I just bought a 71 f250 high boy in great shape thinking about doing a complete resto on it. I had a 74 high boy when I was a kid I loved these old trucks!. Enjoyed the video!.
1967 to 1977 mid year i believe ended divorced transfer case. I just acquired a 76 custom it getting full restoration 390 out of 1972 ...original c6 trans .. it has dual pistons caliber's on front axle..
Great video! Reminds me of the Custom Green 76 High Boy I had, with a .030 over 360, Holley 600, crane cam, Edelbrock intake, NP435, 205 transfer case, 4:10 gears, Factory A/C, with 9.00-16 Gumbo Wide mudders. I really miss that truck. Mine had the same power steering that yours has, Bendix control valve with a Ross steering box, I ended up converting it with a 79 F-350 Power steering box, which was good, but not as strong as the original setup. Maybe one day I'll find another one like it.
Good video very nice truck you should use that tape measure you found and re-measure them driveshaft the front one is longer than the rear one they are not the same
my grandfather had the crew cab 76 . special ordered it, that truck was a total piece of JUNK. the dealers could never get the truck to work right. it was one thing after another, he only had it a couple months. he traded in for the 77, that was an awesome truck. i hope your 76 is a good one , loved the high boys .
I had to look things up and seems they were actually different for the early Highboys. I've never heard that the Highboy was high because of using an F350 frame, but here's a listing of the frame widths. They don't list the F350 4x4, so IDK how to compare that. What I heard was that the Highboy had different springs in the front in order to handle thing like snow plows. www.dock.net/kep/bumt/fseries_frame.htm I have a 73 Highboy that I did a frame off resto on back about 20 years ago. I did some heavy mods to the engine, dropped in a 1U 428 crank and a ton of other work. I'd dump that steering and get a more modern one, I think the 77~79 have the better steering system. Surprised to see more don't have the protective plate for the transfer case, mine has a very heavy plate mounted to the frame. IMO, the real suck thing is how hard it is to convert the transmission to a 5 or 6 speed. The FE has TONS of low end torque and there's no reason to have it revving so high on the freeway. So having an overdrive or double overdrive would be awesome, but when I check, nobody made an adapter for it. I have a Gear Vendors OD that I was going to put on it, but they want so much $$$ for the adapter that it's not worth it. The stock tranny is basically a 3 speed with granny gear. Granny gear is rarely used and TBH, it would have been better to have it now quite a low and then all the other gears higher. Either that or a two speed rear or even the 2 speed transfer case to be closer so that you can use the truck on the freeway. You can make up for it with the larger tires. I've had 33's and now have 35's. BTW, the stock rim is a 16.5, so someone swapped things out. Good that they did that because 16.5 is damn hard to find.
It’s not difficult at all to swap a five seed into these trucks, you just have to find a five speed from a 70’s era Dump truck with an FE engine… these trucks didn’t use F350 frames, you’re 100% correct about the leaf spring front end being the reason for the ride height but it wasn’t designed like that to accommodate snow plows and such.
@@warrenmcelroy4718 IDK what trans was used in the 70's dump trucks, or if it was a true overdrive or what gear ratios it had, but the only reason to put a 5 speed in one of these would be the overdrive. It's really the freeway RPMs that's the issue. The reality is that even if it's a true overdrive 5 speed and still has good ratios for the other gears, it's really an issue of finding a 1/2 century old dump truck and that the trans is is usable condition and for a good price. Compare that to just waiting until you need new tires and getting taller tires and rework the speedo. It's too bad that more options aren't open, modern trucks have many more speeds, and an FE with an 8 speed would be great, you could be at 1800 on the freeway at 60MPH or whatever. That'll help with the fuel economy. So what was the ride height designed for and why did they change it back?
@@karljay7473 yeah I didn’t think about that, I know there were five speed options but I’m not sure if they were OD transmissions. Even if not though the five speed with closer ratios would make it more economical when running taller tires, like 35’s or larger. 37’s are great on these trucks but it does put a burden on the trans even with the 4:10 differential ratio’s. … as far as the ride height and front suspension, it wasn’t really designed for anything special other than running gear clearance, it’s just how it worked out, the 77.5 - 79 design with the wider frame, married T Case and coil spring front end allowed the truck to sit between two and three inches lower which was a good thing in the consumers eye “of which I do not agree”. … but if you do want to go the five speed route those trucks aren’t too difficult to find and I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to find a rebuilt trans online. They’re very solid transmissions though, even ones that are all used up generally still have a lot of life left in them
@@warrenmcelroy4718Back in the day, this was discussed a lot on various forums. Back when I was building mine it was about 22 years ago and there were all kinds of debates about how to get better MPG. For the most part, when you do the math and consider your time, you don't actually gain anything. If you go from 10MPG to 12 and you add up all the cost of gas vs the cost of pulling a trans, buying another and whatever gain you'd get from that alone, it's just not worth it. It's also an issue of how much you drive the truck. I was building my F350/EFI 460 with GearVendors OD, for commercial use and would have done a LOT for 2 extra MPG. Ended up dropping that IDEA, but you get the meaning. it's an issue of how much it costs, how much work it is and how much you'll actually gain. I run 35's on mine now and was considering going with 37's and that would have worked out great because I actually need new tires. So the cost is pretty much zero to get lower freeway RPMs. But at the same time, you lose that take off torque. it's a NP435 so you start in 2nd and treat it like a 3 speed. With the torque of a highly modified 428, you can run 37s no problem, it burns up the 35s like they were nothing.
hey do you Whites Boys have any kin in houston yeeee haaaa TEXAS that can do some good ole work on my 77 f 150 super cab i have a video up feel free and check her out
More torque for pulling than a 360. That 300 is, 4 low and 4x4, would climb a house. Besides, he said the 360 was only running on 5 cylinders, that apparently he didn't have the time and money to fix. The 300, dropped in, and ran
