Thread: 1969 f250 4x4 restoration

I shot a 2 min. video with my android but the sound quality SUCKS. Not worth uploading. haha

Spent all day pulling the tranny apart, found the broken reverse piston, got a new one in, got it back together, another $50 in oil, still no fucking reverse.

This shit pisses me off

Fixed reverse, went on a camping trip in the mountains, ended early with a ride on the AAA flatbed again.
Lost reverse again, and then lost every fucking gear.

Originally Posted by 1969f100

Fixed reverse, went on a camping trip in the mountains, ended early with a ride on the AAA flatbed again.
Lost reverse again, and then lost every fucking gear.

Time for a ford tranny.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

last week the truck lost reverse, so i pulled the pan and valve body, found the broken reverse servo piston and swapped it out, still had no reverse, had a buddy that is famous in the Cummins world come help and off came the pan/valve body again... got reverse fixed.
Yesterday out in the mountains I get up against a tree on the trail, pointed down hill (8,000 winch or samurai are not going to pull me back up, off the tree), and lose reverse again. Luckily my buddy was able to anchor himself against a big tree and use his 8k winch to pull my truck sideways. We get going again and suddenly no gears work.
Doesn't matter if I'm in 2 low, 2 hi, 4 lo, 4 hi, nothing works.


So he pulls me down the trail to the road and I sit and wait for the AAA tow truck at night. I did find out that I can get very comfy inside that cab!




And then there's story #2 which involves a miracle. I wasn't paying attention and didn't see the end of the rock slab i was on drop off, and drove off the side of it at a TERRIBLE approach angle. The truck stopped real quick, got up on two wheels (drivers side wheels) and "went over". It was so far over that I KNEW 100% that we were going to roll the truck down this rock slab. I was now sitting on the door panel. Then what HAD to have been past the point of no return in the "roll", the weigh shifted back to passenger side and the front right tire touched down again. Rear tire still a ways up in the air until my buddy was able to get to me and hook the winch fairlead to me to keep me from rolling.
I think what stopped the roll was the drivers front shock bottoming just in time to bounce some weigh back to the passenger side.
Scariest 5 seconds of my life.





Picture does no justice... I wish i had a picture of it when we were on two wheels

rock crawling is for rovers.

This has to be the COOLEST truck i have ever seen! nice build

find me a set of those kidney bean 8-lugs kiddo! always dug this flatbed

Bump...

any updates???

Yeah, tarped it up and kissed its beautiful face goodbye for a very long time
5 speed swap is going to be expensive and i have no money.

Time to shove it in the sideyard this weekend so I got a little work done before it goes back there.


Pulled all the driveshafts, dropped the transfer case, pulled the receiver hitch and gas tank (to seal it) and started getting the transmission ready to be dropped.... off a cliff.

Got a guy on another forum with a Getrag 5 speed (1st gen 5spd, before the nv4500 came out. I won't have to get a new adapter plate and starter with this trans!), good clutch, master and slave cylinders, driveshaft and other swap items, along with a divorced NP205 t-case all for $600 so road trip to Oregon soon.

With the way things are going It might be back on the road with 5 speed and all, in about 3 months. Much better than the year I was expecting. I can't wait to drive this thing with a 5 speed. I can't even imagine the awesomeness

Just got done reading the whole thread and I'm very impressed and jealous!

Im curious, have you calculated your mpg?

Nope no MPG calculations yet. I'll do it when the 5 speed is in i swear!

I drive the thing pretty hard. It's way too fun. And the pump is turned way up... So I'm probably not getting anything like I should be

5 months since I've driven it. Absolutely killing me. Looked at some old pictures of me driving it and found some motivation to get started working on it again.

Today I washed the birdshit/driveway dust off, got the torque convert bolt cut out so I can drop the transmission tomorrow, and started the tank sealing process.
Found a set of 16.5 steelies I'll be picking up this weekend hopefully. Nice original steelies painted black with some color matched (red) beadlock rings should be sweet! I love the look of the slot mags but there are many reasons why they need to go.

Transmission should be on the ground tomorrow, and looks like I'll be rebuilding it. Atleast I should be driving this thing in the next couple weeks.
Can't wait to start the fun stuff... I have a lot of plans!

So stoked to see this build back in motion!

Hope you don't sell this one.

This is by far the coolest truck in folsom. Let me know if you need help getting the build back in motion bud.

haha thanks mang.
Thought i'd have the tranny on the ground yesterday but i got sick somehow and went downhill fast.
I should have it on the ground this weekend and have the tank sealed up.

I'm thinking about building the auto up instead of going 5 speed. Full rebuild kit, a badass torque converter and a shift kit would work wonders...

Yeah a built auto would be the ideal set up for that rig imo. Increased downtime being the only real negative to that. Do you have a manual tranny already that you could swap in while you rebuild the auto?

Actually I'd be able to get it back on the road faster by building the auto up instead of going manual. A guy on an old ford forum i'm on in Oregon has a Getrag 5 speed (getrag is 1st gen cummins, nv4500 5 speed is second gen) and divorced NP205 t-case along with master/slave cylinders and other parts i need for the swap that i can have all for $600 but he is extremely hard to get a hold of and he said he has no idea when he will ever actually pull the getrag from the dodge it's in. $600 is an insane deal, so i've been waiting on that, but i'm done waiting. The guy is a flake. The Getrag's are hard to find, and If I were to pick up a nv4500 I would have to swap out the starter, adapter plate, get my hands on master/slave cylinders, etc. I'd be spending atleast $2,500 with a new half decent clutch.

If I take this auto, rebuild it myself with a $150 full rebuild kit (includes new clutch discs and all), a $60 shift kit, and a badass torque converter ($700 for a 89% efficiency DTT converter) i'm pretty sure i'd be content...
One of my buddies happens to have a 9 second 1/4-mile Cummins (I shit you not. His name is Cole Dow, you've heard of him if you're into go-fast Cummins), and knows a lot about these tranny's so i'll have him point me in the right direction too.
I'm super curious as to how much more powerful the beast will be with a high end torque converter that actually puts the power to the ground vs. the worn out and stock state it's in now.

I like the plans man, sounds well thought out.

Just a though but can you source a getrag from a different easier to find car and make an adapter plate? I had a getrag 5speed manual tranny in my 525 bmw that i used to have which was also an inline 6 motor... They are quite are prominent at the pick n pulls.

The Getrags that came behind the cummins are getrag 360's, they're a totally different beast from the one behind beamers. There are some trans swaps that people do with adapter plates such as Ford ZF tranny's but they still cost $$$$$$$$.

If only Cummins diesels were ever in pick n pulls. $400 cummins tranny would be SUHWEET. I've never seen a cummins in a pick n pull and I doubt i ever will. I guess people arn't THAT stupid.

good luck with whatever you end up doing trans wise. NOTHING you do will be cheap as its hard to keep a trans alive behind the torque of these things & therefore the parts are expensive. Autos are especially hard to keep alive & are more costly than the 5 speeds.

haha Yeah, tranny's have a hard life behind a turned up Cummins for sure but I think I'll be golden with this 727 build, and I don't think it will cost too much. Maybe a tad over a grand.
I have a buddy close by (Ever heard of Cole Dow?? He's famous in the diesel world. 9 second 1/4 mile 1st gen cummins!) and he knows 727's like the back of his hand and how to get them to hold up reliably. I'm sure he will be helping a lot with this tranny rebuild as i don't know anything about automatics.

A decent 727 auto build should be quite a bit cheaper than swapping in a 5 speed. If I were to swap in a nv4500 I'd be looking at $2,500+ easy.
I hope to have right around a grand in the 727 build. Then simply bolt it back in. No new mounts, driveshafts, clutch/mc/sc, shifter install, buying new clutch, etc.
But if you had a nv4500 and a 727 on hand, and wanted to build one for holding up to huge HP/TQ numbers then for sure the 5 speed is going to have the better money to strength ratio.

727's aren't bad but they are hard to find for the cummins if something goes wrong. If your buddy knows them he hopefully has parts around. They are different from the typical 727 for obvious reasons.
I had a guy drive out from arizona & back in the same day to get the one out of my donor truck as the trans shop had given him the basic mopar version 3 times when he was trying to get one for his truck.

Anyway, they are good but be careful on gear choice as the no OD is the downfall to them. The trucks with them came with 3.08 gears from the factory. Or just throw a gearvendor on it and you'll be good.

Let me know when you start tearing into the tranny, i'd like to come over and check it out/help. I've always been curious about the internals of auto's.

Originally Posted by 1969f100

Cole Dow

Originally Posted by 1969f100

Cole Dow

name dropper! get this thing fixed already and whore it out!

Originally Posted by JusSumGuoy

727's aren't bad but they are hard to find for the cummins if something goes wrong. If your buddy knows them he hopefully has parts around. They are different from the typical 727 for obvious reasons.
I had a guy drive out from arizona & back in the same day to get the one out of my donor truck as the trans shop had given him the basic mopar version 3 times when he was trying to get one for his truck.

Anyway, they are good but be careful on gear choice as the no OD is the downfall to them. The trucks with them came with 3.08 gears from the factory. Or just throw a gearvendor on it and you'll be good.

Yeah, they don't seem too common either. There's one on craigslist with a married np205 for $800. I'd rather build mine than swap a good-stock one in though.
The highboy tops out at about 60-65, and by tops out, I mean I'm just DUMPING diesel in it to get it to stay at that speed. A good torque converter that slips much less than stock will help top speed a little, not much though. My plan is to swap from 4.10 gears to something like 3.73. That should have me cruising comfortably around 70mph i'm guessing. And i"ll keep my eye out for a gear vendor in the mean time.

Originally Posted by 87xjmike

Let me know when you start tearing into the tranny, i'd like to come over and check it out/help. I've always been curious about the internals of auto's.

Will do! I'll have it in the garage sometime this week for sure. I keep telling myself i'll do it "tomorrow" but then put it off again because taking the torque converter bolts out of a cummins tranny is proving to be no fun at all. But once it's sitting in the garage and ready to be torn down I'll probably order all the parts and get to work.

Originally Posted by doyouquaxu

name dropper! get this thing fixed already and whore it out!

haha, It's extremely nice having a buddy that knows a metric shit ton about Cummins' so i can pick his brain or ask for help. And since he's very well known, people ususally know who i'm talking about when i drop his name

Just for fun, here's Cole doing a 9.8

That was like $20+ in fuel out the stack before he went anywhere - haha

Originally Posted by 1969f100

Just for fun, here's Cole doing a 9.8

holy fuck

haha. That's not his fastest time either. But its close. He occasionally (rarely) drives that beast on the street. Can you imagine the trouble a guy could get into..

wow, this guy is in sac?

Right here in Folsom with us haha
He works for a very well known and reputable drag car shop here in Folsom too. Well it's in Orangevale but close enough.

oh snap. what shop?

Fastest slalom quarter mile I've ever seen!

Originally Posted by 87xjmike

oh snap. what shop?

Bunkers drag shop. Bob bunker

Originally Posted by BrokeCuzWheelin

Fastest slalom quarter mile I've ever seen!

Can you imagine being in the truck...

Now working full time at the welding shop, AND starting back up making pizzas again at night... 8AM to 10PM work days... It's worth it when I think about driving the highboy again
And on top of that, my land Rover is supposedly sold... very serious buyer and should be seeing the money Wednesday or Thursday. There's another $9k to play with, although it all won't be going into the highboy.


Today I finished the tank sealing process. The gas tank is now completely sealed inside so the diesel won't break down the galvanized coating. Then I tackled the wiring mess that's been in the back of my mind since day one. Started over and now have very clean rear wiring.
Wiring disaster



Then I installed the tank and crossmember, cleaned the truck up a little bit and pulled the front diff cover. I'm just going to replace the pinion bearing and run it again, unless I decided a d44hp or d60 would look better under there. Worked a little more on getting the transmission ready to drop as well. It will be on the ground tomorrow night looks like.



Once I get the money from the Rover I will be ordering $1k in parts for the transmission then it's just a matter of putting the transmission back together with the goodies and getting it back in the truck and driving the hell out of it while i continue to dump money into it.
Transmission is getting a high performance torque converter (either BD or spec-rite, calling both tomorrow and picking one) which will be around $600, a master rebuild kit with red eagle clutch discs (about $220), a trans-go shift kit, updated reverse servo piston so i don't lose reverse for a THIRD time, and fluid.


Should be driving it in a few weeks hopefully. So I'm trying to get major progress done while I wait for the money and parts to arrive so when I get them I can get the tranny done and in and drive.
My list of what needs to be done, though, is a page long.

I'm glad to see the truck is seeing the light of day and soon the open road!! and some dirt trails

On the trans I would order up a Mag-hytech deep dish trans pan and do a trans temp guage setup. The pan dropped my temps by 10-20 degrees in 110 degree heat while pulling, not pulling trans stays at 150ish.

I'll definitely do a deep pan, trans cooler and trans gauge in the near future. Definitely want to protect what I'm about to dump money into.