1976 Ford F250 – Dale S.

Hello LMC,
I bought my red Ford Ranger XLT Camper Special from a couple named Emil and Viola in North Idaho in 1987. They had used it to haul an 11 ft. camper down to Palm Springs, California every year since they had bought it new in 1976. Along the way, it had suffered the normal bumps and bruises that come along with a pickup that got used for its intended purpose and it looked like it had spent some time in the mountains of Idaho as well. They had decided to get rid of the truck for whatever reason and there was an ad for the truck in a local buy/sell newspaper. I called the number and went to see it. When I arrived, someone else was already looking at it but they were looking for a manual transmission and decided to pass on the opportunity to buy it. The automatic transmission was fine with me as I was going to use it to get wood to heat my home in the winter so we agreed on $2700 and I drove it home that day. This truck was used to move to a different home on two occasions but it got used regularly to haul bags of concrete, loads of rock, all manner of building materials and the family dog from 1987 until 2013 when a good friend stopped by one day as it sat idling. He said that it sounded like it was only running on seven cylinders and in fact it was. It was determined that the valve guides were worn and that the heads needed to be reworked. I completely rebuilt the engine and drove it for three years before I decided that I needed a truck that I could drive in our North Idaho winters to get my snow bike to the mountains. I was able to find a 1979 Ranger 4 Speed 4WD to use as a donor frame and went about tearing it all down to the bare frame. I refuse to put something back together dirty so every nut, bolt and mount was replaced or sandblasted and painted before any assembly was done. The transmission and the differentials were the only pieces of equipment that were not disassembled and reworked. The bed floor was really rusty and full of holes so I replaced it. My good friend Cody Hurley from CCH Vintage Auto Restoration had done body work on high end automobiles before he started his restoration business and offered to come by once or twice a month to give me pointers and help me out with the more technical end of body work and paint preparation. After I spent 18 months fixing and repairing just the bed, I knew that there was no way I was going to drive this truck up to any mountain in the snow or even out in the rain for that matter. I had to make very few modifications when putting the Camper Special body on the 1979 frame and the only modification of the engine was the installation of the Holley Sniper fuel injection on top. Using 5 pin relays, I was able to use the original tank switch on the dash of the Camper Special to switch between the dual tanks. As you can see, the color theme is Black and Red with Ford Blue thrown in for accent in places. While the truck will never see the mountains or snow while I own it, I have had it in several car shows and have received lots of positive comments. It is not a daily driver, but I take it out often and drive it just for fun. This total rebuild was a 3½ year project but by the time I went back and fixed all my mistakes, it took 7 years and countless parts and pieces from LMC Truck before it was finished.