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1948 Ford F1 budget resto-mod build

I went out to an abandoned naval station near my house Sunday and got some cool photos of the truck in its natural habitat.

You can also see the vintage style headlight covers I picked up from eBay they actually have the little Ford shield emblems on them, not just generic fit-all covers.

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Mare Island in Vallejo, CA, my dad worked out there out of high school for a bit before becoming a police officer.

Now there's some residential homes out there, a golf course, soccer fields, Touro University, and some businesses that utilize the larger buildings and warehouses.

Security has cinched down more and more because people go out there and do stupid things and ruin it for the rest of us but it's still a cool historical spot that at least hasn't been completely fenced off....yet.
 
Cool.

I used to work on an old base turned into an industrial park. Lots of neat old stuff to look at and explore.
 
Attended a show Saturday with the Ford and there was another '48 there with slightly more work done to it. It was a very cool truck.

Also some cool ratrods as well.

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Some big things have happened since I last posted an update here...things besides my membership lapsing:doah:

I sold my house that was 70 miles from work and bought and moved into a new-to-me house only 26 miles from work with a 3 car garage and side access. So that means more time and money to work on the toys.

After building a 13ft tall barn style 10x10 shed to clear out the garage I quickly parked the ford in there and began once again tearing it apart to install a Heidt's tubular mustang 2 kit with 2" drop spindles, a parallel 4 link out back with adjustable coilovers, 2004R overdrive transmission, and a few other odds and ends.

picture fast-forward

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dressed down the motor a bit

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along with everything else, a Milodon oil pan that DOESN'T leak a bit

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Had to ditch the sprint car radiator for this application specific aluminum unit from Champion Radiators, the other one just wasn't up to the task of idling in traffic on even mildly warm days, it was meant to be flying through the air not sitting still.

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and a little teaser, a friend and I picked up another '48 project for $900 which he's putting his sprint car motor in after it's converted to pump gas. He also bartered landscape work for a boxed TCI frame.

So as it sits(not in the picture below), the blue ford is finished and ready to drive except it's too low and the front tires I had on there are too wide and tall to steer without severe rubbing, so I'm looking into a narrower, shorter pair up front and a wider, shorter pair out back.

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The "budget" was the original purchase price :D:haha:

I'm pretty sure though especially with how it's setup now and everything working right I could sell it for a profit without too much trouble, but that's not the plan.
 
Finally got my new tires, but not without incident of course...:rolleyes:

Apparently while they were balancing one of the rears the little centering cone came loose or wasn't tightened all the way and rattled around in the wheel dinging up the powdercoating.:doah:

They were up front and cool about it though and are replacing it for free, as if that was an option, however I was still able to drive off into the sunset.:thumb:

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That's a slick front end kit :waytogo:

Those rear tires and stance are giving the truck a much more aggressive look.
 
Thanks for the comments and one other item I've added is this air cleaner fastener. It's just a solid resin display grenade that I drilled and tapped for 1/4-20.

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It drives great very stable and predictable, the old beam axle had the tendency to dart around quickly at higher speeds or when hitting bumps.

The overdrive is soooo nice, no more 3000rpms at 55mph.

There is a vibration it didn't have before though, only above 2000rpm so I need to do some investigating on that. I'm going to try a new harmonic balancer, but it may be from the stiffer poly bushing motor mounts too or the different tires, I'm not sure if they roadforce balance them or just static spin balance.

It doesn't seem like a driveshaft vibration because I had one on my jeep after I lifted it and it was different than what this is experiencing.
 

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