OBS F250 slow adventure build

[Diesel Runner]

Thank you very much! I have taken my truck places most people thought it would never fit, but mine being a short bed does help a lot. I would love to see pictures of your truck as there are very few OBS fords that are linked for actual off road use and not just to look like a monster truck. I love my truck more and more everyday and at some point I will three link the rear to get the ride height proper and more closely match the front.

A short bed would be nice, mine is a long bed. I thought of doing short-bed-glass and shortening the frame some, but decided against it. In some of my previous projects I deleted the bed and just had the glass/bed-cage and wish I would have kept the bed as it's nice to be able to haul some ******** in the desert/mountains. I will still be doing a engine and roll-cage though, just shock hoops out back. Now, I am still collecting parts ($$$) and researching setups, mainly coil lbs and valving for these tanks short of starting from scratch and tuning a ton. Would like to keep that to a minimum as I have to send them out, nobody around here does it.

Sticking with 35's, I had some Hannkook MT's installed on Raceline wheels. I am doing glass in the front and still deciding on what to do. I have ran Mcneil, and Glassworks on other vehicles in the past and they were absolute ********, I mean ********! Cant decide what Mfg I want to roll the dice with this time, though AutoFabs sound like they are the best.

I don't have any pics of it right now, other than when I made the trip to Portland to pick it up. If I remember, tonight I will take a few as it currently sits. Plans are to keep it a somewhat mild family prerunner, wife says...

 

[amgvr4]

LOL! I love that your idea of a somewhat mild build includes fully linked and coilovers. That is my kind of perspective! I look forward to watching your build and seeing the truck take shape. As far as spring rates go in the front I found very little info out there for us diesel guys. I ended up with a rate that is too soft in dual rate for anything other than trail crawling. I think it is 211lbs or something like that. I would recommend something much closer to my single rate which is 400lbs. Are you planning on some sway bars for your truck? There is not a lot of room on our trucks for them unless you go with some kind of a custom speedway engineering type bar.

 

[underdrive]

Adding extra clutches in the factory limited-slip differentials is but impossible, well I guess it depends on which one you got, but those made for Ford by DANA (they are of the Trak-Lok variety) are a bear to put together even with their factory clutch/plate arrangement. The thing to keep in mind is there are actually two models of those, some use just notched and grooved steel plates and discs, while some have actual friction material on their clutches - those with the frictions hold better IMHO, the all-steel setups tend to last quite a bit longer but they are not quite as effective. Would be pretty interesting to know which type you got, supposedly all later diffs were of the frictions type but I've ran into at least one '96 unit that was of the earlier all-steel setup... But yeah, zip-locker should help quite a bit. Just make sure it's of the normally-locked variety that has the shafts locked while going straight and only unlocks the outer shaft to free-wheel while cornering - the other type of auto-lockers has the shafts unlocked most of the time and locks them when one wheel spins noticeably faster than the other, those are hell in winter or even just generally slippery road conditions.

The SPOD thing looks pretty nice, quite a bit of change to just drop on 6 switches but when you factor in the downtime of sourcing everything separate and then putting it all together it's probably a pretty decent deal. If you need it go for it

 

[amgvr4]

I got a chance to install some 9" HID lights that were given to me a few weeks back. Since I needed to add a relay and fuse I decided to do the "whiter whites and brighter brights" mod to the headlights at the same time. The factory lights run the power through the switch at the dash and uses small 18g wires. The result is pathetic light output and switches that fail. The fix uses 12g wire from the battery and relays so since the power from the switch is not drawing so many amps it should last longer.

I made some simple brackets that mount to the bumper. I plan on making a new bumper at some point so these are temporary




The wiring was a pain and it took several tries to get it working the way I wanted. This is definitely not my strong suit. I plan on getting a SPOD to switch my accessories so the HIDs are set in a temporary way with the high beams switching the relay for the driving lights. I didn't want to add a switch in the cab knowing that I would just remove it in the near future. The end result



The lights are seriously bright and I can now see at night!

 

[98dango]

Still one of my favorite trucks hear looking good.

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[pappawheely]

Don't hit anything. They look naked out there alone.

 

[amgvr4]

Don't hit anything. They look naked out there alone.

Yeah for now they are there only because it was the easiest way to mount them. I am toying with the Idea of mounting them up on the cowl to protect them better. I also want some kind of LED bar with a flood pattern to complement these spots.

Still one of my favorite trucks hear looking good.

Thanks dango, how are you liking the PNW?

 

[98dango]

I like it wife loves it and that's what matters. We need to schedule a crew cab play day some time.

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[amgvr4]

We went down to some friends in Olympia to camp this weekend. On Saturday we went shooting and wheeling in Capital forest. Here is a short video of some of the action....

 

[98dango]

Looking good

 

[pappawheely]

I was having fun just watching:victory:

 

[amgvr4]

The curse of the OBS Ford door handle continues! Several months back I broke my plastic interior door handle and in the process of fixing it found that the lever mechanism was broken free from the door as well. Turns out this is a common problem so I fixed the mount and got a set of older metal handles from the pull-a-part. Problem solved!....... Until this week when my 5 year old daughter broke the metal handle trying to open the door! LOL! It is now obvious the factory handles are garbage and so I set about making my own to end this problem once and for all. First I had to machine the mount that attaches to the lever mechanism out of .375 steel. It was pretty basic with the only critical details being a bolt hole and anti rotation notch. Then I bent up a handle from .75x.187" stainless strapping.

Broken factory handle



The mount I machined



Side by side


I had to grind a clearance notch just past the mount to allow the handle to fully articulate


Mounted up




After all that the lever mechanism was shot and had so much play in the pivots that I still could not open the door from the inside. After a quick internet search it turns out that nobody makes a replacement so I will have to head out to pull-a-part again to get a better condition one. I also need to do a full fluid change on the truck before our trip to Bend next weekend so tomorrow will end up being a wrenching day.

 

[underdrive]

The pre-OBS trucks ('91 and older) use a solid linkage mechanism to actuate the door latches instead of the cables your OBS has. It is vastly superior to the cables as it does not stretch and as long as latches are somewhat clean and lubricated the handles will work great. The OBS cable-drive setup is IMHO garbage, yeah it's cheap and relatively easier to install but the cables are under a lot of tension and eventually dry up and/or stretch and there are no provisions for tightening them up, and aftermarket replacement cables for these are, as most other aftermarket replacement cables, pure junk not worth the time to even look up their price online. Every OBS doors we've ever used has been eventually converted to the older setup, it's annoying as hell trying to hook up all the rods but once done you'll likely never have to deal with that mess again, especially if you use the opportunity to install new plastic end clips at the same time.

All that said, nice work on the new door handles. Also just so you know, the very early '80s handles used retaining bolts that have larger heads and washers, never seen one of those handles broken like yours even tho they are actually longer than the '82 and all later models be them pot-metal or plastic (and therefore can put more strain on their mounts).

 

[mtm_motors]

Really like the new door handle! The solid rod linkage sounds like a good mod as well... I know alot of OBS' I've looked at had door handle issues.

 

[amgvr4]

I got a bevy of small projects done today. We are heading down to Bend OR for a camping trip next week so I wanted to change the oil, fuel filter, and trans fluid. I would have liked to change the rear diff fluid as well but it will have to wait, that stuff ain't cheap! I also made it to pull-a-part and got some good condition door release mechanisms and scored on an explorer overhead console with temp and compass. I plan to mount my aux switches up there as well.

Here is the door all back together and working great




The console. I will need to trim it to fit, make a mount, and paint it to match



My pedal pads are slick as snot. I used a little skate board grip tape and all fixed!


I also switched out the extended lug nuts that came on the truck for factory ones when rotating the tires. I hated those long ones!



One of the things that I have come to appreciate in the things I fabricate is the ability to keep it modular. There are times when things that make wheeling or camping easier make hauling stuff a pain. I had to pull the tire swing out off to pick up some full sheets of plywood for a project at work. Likewise I can completely remove the tent rack if needed. My goal is to have a transformer type truck that can be configured in several different ways to meet whatever challenge I throw at it.