Hello from Northern California

[robroy]

Good morning Tim!

I grew up with that truck. I used to sit on my dads lap when I was a little kid and shift for him. He unfortunately passed away this past April and the truck was going to be a project for him and I to do together but that never happened.

Wow, so there's a lot more going on with your restoration than just the desire to have a fixed up old pickup then. I'm really sorry to hear about your dad!

I have never done any automotive work at all minus changing oil and spark plugs and general maintenance. It has been a really good project to learn on.

That's impressive! Going from oil changing and spark plugs to a body restoration's quite a jump--well done!

I recently put new gears in the front and rear axles and new seals and new posi in the rear end.

Oh great! May I know which limited slip differential you chose? One day I'll be adding one of those to my truck, but I don't know much about them.

I am just now starting to rebuild the engine (302 V8) Luckily my mechanic here in Ca is a good friend and is helping with that part.

Excellent! Glad to hear that you have some help with that. When it was time for me to bring my truck's engine back to life (or replace it entirely, as it turned out), I wasn't brave enough to go the route of doing it myself. I'll bet you're learning a lot and making many memories during the process.

All the body work is very time consuming but its coming along nicely.

Great!!! I know everybody would love to see your work if you have a chance to put up some photos.

I'd love to learn how to do body work, because I have a peculiar personality in the patience department. I'm perfectly happy spending days focusing on one tiny thing, to get it perfect, which is part of why it took me several years to get my truck running after starting with my project. And my project's pretty unbalanced in that way too, like one part's just as perfect as it could possibly be, while parts right next to it are totally rusty and neglected. But I think I'd really enjoy body work!!!

Tim, if I wanted to get started learning how to do body work, what would you recommend I learn first? If you were starting over again from scratch, would you do anything differently?

Thanks very much for joining FORDification Tim, glad to know you,
Robroy

[SkyBlue72]

Welcome from Pittsburgh!

I too joined this site out of fond memories of my Dad's 72. I'm pretty sure that truck does not exist anymore, but I hope to build my own in it's honor. I think the sitting on their lap and shifting as a kid is the drug that hooks you. I used to wait until he came home and when he went inside to eat his dinner, I would sit out there and pretend to drive it and run the shifter through all the gears. Dropping it into reverse was always my favorite shift. I'm glad I had the sense as a young kid to make sure that parking brake was set. I think he knew what I had been doing, because it always was....and FIRMLY.

Anyway....good luck. Enjoy!