Big Red Prerunner

[proracedriver616]

Last spring i sold my xj and was pretty burnt out on jeeps and offroading in general really. I was constantly dumping so much money and time into my jeep and it seemed like it was neverending. When i destroyed almost every part of the 9" rear end i decided to part with the xj and buy a daily driver. A friend of mine that i grew up with who lives in breckenridge wanted the jeep and i made him a good deal on it.

After shopping around for a few weeks and looking at a wide variety of cars/trucks/SUVs i found something. Im still not entirely sure what it was about this vehicle that caught my eye....but i found a 1995 Ford F150 on craigslist, and after test driving it twice I pulled the trigger on it. This truck was a little rough around the edges but it was a two owner (father/son) vehicle with pretty low miles.

Aside from mismatched/out of balance tires and rusty wheel openings the truck is pretty clean, it has a 5.8 351 Windsor motor with a E4OD automatic transmission, dana 44 ttb front end, and a drum brake 8.8 out back. I only drove it for a couple days before two wheel studs broke off of the right front hub from the wheel being out of balance and the lug nuts being loose. I replaced all the studs on that side, and found a cheap set of factory f150 aluminum wheels on craigslist, then mounted some new 35" bfg all terrains.

At this point i still wasnt too interested in wheeling it, i just wanted all the tires to match, be balanced, and not be dry rotted. I wasnt looking for a lifted vehicle...i just liked the look of this pickup and got a decent deal on it. Over the next few months i replaced one of the fuel pumps, got a new distributor and ignition module, and replaced all the steering then got an alignment.

 

[proracedriver616]

It didnt take long for the urge to start making the truck cool to set in. I started scouring craigslist here and there and then one night came across a brand new pair of glassworks 4" fenders for $50. My front fenders were rusty so i had to buy em...

These belonged to the editor of Hot Rod Magazine, he had a ford truck at Destroked here in denver getting a cummins diesel swap done. The fenders were meant for that truck but the build plan changed at some point and they never made it to the truck so they were left at the shop for sale.

I left my truck with my friend Jon for a week over the summer and he got them all mounted up for me, but he ran out of time to reinforce the inner fenders that they are mounted to. They are all mounted up but the front end will flex too much and end up cracking the glass they way they are currently mounted so i will have to do some more work to them in the near future

I got plenty of use out of the topper, but i couldnt see shit when backing up, and i absolutely hated the look of it....so i sold it on craigslist. Looks much better without the topper.

 

[collkid]

Dang thing has potential. What happened to the front bumper?

 

[eflores]

love the color. how much lift does it have and how much is it going to have in the end?

 

[DutchVDub]

Good looking truck. I just welded the TTB drop brackets up on a friend's same body style truck. He noticed they were moving a bit when steering so he had me weld them to the crossmember.

 

[proracedriver616]

love the color. how much lift does it have and how much is it going to have in the end?

I really dont know, I'm guessing its around 5" or so...but I will end up doing a 4" lift when I'm done, that seems to be a good height for keeping it from being a monster truck while still having usable suspension travel

Good looking truck. I just welded the TTB drop brackets up on a friend's same body style truck. He noticed they were moving a bit when steering so he had me weld them to the crossmember.

I have drop brackets on mine right now, but i have a plan for something special in the near future to replace them...

Dang thing has potential. What happened to the front bumper?

The sides of the front bumper were hacked up to clear the tires, it looked haggard and the wide fiberglass fenders made it look even worse so i ditched it when the fenders went on, but I have been working on fixing that....



Because of the shitty accordian shaped frame rail ends on these trucks most people do weld on bumpers, I wanted to make mine bolt on so i could get it powdercoated when finished, and be able to remove and repair it if i damage it. To start I hacked the first 6-8" or so of the framerails off, getting rid of as much of the crumple zone built into the rails as possible. Then found a piece of rectangle tube and went to town with the holesaw

I cut enough of the framerails off that i had to creat a little pocket on the back of the tube for clearance to the radiator support bracket and transmission cooler lines.

Now I have a sturdy crossmember between my framerails to strengthen the front end up and give me something to bolt a bumper to, I just need to make fish plates to cap the ends and come back over the sides of the framerails.

 

[proracedriver616]

I made some templates then went and saw Josh over at Hooligan offroad and had him cut me some pieces for my front bumper on his torchmate

Im one step closer to having a front bumper, i just need to cut some flat plates that will bolt to the bumper to weld these pieces to and then
i can bend up some tube across the top. After that the plan is to do a hoop coming down slanted back towards the axle with an aluminum
skid bolted to it in traditional prerunner fashion. Then add lights and powdercoat it all.

 

[riverfever]

That's a great looking truck.

 

[COTallTodd]

Looking good Seth!

 

[proracedriver616]

Back in early November Mike (Hypoid) was nice enough to dig up a spare complete ttb front end for me from the u pull and pay. (thanks again mike!) It banged around the back of my truck for a few weeks until i pulled it all apart and power washed it...

I was kicking around the idea of sending the housing out to have it modified by Camburg, Solo Motorsports, Giant, or one of the many other go fast/prerunner offroad companies. My original plan was to wait till i got my taxes back and build a nice front end for my truck but Threat Motorsports was having killer a black friday sale the whole week of thanksgiving with really good prices on all of their long travel kits. So i called and talked to the owner dave who was nice enough to answer all of my questions, and i decided on a 4.5" over longtravel kit.

The day before thanksgiving I boxed up the two halves of the ttb housing and shipped them off to Threat out in California. Dave closed down the shop around the holidays so it took a little while to get my kit all built but he texted me wednesday to let me know the kit was all done and ready to ship out! I asked him to text me a pic of my kit and from the pictures it looks like he did a beautiful job!

For those unfamiliar with ttb stuff (as i was before delving into this truck build) and arent quite sure what you are looking at, here is a breakdown of what all is included in the long travel kit I bought:

First the axle has been sanded clean and all tabs/brackets have been cut off and smoothed out. Next they cut on each side right before the C portion of the housing where the knuckle bolts onto and extended 4.5" per side. Where the cuts were made and extended, they take the ends of the axle and "turn" them to correct the camber for the amount of lift you are running so you dont have to run any kind of drop down brackets. My front end is cut and turned for 4" springs. After the housing has been extended and turned everything is plated over where the modifications were made as well as in all of the critical stress areas. Finally a nice little truss is welded across the front to strengthen the housing even more.

A pair of brand new cromoly axle shafts come with the housing, that are 4.5" longer per side to work properly inside the newly modified housing.

I opted to have a set of their high clearance radius arms built along with the housing. These are the equiveland of a long arm kit on an xj. They are press broken boxes with internal gusseting running the entire length of the arms with a heim joint on the frame side and new mounting tabs straight to the axle that do not hang down below the housing at all like the factory mounts did. Along with all the heims and hardware for the radius arms, bolt on frame mounts are included also.

Extended steering adjusters are the only other piece needed to round out this kit and make it complete.

What I thought was great about this kit is that everything is built the way you want it, from the length you want the housing extended, to the amount of lift you plan to run, and the style of radius arms you wish to have built. Dave was great at pointing me in the right direction and explaining the pros and cons of going with different options. The other cool thing is that this is a completely bolt on kit, aside from two shock tabs and drilling a couple extra holes through the frame for the radius arm mounts

I opted to retain provisions to mount the factory coil spring buckets on my truck to keep the cost of the whole build down and make speed/ease of installation easier. But i hope that within the next year (after all the other basics are done on the truck) I can revisit the front end and add hoops and 14" coilovers. Even sticking with coils, if i can fit the right shocks, i should be able to pull around 14" of wheel travel, and more like 16-18" of wheel travel with coilovers. Keeping 4wd is the limiting factor in wheel travel numbers, if i changed it over to beams in the front I could get 20+ inches of travel and it would have been cheaper....but this is Colorado and i really wanted to keep 4wd.

P.S. Thanks for all the compliments guys!

 

[retarius]

Those arms look beautiful. Im loving the build. When your ready for a shakedown run I have a Carli 2.5 Pintop kit on my dodge and am always looking for some go fast time.

 

[DutchVDub]

That's pretty sweet, I've always liked the potential of the TTB setup Ford used. I thought it would be really cool to do a TTB front and rear on a Go-Fast Ultra-4 style buggy.

 

[proracedriver616]

My kit is now sitting in my garage...but missing the snap rings that hold the 1" uniballs in, and the extended steering adjusters are MIA too. I called Threat and they are trying to find out what happend to those parts and get new ones sent out to me.

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I went and picked up my 3rd member for the front end today, full of new parts inside! 4.88 gears and a Detroit trutrac.

While i was in the area I stopped at 4WP and ordered 4" coils and a pair of cheapie gas shocks for the front end. Now I just need to get some drilled and slotted rotors, nice pads, wheel bearings, and ball joints. If anyone has any opinions for really good brake pads or balljoints im open to hearing them... from the little bit of research Ive done Im leaning towards EBC brakes and i need to do some more research for the BJs. I would like to do dynatrac or another brand of higher end aftermarket balljoints but i havent found if anyone makes them for the ttb 44, Moog is gonna be my go to if i cant find anything better.

 

[retarius]

Id be very cautious with the moogs. they tend to wallow out the holes on the dodge setups. Id talk with Threat and see what they recomend. PolyPerformance/synergy may have a suggestion as well.

 

[proracedriver616]

I took advantage of the nice weather today and came home early to work on the truck a little. I cut some of the rust off of the bottom of the bedsides and gave it a more of a prerunner look lol

I also took off the big tube step rocker protector things, removed the crappy dented up and rusted out rear bumper, remounted the license plate, and mounted my tailgate net i picked up at pep boys last weekend when getting stuff to do an oil change.

I finally got rid of the stock spare tire and all the mounting brackets from under the bed, its amazing how much room there is down there now and how much taller the back of the truck looks with the bedsides trimmed and without the big chrome rear bumper. I cut a few inches off the end of the exhaust too, it looked funny sticking way out there with the bed trimmed.

 

[eflores]

this thing is fricken cool

 

[time2getdirty]

Can't wait to hopefully buy a silverado when I get home and eventually build it into a long travel go fast toy. I've been addicted to sand fans dirt roads for a while now, better than gooing slow in the rocks, at least temporarily.

 

[proracedriver616]

I havent made a lot of progress lately on the truck between work and family, but i have been doing a lot of research on rear ends and trying to make a decision on what i want to build/run. My first, obvious choice was a 9"....but 9s kinda suck.

I definitely dont want a semifloat rear end, so i decided if i was to run a 9 it would have to be a 35 spline, disc brake, full floater, in a fabricated housing. After pricing out several options from different companies I decided that the amount of money i would end up spending on a ff9 was going to be more then i was wanting to spend. After looking into a few other options i decided that a 14 bolt is the direction i want to go.

I looked into 5 lug hubs for the 14 bolt, but I decided to swap the front end over to 8 lug to match the rear after i got my hands on a factory disc brake "metric" 14 bolt. This axle is a tab bit wider then the older 14 bolts and will come close to matching the track width of my extended ttb front end.

So now that i have an axle, next week ill be ordering up 4.88s, an install kit, and a yukon grizzly locker. Once the axle is close to going under the truck it will be getting a truss also. The first part showed up today for my axle....it was supposed to show up bare though...not green

 

[proracedriver616]

Picked up a tcase for the truck yesterday, my truck has a borg warner 1356 thats electronically shifted and has a slip yoke tailhousing on it, and the one i got is manually shifted and has a fixed yoke on the back. I powerwashed it today and found out that the tcase i bought off of craigslist is actually a borg warner 1345.

I was bummed at first but a little reading and i found out that they are nearly identical except for the fact that the 1345 has an all aluminum case and half of the 1356 case is magnesium, and the 45 has a 2.72 low range vs a 2.69 low range in the 1356. So other then the case supposedly not being as strong, and having a better low range there arent any other differences worth mentioning that i have learned about yet.


The other cool thing i learned about was the fact that my truck has a "programmable" control module for the computer. It was pretty simple...just jumping a wire, then using the odo reset buttons to change a number that coincides with tire size. So now my speedometer reads correctly and my transmission shifts a little better now, Im happy!


Oh yeah I also finally fish plated/capped off the front crossmember i built to hang a front bumper off of

 

[proracedriver616]

I ordered some stuff from the bronco graveyard and most of it in the mail today. I ditched the chrome grille in favor of a dark grey one

Next up will be to update the headlights... let me know your opinion, should I buy new crystal clear headlights and corners and buff the amber lenses. Or pick up a set of one piece black housing "projector" ebay specials.

http://www.topgearautosport.com/par...k_Projector_Headlights_with_Halo_and_LED.html

I know the projectors are kind of hokey but i really like the look of the one piece headlight/corner/turn lense and the black housing is cool, but i also think that the classic look of the truck with clear lenses on top and amber on the bottom is more period correct and would look nice with some buffing and new lenses. Im on the fence...