell, but theres a yard of stone in the bed.


I didnt shoot any vid of it dumping, didnt think of it at time, was more concered with watching it, since a yard of stone is ~2600lbs. ive used it a couple times now, it is super awesome :toothless

The green tailgate presented a problem though. It was a necessity as my original tailgate got smashed, but its bowed pretty badly, and i was losing stone on the way home. So, i dug out a shell ive had kicking around, and decided to see what i could do with it.


This one was also green, so i sanded it and then rattled it with some red primer, then sanded again


Starting to lay color. Again, all rattle can as i dont own a spray gun, and wasnt going to buy one, just to spray a tailgate


Couple coats of clear later, starting to look better


Some more wet sanding and some wax, and this i what i ended up with


Not too bad for rattle can, if i do say so myself!!

hardware from my gate going in


...and the finished product!





Considering its all rattle can, i think the end result ended up pretty good, even tho its slightly off-color. its still way better than green, and this gate is actually straight :toothless




So from here i moved on to two other projects.

#1, front brakes!


Power Stop carbon-ceramic pads, and their rotors as well. Havent driven it yet, we'll see tomorrow if they work any better than the crap Autozone brakes that were on there before.




#2, bumper mods.

I really couldnt bring myself to drill 4 holes in my shiny new tailgate, so i had to find a different place to put the license plate. So here we go!

Take this:


and fit it here:








clears the hitch with plenty of room :thumbup


then i drilled some holes


...and reinstalled the OEM plate lamps, after i painted them to match the bumper



Hopefully this is the last of the work to this thing for the year, as my other projects are piling up!
 
#75 ·
2600 lbs!? It's barely squatting! I had a bunch of limestone cobble in my 95 f250 and it was squatting so bad that there was not enough weight on the front to steer properly. That was a single cab 4x4 with a 460 and front add a leafs too. Of course the cobble was piled to the top of the bedrails, so it had a ton of weight on it. Wonder how much it actually weighted...

Loved this truck, but sold it for a 7.3 f350.
 
#77 ·
:beer I was a little skeptical when i first got the kit, but then once i tore into it, it wasnt too bad. Of course, knowing now that i actually bought the universal kit instead of the vehicle specific one, it couldve been easier :duh


Im hoping the paint on the gate holds up, paint from a rattle can is kind of soft compared to automotive paint. The next time im spraying bed liner im going to mask off and spray the inside of the gate to match the rest of the bed, so it doesnt matter if the paint on the inside gets beat up.


Nice truck :thumbup

General consensus is a yard of stone is 2600-3000#. The truck is squatting 1½-2" :toothless 15 year old 6" Skyjacker leafs in the back, they are no joke. Here's a skid of wood pellets for the garage, thats 2000# right there:


The extra weight of the PSD definitely helps keep it handling well when loaded down.

This site lists weights of various construction materials. They spec a yard of bluestone at 2970# Limestone cobble is about the same. Id say you had a wee bit more than one yard in there :toothless Long bed will fit 2 yards but thats a ton of weight, more than id rather carry in a stock box.
 
#76 ·
dude! that's awesome work and I really appreciate you sharing the build with us. I would LOVE to have my old F250 flatbed setup to dump and now I have a pretty good idea what to do if I could ever afford to make that happen. The tailgate looks outstanding for a driveway, rattle can paint match too. Hell... give it a few months of regular use and the average joe probably wouldn't have a clue. Just looks and apparently functions like a real pro job. :beer :thumbup
 
#78 · (Edited)
wussies :goodfinge


just messin' around but I wonder how much that stack of treated 4x4 weigh'd in around. :toothless
it was not a wise move and was a nerve racking, 1.5 hr. drive home on mostly backroads to avoid the highway.
had a leaf *pop* going around a corner that nearly made me crap my pants, so I had to pull over to check the load, the truck... and my pants. :goodfinge
 
#79 ·
More weight then me id say. 4x4x8 is ~40 lbs, so if you have 50 of em thats 2k#, plus the other materials you had. Its a lot of weight for any truck!

I am jealous of the flat bed, i kind of want one instead of a stock box. I like the fold down sides they have on the utility style beds though, which i would need anyways for hauling dirt/stone/yard waste. How much does that bed weigh? Stock 8' bed is ~600# im told. My bumper is lighter than a stock bumper, plus all the weight i added for the dump conversion, im ~80-100# heavier than i was before.

I want that hoist you have in in your bed floor too, those things are cool.
 
#80 ·
I'm totally clueless on that beds weight, since I bought the truck with it. Steel flatbed though, so it's not light. It's gotta be at least 800 lbs., if not 1k with the headache rack and bumper/tow-hitch/step area. Side rails are easy enough to fab up for different needs but I'd need a pretty heavy duty hyd setup to lift that bed, along with the large loads it's capable of handling. The hoist w/a re-enforced, double tube stand (I bent the first one) and a 3k winch setup has been outstanding to have and has helped me load up everything from dual snowmobiles to boulders and even dragging 8' log lengths, stacked on the flatbed and even in the trailer hauled behind it. It's been a major back saver and was more than worth the effort to setup. I couldn't pass it up, since the flatbed was already setup with that re-enforced, sunken mounting hole for it. Can you even imagine a short, gimpy dude like me loading up a haul like this, by myself. No way in hell. Would have been a lot easier to unload though... with a dumper flat-bed. :toothless


Both have their pros/cons for sure but I've always wanted a flatbed for the versatility. That said... I love the "sleeper" kinda deal you have going with the stock bed dump lift. I'm sure you'll come up with all kinds of uses over the coming years you hadn't even considered yet. I know I have. :thumbup
 
#81 ·
Sigh....


I broke a glow plug a couple weeks ago when i was trying to replace them. Couldnt get the last piece of it out of the head, so.......



That was yesterday. Hopefully next week ill be able to put the head back on. OEM head gaskets & bolts, OEM exh manifold gasket & bolts. Had a cracked injector cup so theyre all getting changed (bought the kit from Rosewood Diesel to do it). Doing valve stems seals, because she's at 201k & the head is off so why not. Also have the parts to convert the truck over to the Superduty valve cover gaskets + UVCHs (Under Valve Cover Harness for you non-diesel guys).
 
#82 ·
Oh man what a pain. I was lucky to get all 8 glow plig out of my 96 without breaking one. That's when I found the melted UVCH. No wonder I was blowing so much raw fuel out at start up. Basically had 2 dead cylinders for who knows how long. Never got it back on the road to see the true power though as the shop burned around it
 
#83 ·
Yeah its not a fun job to do, by any means.
I was in a similar situation, i had a couple bad wires so i was running on 6 glow plugs. This one just wasnt coming out; i spent about a week messing with it until i admitted defeat and began removing the head. Hopefully the conversion to the SD stuff will solve this problem so it doesnt happen again!
 
#86 ·
Mine was a 96 F350 XLT 4x4 CCLB SRW with 175k on it. Gray on white two tone. Not perfect, but looked it from 20 feet. I sure miss the cackle of the PSD through a 4" straight pipe. And the torque, my god, the torque. I had a beans diesel TS6 rotary chip on it with a max 150hp tune. The high idle was nice too.
 
#87 ·
I have Swamps tunes (on most likely the same TS 6-pos chip) with their injectors. The high idle tune is a life saver in the winter months! I have been warned to take it easy for a bit after the head is back on, gotta give the head gasket time to bed into the iron. OEM head gasket has graphite in it, and i can confirm, it sticks like glue to the iron head/block!
 
#89 ·
I never did much towing with mine. Didnt have it long enough lol. My TS6 was from Beans, as I mentioned, and had all six slots filled. I reccomend getting a specially tuned TS6, vs buying a generic one for the 7.3.

  • stock
  • high idle
  • tow
  • 50hp
  • 100hp
  • 150hp

I usually ran it on the 100 horse tune. It is switchable on the fly. I mounted it in the spot where the electric transfer case switch would go.

I did have an issue with my cam sensor failing, but I'm thinking that had something to do with the two dead cylinders from the melted UVCH.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top