Project Hank

Well I have had the Hank for about seven years now. Bought it in AZ and drove it home to FL at the time. Now we are in Anderson SC where it has sat in storage for four years. Well we have brought Hank home and started the build.

Hank is a rust free 1970 F250 2wd regular cab long bed truck. It has a 390, c6, dana60 for a drivetrain with 107k miles. Still runs awesome aside from a leaky exhaust manifold. Originally a camper special, Hank has front disc brakes, tranny cooler, oil cooler, front and rear sway bars, and some funky spring overload system in the rear. Dealer add on air no longer works but no matter. It's time to upgrade.

So here is the plan. Sport truck looks fused with tow rig capabilities. Air suspension all the way around. Not slammed but lowered. Use lowering I-beams for an F-350 with airbags in front and a four link with airbags in the rear with 22" big rig dually wheels with performance low profile tires. I dont care for dually fenders so the rear will be narrowed to allow the dual rear wheels to tuck under the bed sides. The axle will also be moved to the very rear of the bed to give it that "tow rig" look. The drive train has yet to have been determined but I do love a turbo diesel.

Here is a rough photoshop of what I'm looking at doing.

First thing we did was strip all those darn awful factory trim pieces, moldings and mirrors from the outside of Hank. The we went to work gutting the interior. Headliner, A/C unit, seat, rubber floor covering, gas tank, dash pad, and various interior trim pieces were removed. Turns out Hank was not as rust free as I thought. The underside of the floor boards was pristine sheetmetal with no rust through but the top of both sides is heavily corroded. The drivers side was worse as a good rap with a screwdriver went through the metal in some places but the passenger side seems solid.

So I picked up the front clip from a 1978 F-350 cab and chassis truck. Pretty rusty and greasy so I pressure washed it until almost all the loose rust and grease was gone. Brought it home and set it up on jack stands. Time for some measurements and dissassembly. Of note the tie rod ends are above the spindle arms where on my F-250 they bolt on below. Also the radius arms are a much beefier and made of steel. I-beams are the same length but the king pins are bigger diameter at 1&1/16". Springs and spring pockets are taller and beefier than my 250.

So, hubs, caliper mounting brackets, dust sheilds, spindles, caliper brackets, radius arms, and shock mounts are back from bead blasting. Pretty amazing how new they look, almost like they are pained silver.

Hubs, caliper mounting brackets, and dust sheilds are off to the powder coater.

Spindles waiting on kingpin rebuild kit to come with the drop I beams.

All new Wagner brake parts and Timken bearings, races, and seals are here.

What a NIGHTMARE trying to get two calipers that were built from a core that wasn't absolute ***** and pitted to high heaven. Finally got two that are presentable and they and the Caliper brackets will be disasembled next week and sent to the powder coater for a coat of Ford Racing blue used on the late model Cobra Mustang valve covers. Should look hot!!

So the drop I beams from AIM or Chassis Tech or Airbagit whatever name they are using this week came in. The pieces look surprisingly good considering the horrible reputation that they have. They are the only people that make F-350 drop beams so I didn't have much choice. So the beams look satisfactory but the tie rod end relocators are completely wrong. I knew it was going to be an issue when they guy taking my order just blew me off with " I'm not sure how they address the tie rods being on top of the spindle but the engineers back there have all that figured out.... Trust me". So after multiple emails and phone calls it was determined that you can't drop a tie rod that bolts in through the top of the spindle and a radius arm c notch is the way to go. I'll have to see when it is mocked up. I like the idea of having my tie rods attached directly to the spindle but am concerned about the angle all the steering linkages will be at.

So here is the mock up of the F-350 spindle on the 3" drop I-beam. The tie rods attach throught the top of the spindle, but if you look at the pic they are in perfect alignment with the hole in the radius arm.......IF......the tie rod came up from the bottom of the spindle. So that means no tie rod drop down bracket like the one in the previous post. Unfortunately the tie rod on the F-350 bolts in through the top of the spindle. The good news is the tie rods from my F-250 bolt in through the bottom and will work perfectly.......if I can figure out how to reverse the taper on hole the steering arm for the tie rod. I am going to talk to the machine shop and see if they can macine an insert and have it pressed into the spindle.

The spindles are back from the automotive machine shop and were hot tanked and new bronze bushings were pressed in and honed to fit the new king pins. Then they were taken to the general machine shop to have an insert machined to allow the tie rod ends to attach from the bottom instead of the top. Unfortunately it took me a good week to track down OEM quality MOOG tie rod ends and drag links and another week to arrive BUT the inserts are being made as we speak.

Finally I have researched and measured and settled on Slam Specialties RE-7 airbags and have begun to engineer how they will fit into the OEM spring pockets and attach to the I beams as well. They are 1.5" wider in diameter than the OEM coil spring but I think we will have just enough room.

And lastly I have removed the OEM spring perches and shock brackets from the rear axle in anticipation of adding the new four link brackets. I am really torn between triagulated and parallel four link but I am almost settled on triangulated.

Spindles back from machine shop and metal kingping bushings are installed. Here is the new metal sleeve that has been pressed in and machined to allow the tie rod ends to bolt through the bottom instead of the top. I was able to eliminate the need to notch the radius arms or use tie rod end relocators by using the F350 spindle which has the arm that drops down (instead of up like the F100 and F250) and moving the tie rod ends from above the arm (F350 tie rod ends) to below it (F250 tie rod ends).

All new MOOG steering parts for 1970 F-250. All new Timken bearings, races, and seals and Wagner front rotors, calipers, pads, and hardware for 1978 F-350 are here!! Check out the rotors...bet you can't guess which one was made in the USA!?!?! I bought Wagner because they told me that they were made in the USA. Guess that depends what decade we are talking about.

Also If anyone has a lead on bearing caps that do not have "CHINA" stamped on the face of them I would gladly pay extra for them. The Dorman ones are the only ones I can find under various store brand names and the all say "CHINA" on the face big as day and I refuse to use them. I would rather put my dingy dinged up OEM ones back on there.

Got the first batch back from the powder coater. I will be looking elsewhwere for other parts. The finish is nice, I will give them that, but they took foreeeeeever, the hubs were supposed to be flat black, and the areas not to be powder coated were poorly taped off. I will probably have to spend about two hours getting the hubs and caliper mounting brackets up to par. On the bright side, the dust sheilds which required complete powdercoating coverage are beautiful.