After 3 long years of being off the road, I’m finally fixing it
I bought this truck in 2020 after falling in love with it. I found it at a shop getting worked on, got the contact info for the owner and offered to buy it. I’ve done a lot of work on it over the years, but in 2023 I was driving it and had a nasty backfire that took out the distributor gear roll pin. I decided to tear it down a bit and replace the timing gear set up front, and upon reassembly, it leaked antifreeze terribly. I was a bit put off after spending all that time working on it and having an issue, so it kinda got put on the back burner while I did other things. This weekend, I decided to get back on it. I think I got everything up front sealed up but found a freeze plug that rotted out. I’ll be fixing that after work tomorrow. After a few years, I’m motivated to get it back on the road. It’s definitely not reliable enough for me to trust it on longer trips, but I’d like to put myself in a position to yank out the engine to rebuild it at some point, and being able to drive it to a buddies shop would make it much easier than doing it in my driveway. Anyway, I’ve posted my truck here before but it’s a 1981 Ford F-150 Ranger 5.8 (351M) with a C6 auto.