About a year and a half ago, I purchased this truck from an internet listing. The truck was for sale on a small used dealer lot in the Denver, Colorado area. I bought this truck sight unseen and had it shipped to Westchester county, NY where I live. The truck is a base model F150, straight 6, granny 4 speed and 4 wheel drive. This truck spent most of its life sitting parked outside, faded paint and your typical wheel well rust. The truck came home with 55,000 original miles and almost everything on the truck was factory original. This truck was to be a daily driver and I quickly went to work on replacing all the old stuff. I spent about a week scraping and washing all the old mountain dirt and caked grease off the frame, suspension and undersides. Did new brake hoses, front calipers, rear drums and cylinders and bled the brake system. Traffic is bad here, so good safe brakes are a must. The local Maaco bodyshop did a quick tape and spray over all the old dents, rust, and other body blemishes just to make the truck presentable for now. Rust repair, new bedsides, and new fenders are in the works down the road. Sanded down the old original factory wheels, painted them black with some new white stripe tires to keep the vintage look. Then, I found a set of lightly used factory Ford hubcaps on eBay. I had to replace the water pump, hoses, and radiator. I then cleaned up under the hood by removing the old computerized feedback carburetor system. The motor runs off a reproduction Carter YF single barrel and a no name brand HEI distributor. The next project is to rebuild the TTB front suspension. I purchased all the parts needed from LMC, springs, shocks, bushings, seals, etc… they had it all. This truck has been my daily driver since for over a year and a half now. Back and forth to work, getting the kid to school and going to the grocery store, etc, this truck goes everywhere. It’s been on the highway a handful of time, though its gearing tops it out at 55mph which is slow for the highways around here. I’ve also driven it in bumper to bumper NYC rush hour traffic with no overheating and I didn’t roast the clutch disk. The granny 1st gear is great for traffic, just put it in 1 and let it idle with the pack of slow moving cars.

This old dumpy truck is a real head turner around here, since most people drive high end luxury cars around here. Kids ask me what year it is. When I tell them, “it’s an ’85”, they say “that’s cool but what year is it?” I have had to explain them that “It’s an ’85… from 1985… ’85 is not a model name”, and I find it fascinating that most younger people can’t imagine vehicles older than early 2000’s. Now this is no fat fendered classic or 70’s hot rod, but it’s definitely a classic. It might not be show quality or some high end restoration, but it gets looks wherever it goes. This truck is an ongoing, daily driven, restoration project and hopefully, one day, it will look and feel like the day it left the dealership in 1985.