My 1985 F-250 Diesel Build

[willyd]

Hey everyone!

Long time lurker, but I figured now is the time that I document my first overlanding/adventure build. I’ve owned and modded a ton of 4x4’s in the past, but with my crawling & heavy off roading days behind me I figure it’s time to build something that’s capable and more comfortable for long road trips & trails that aren’t too gnarly.

The platform for this build is my 1985 Ford F-250 that is sporting a 6.9 diesel and a Dana 60 up front (more on that conversion below). My plans are to make this as comfortable as possible while keeping it’s original 80’s charm where I can, so a light restomod is the plan. Here’s the long list of little projects I need to get done:

• Install a Banks turbo
• ZF5 5 Speed swap
• New radiator/cooling system
• New vinyl flooring & dash pad
• Install newer Ford bucket seats
• Replace A/C system
• Install Dakota digital gauge set
• Retrosound stereo install
• Dynamat interior to make it quieter
• Warn 8274 winch
• All new fluids in diffs/tranny
• Rebuild front Kingpins
• Install hi-steer kit
• Any other small issues that present itself during the build

Once she’s mechanically up to snuff, I want to find an 80’s FWC Grandby to slap on the back of it. Plans are to keep the Grandby pretty simple, would convert everything inside to LEDs, install Solar, make sure the stove and fridge function and hit the road!

Here is the story of how the truck got to this point, hope you guys enjoy the ride as much as I will!

 

[Todd n Natalie]

Hey everyone!

Long time lurker, but I figured now is the time that I document my first overlanding/adventure build. I’ve owned and modded a ton of 4x4’s in the past, but with my crawling & heavy off roading days behind me I figure it’s time to build something that’s capable and more comfortable for long road trips & trails that aren’t too gnarly.

The platform for this build is my 1985 Ford F-250 that is sporting a 6.9 diesel and a Dana 60 up front (more on that conversion below). My plans are to make this as comfortable as possible while keeping it’s original 80’s charm where I can, so a light restomod is the plan. Here’s the long list of little projects I need to get done:

• Install a Banks turbo
• ZF5 5 Speed swap
• New radiator/cooling system
• New vinyl flooring & dash pad
• Install newer Ford bucket seats
• Replace A/C system
• Install Dakota digital gauge set
• Retrosound stereo install
• Dynamat interior to make it quieter
• Warn 8274 winch
• All new fluids in diffs/tranny
• Rebuild front Kingpins
• Install hi-steer kit
• Any other small issues that present itself during the build

Once she’s mechanically up to snuff, I want to find an 80’s FWC Grandby to slap on the back of it. Plans are to keep the Grandby pretty simple, would convert everything inside to LEDs, install Solar, make sure the stove and fridge function and hit the road!

Here is the story of how the truck got to this point, hope you guys enjoy the ride as much as I will!

Sounds like a great combo! Post up some pics.

It kinda makes me think of the Turtle III:

 

[willyd]

This truck has been in the family since 1987 when my dad bought it off of a company that used it to maintain phone lines. Since the mid 90's my dad kept it up in the White Mountains at our family cabin to use as a farm truck. Here's the earliest picture I have of it (without digging through the old family photo album). It was quite the rig back in the day with a 460 V8 and a 4 speed manual. Always killed it in the snow as long as you didn't push the skinny pedal too hard!

I've wanted the truck my whole life, and back in 2015 my mom finally told my dad he needed to get rid of it and get something newer. He ended up buying a 2003 F-150 and was going to send this thing to the junkyard. I told him that I wanted it and it became my 21st birthday gift!

So my buddy and I drove up there to pick it up. It had been sitting at the local airport for a while and it definitely took some time to get it started. After several sprays of starting fluid (and a small fire) we finally got it running.

We got back to Tucson and I drove it off the trailer and started driving it for a couple weeks. And then unfortunately, and regrettably the truck sat. Between going to school and not having any money to throw at it I never really drove it. It was driven maybe once every couple months for dump runs and work loads, but never really daily driven.

Fast forward to March of 2019 and I finally decided it was time to get this ol' gal going. With some mechanical know how and some money to throw at it I started going through it. The thing would barely run and eventually died on me when I was trying to take it on a little test drive.

I smelled gas and noticed the carburetor was just spraying gas out of every gasket. Pulled the carburetor off and over a weekend rebuilt it. The truck started right up but I could never get it to run right after a while. I couldn’t quite figure it out and found out it was a bad fuel pump and it wasn’t getting gas consistently – and of course every time I pulled the fuel line off to check it the pump was working. Just my luck. So I rigged up my own fuel system and threw on an Edelbrock carb so I could go to my buddy’s house and rip the bed off because I really didn’t want to drop two full tanks of gas.

After we got the truck dialed in and I gave it a little tune up with new plugs, wires, oil & an ignition module, the truck was running fantastic. Started right up, idled beautifully, and honestly I had never seen it run so well. After my last test drive before I was about to attempt an excursion to my buddy’s, I noticed the oil pressure gauge inside the cab was really low. Not trusting the gauge I bought a mechanical oil pressure gauge and well, the oil pressure was a little bit on the low side and we had some really, really clattery heads. Here was the oil pressure on the first cold start:

The low oil pressure gave me the excuse to rebuild the 460 as I wanted this thing to run well and forever (or so I thought at the time) I ordered the rebuild kit and made plans with my buddy to pull it out and start our project.

About a day later this truck popped up on craigslist local to me - a 1986 F-350 with a 6.9 IDI and a Dana 60 for $2,500. It only had 160k miles and the body was beat to hell so after some deliberation I figured screw the 460, lets make the old family heirloom a diesel.

 

[willyd]

Sounds like a great combo! Post up some pics.

It kinda makes me think of the Turtle III:

View attachment 803738

That is exactly what I'm going for (minus the Keystone camper)

I'm pretty excited about it! My truck was originally a 460, but I converted it to the 6.9 IDI a few years ago. I've got the build documented on a Ford forum so I'm going to post up my whole thread to get this one up to speed.

 

[willyd]

Now that I got the 86, it was time to start getting to work. On Saturday I had my old 85 towed over to my buddy's house where we would be doing the swap.

I drove the 86 over there and we started cleaning up and making room for the swap. First thing we wanted to do was build a little cart to move the beds around the shop if we needed to. We took some old wrought iron he had lying around and welded up this cool little thing.

With that done it was time to test it out and get a bed onto it. The 86 was the first to go under the knife. We disconnected the bed bolts and all the wires and filler necks and then hoisted the bed up in the air with some ratchet straps. Then we pulled the truck out and lowered the bed onto our new cart.

Mission success - then onto the cab....

By the end of the first day we were left with what I really wanted out of the truck - the bare one ton chassis.

That was enough for a days work, time to do it all over again the next day!

Just like the day before, we started taking it apart. So first off comes the bed...

Then the fenders and finally - we got the cab off!

Once we got the cab off, we lowered it onto some tires so we could start doing some body work. A lot of fender support pieces had broken off and the main fender support for the left side fender was literally dangling by a quarter inch of steel. No wonder it looked like it was going to fall off any time.

In two days we had the trucks completely dissembled and ready for the swap. If we hadn't had to to body work on my old cab it probably would've been sitting on the diesel frame that night. But that's alright - we were looking forward to getting a break for a couple days.

 

[willyd]

After putting the truck on hiatus for a couple days, it was time to get back to work. With the 3 day memorial weekend ahead of us we were ready to grind and get this thing done.

The cab was in bad shape and had been previously welded on before. Everything that we re-welded had been touched by a welder who didn't know what they were doing and all the welds broke. We ended up building a gusset plate for the fender mount and then re-welded three other pieces of the cab back on. Mainly the two that hold the fender on with a bolt through that you have to get at by looking through the door. I don't have any pictures of this process because I was welding but it was definitely a good time.

Now with the cab all done, it was time for what I've been waiting for - to throw it onto the diesel frame. We jacked the cab back in the air and slid the diesel frame under it and slowly started lowering it.

One of my biggest concerns prior to doing the swap was the wiring. I searched forever on multiple forums and contacted many members about the wiring differences between the diesel and the gas trucks. We were originally going to use my original harness and splice the diesel stuff in, but after some thought it was easier to just swap the entire harnesses. Luckily it's pretty easy to pull the dashes out of these trucks!

We installed the diesel harness onto the back of my dashboard like the factory and put it back in. We ended up using the entire gauge cluster from the diesel in my truck to keep things simpler, and I liked having the tach. With the diesel harness in my truck, everything was literally plug and play. I bolted on the front passenger fender so we could get the starter relay plugged in and a battery safely mounted. Now it was time to see if it would run.

I turned the key, crossed my fingers, and heard the sweet sound of that 6.9 diesel. Houston, we had landed.


With it was running and making sure that everything worked, it was now time to start piecing the truck back together. I reinstalled the other fender while my buddy looked into fixing the glow plug system on the truck. They had never worked before so we ended up putting in a new relay and a manual momentary switch so I could bypass the relay and manually operate the glowplugs if needed.

By the end of Sunday night, it was starting to look like a truck again, I mean check out those body lines! The left side fender doesn't look like it's going to fall off any time soon.

The next day I was determined to get the rest of the body on the truck and drive it out of there.

And BAM! Just like that we had a complete truck again!

I started her up and took the gal for a test drive to make sure everything was working out. No major issues at all! Still had to get used to driving it but drove it home with a smile on my face the whole way.

 

[willyd]

With the diesel swap done, I had a few small projects that I got done over the next few months. I fixed the rear tire carrier, repainted some interior panels, installed new tie rod ends & installed new leaf springs & shocks because the original ones were waxed.

Here's a few progress pics, nothing really crazy but figured I'll put them here anyway.

 

[willyd]

After all that work back in 2019, I really didn't have to do much to the truck at all. It started every time, drove well and was ultimately reliable when I needed it to be. Which brings us to present day, now that I'm ready to build this into an adventure rig I've been driving it a lot more to figure out what it needs.

First thing on the list was new tires since the old ones were dry rotted and cracked. Got her some new shoes with BFG KO2's to start. I'm pretty sure this was the first new set of tires on this truck since the 90's!




Over the last 5 years I've been trying really hard to track down an original Warn winch bumper for this truck with no success. They're literally hens teeth - I saw them all over the place for Dodge's & Chevy's and would've been willing to make it work on my truck but they either refused to sell it or it was sold before I even messaged them.

A few weeks ago my luck turned around and I was able to snag one locally off of a 1986 F-250. This is how she sits as of right now:




Well that about sums up this trucks journey up to this point - more to come!

 

[Dougnuts]

Very nice!

I have been wanting a truck just like that F250 you got the bumper off of.

 

[Chris Tom]

Hey everyone!

Long time lurker, but I figured now is the time that I document my first overlanding/adventure build. I’ve owned and modded a ton of 4x4’s in the past, but with my crawling & heavy off roading days behind me I figure it’s time to build something that’s capable and more comfortable for long road trips & trails that aren’t too gnarly.

The platform for this build is my 1985 Ford F-250 that is sporting a 6.9 diesel and a Dana 60 up front (more on that conversion below). My plans are to make this as comfortable as possible while keeping it’s original 80’s charm where I can, so a light restomod is the plan. Here’s the long list of little projects I need to get done:

• Install a Banks turbo
• ZF5 5 Speed swap
• New radiator/cooling system
• New vinyl flooring & dash pad
• Install newer Ford bucket seats
• Replace A/C system
• Install Dakota digital gauge set
• Retrosound stereo install
• Dynamat interior to make it quieter
• Warn 8274 winch
• All new fluids in diffs/tranny
• Rebuild front Kingpins
• Install hi-steer kit
• Any other small issues that present itself during the build

Once she’s mechanically up to snuff, I want to find an 80’s FWC Grandby to slap on the back of it. Plans are to keep the Grandby pretty simple, would convert everything inside to LEDs, install Solar, make sure the stove and fridge function and hit the road!

Here is the story of how the truck got to this point, hope you guys enjoy the ride as much as I will!

I’m so happy to see another 6.9 Bullnose on the portal! It seems like we have a lot of commonalities between our builds- I would be happy to share some of my resources with you as you get deeper into the build. Many times through my build, I wondered if it was the right decision to build on such an old platform, but keep on trucking! It will be worth it. We just drove down to Baja and the truck ran like a top! These old 6.9 are invincible for folks who take the time and care to learn them.

(Bonus points because my truck was also originally owned by my father)

 

[willyd]

I’m so happy to see another 6.9 Bullnose on the portal! It seems like we have a lot of commonalities between our builds- I would be happy to share some of my resources with you as you get deeper into the build. Many times through my build, I wondered if it was the right decision to build on such an old platform, but keep on trucking! It will be worth it. We just drove down to Baja and the truck ran like a top! These old 6.9 are invincible for folks who take the time and care to learn them.

(Bonus points because my truck was also originally owned by my father)
View attachment 820218

Thanks Chris, appreciate you commenting. I absolutely love what you did with yours! I love the fact that yours was a family rig too, it really does make it a more special build and a lot easier to want to invest in them regardless of what they are.

 

[SDDiver5]

Awesome dude. Love OBS fords.