swashbuckler
Hooligan
I told my wife I wouldn't be building this truck, so this is not a build thread, and if you accuse me of building this truck I will deny it vehemently. But there will surely be tasteful mods in the name of allowing the truck to do more of what I want it to do (or more accurately, what I want to do in it), and I like maintaining build threads (or in this case, not-a-build threads) and this seems as good a place to do it as any.
.
I've had this truck a couple months now. My wife and I also own my '85 4Runner (which was seeing DD as well as weekend wheeling duty) and her '99 4Runner (which was supposed to be her wheeler until she decided that she liked the truck too much, the silly woman). Two vehicles was fine until the building and wheeling of my '85 progressed to the point that it was more down than up, so we decided a third vehicle was in order. We knew we wanted something with a bed because breaking out the trailer every time we needed to haul things was getting annoying. We also knew we wanted four doors, because recent additions to the family have rendered that a near necessity. We knew it had to be rough-road worthy, because it was getting hard to fit the family + gear in my '85 and she didn't like flogging her '99 on the rocks. We finally knew it had to be cheap, because we are broke like nobodies' business. I was looking for an earlier 7.5l F250 and having trouble finding one in decent condition and within our budget when this '01 came across the radar. Drove up to Ogden, UT to look at it, liked it, bought it. A 2001 F150 Lariat Supercrew, with the 5.4 V8 (not bad) and automatic (bad, but whatever, it's a Ford). I would have preferred manual hubs and a floor shifter to the electric shift on the fly 4WD, but at least it's not the Auto 4WD I hated in my last Ford. I think the 5.5 foot bed is my biggest gripe, but I'll get over it. Everything worked well enough to drive it home, so I won't bore you with the subsequent mundane repairs like brakes and such because let's face it, that's boring... if I ever do anything silly like rebuild the motor I'll be sure to post pics. The paint and interior are a little shabby, but not so bad that you can tell from 10 feet away and since I'm gonna use the truck like a truck that's good enough for me. A new fancy bluetooth stereo unit and a set of Coverkings to hide the gaping hole in the leather seats were the initial "mods".
.
Right after I brought it home -
.
On the maiden dirt-trip for camping with friends at a mountain lake - no wheeling to speak of, with just enough rocks in the road to remind me how much I loathe Ford's torsion bar IFS -
.
Immediately after I demolished a little Chevy Aveo that had the temerity to run a red light in front of me -
.
Unfortunately the inner workings of her auto insurance and my credit union auto loan meant I couldn't use the payment to buy an ARB and winch, I had to just get the thing fixed. Bummer. I did eventually get a shiny new bumper and grill out of the deal though.
.
Since then, the not-a-build has progressed in small steps. I snagged a set of Rubicon takeoffs for a song so it's currently riding on 255/70r17 BFG KM tires. A little small, but I've loved KM2s in the past and I expect I'll get good service out of these too. I'll go to 33ish KM2s (or maybe Cooper ST Max?) when these run out.
.
A couple weeks ago we took a family trip to Moab and the truck was super on the freeway and back, quiet and smooth and powerful up the passes and got 17mpg to boot. It was also great on the Colorado Overlook trail in Needles, which I had not been on before and was expecting to be milder, but the trail got progressively rougher and I kept pushing and the truck handled it all great. Other than that I've just been racking up dirt miles in the west desert outside of Salt Lake, and that's it for current progress. I'm picking up a used tonneau this weekend to provide weather-resistant bed storage, and I'll toss some cheapy crossbars on it so I can strap extra cargo on top if I have to. This really won't be a "build", but on the wish list are a winch in front, some sliders and skids, a bed rack over the rear, and maybe a locker. I won't need to lift it to run 33s, and I don't think I'll need to regear for them either, so that'll be about it for the big mods.
.
In theory, anyway.
.
This is not a build thread though.
.
I've had this truck a couple months now. My wife and I also own my '85 4Runner (which was seeing DD as well as weekend wheeling duty) and her '99 4Runner (which was supposed to be her wheeler until she decided that she liked the truck too much, the silly woman). Two vehicles was fine until the building and wheeling of my '85 progressed to the point that it was more down than up, so we decided a third vehicle was in order. We knew we wanted something with a bed because breaking out the trailer every time we needed to haul things was getting annoying. We also knew we wanted four doors, because recent additions to the family have rendered that a near necessity. We knew it had to be rough-road worthy, because it was getting hard to fit the family + gear in my '85 and she didn't like flogging her '99 on the rocks. We finally knew it had to be cheap, because we are broke like nobodies' business. I was looking for an earlier 7.5l F250 and having trouble finding one in decent condition and within our budget when this '01 came across the radar. Drove up to Ogden, UT to look at it, liked it, bought it. A 2001 F150 Lariat Supercrew, with the 5.4 V8 (not bad) and automatic (bad, but whatever, it's a Ford). I would have preferred manual hubs and a floor shifter to the electric shift on the fly 4WD, but at least it's not the Auto 4WD I hated in my last Ford. I think the 5.5 foot bed is my biggest gripe, but I'll get over it. Everything worked well enough to drive it home, so I won't bore you with the subsequent mundane repairs like brakes and such because let's face it, that's boring... if I ever do anything silly like rebuild the motor I'll be sure to post pics. The paint and interior are a little shabby, but not so bad that you can tell from 10 feet away and since I'm gonna use the truck like a truck that's good enough for me. A new fancy bluetooth stereo unit and a set of Coverkings to hide the gaping hole in the leather seats were the initial "mods".
.
Right after I brought it home -
.
On the maiden dirt-trip for camping with friends at a mountain lake - no wheeling to speak of, with just enough rocks in the road to remind me how much I loathe Ford's torsion bar IFS -
.
Immediately after I demolished a little Chevy Aveo that had the temerity to run a red light in front of me -
.
Unfortunately the inner workings of her auto insurance and my credit union auto loan meant I couldn't use the payment to buy an ARB and winch, I had to just get the thing fixed. Bummer. I did eventually get a shiny new bumper and grill out of the deal though.
.
Since then, the not-a-build has progressed in small steps. I snagged a set of Rubicon takeoffs for a song so it's currently riding on 255/70r17 BFG KM tires. A little small, but I've loved KM2s in the past and I expect I'll get good service out of these too. I'll go to 33ish KM2s (or maybe Cooper ST Max?) when these run out.
.
A couple weeks ago we took a family trip to Moab and the truck was super on the freeway and back, quiet and smooth and powerful up the passes and got 17mpg to boot. It was also great on the Colorado Overlook trail in Needles, which I had not been on before and was expecting to be milder, but the trail got progressively rougher and I kept pushing and the truck handled it all great. Other than that I've just been racking up dirt miles in the west desert outside of Salt Lake, and that's it for current progress. I'm picking up a used tonneau this weekend to provide weather-resistant bed storage, and I'll toss some cheapy crossbars on it so I can strap extra cargo on top if I have to. This really won't be a "build", but on the wish list are a winch in front, some sliders and skids, a bed rack over the rear, and maybe a locker. I won't need to lift it to run 33s, and I don't think I'll need to regear for them either, so that'll be about it for the big mods.
.
In theory, anyway.
.
This is not a build thread though.
Last edited:
