I’m 55 years young and I own a 1966 Ford F100 that I bought in high school. I purchased the truck in 1979 from a dealership I worked for in the body shop. I spied the truck sitting on the back lot with all the traded vehicles and knew I had to have it. There it was, a Rangoon Red 1966 F100 Short bed, with white bumpers and grill. At the time. I was really looking to find a Ford truck that fit my desire to own a Ford truck. My dad always owned and drove Ford trucks and I wanted to do the same. When I asked the owner of the dealership what he wanted for the truck, he said, he wanted one thousand dollars for it. Well, at the time I was making $3.15 an hour and to come up with a thousand dollars would be tough. As hard as it was, I told the owner I couldn’t afford it. I think he knew how deflated I was and how much I really wanted that truck. When he saw my reaction to the price, he said, how about $450.00. Of course, my reaction was excitement and joy. I said I needed to ask my Dad if it was ok and I wanted him to look at it before I bought it. I could drive it home to show my Dad. My dad looked it over and said it was good buy. A few days later I was the proud owner of my first Ford truck. That day fulfilled my desire to own a Ford truck. After driving the truck, I wanted to make it look better, so I saved my money and bought white wagon wheels and tires. That enhanced my love for this truck. Then, one snowy winter day on my way to the Vo-Tech school where I was taking Auto body, I ventured down the sloped parking lot hitting a patch of ice and slid into a parked car. That was the last time I drove the truck. The crash destroyed the front bumper and right front fender. At that time, I wanted to restore the truck. My first step was to remove the damaged parts and repair the typical rust those trucks were known to acquire. While I had it apart, I thought this would be good time to replace the very dependable but tired six-cylinder engine. I traded the white wagon wheels and the six banger for a 289 V8. After a few modifications to the engine mounts, the 289 was installed by myself and my Dad. The engine needed a little help with the top end. A friend of my Dad’s, who is a Ford man, came out to help. He brought a 2-barrel carb and valve guide seals. After a few short hours the 289 was running smooth. I tried to fix what I needed to make the truck road worthy again. At the time I was painting customer cars and my truck took a back seat to customers and earning money. By this time, I was out of high school and wondering if painting cars was going to pan out. After watching my best friend shove off to the U.S. Navy, my desire to make painting cars a business was even stronger. I made a go of it for the summer of 1981. With the lack of health insurance and trying it on my own I rethought my decision and decided to follow in my friend’s footsteps. I joined the US Navy in December 1981. After boot camp I was stationed in California leaving me no chance to work on the restoration of my Ford. Following almost four years serving in the Navy I was fortunate enough to land a job with Rockwell building the B1 Bomber. I stayed with them for about two years thus two more years from restoration efforts. Finally, I decided to move back home to Pennsylvania. At that point I thought I could get back to my truck, however, along came a marriage and followed by two kids. We purchased our first house with no garage about an hour from where my truck was stored in my Dad’s barn. With little money to spare and a family to support it left no time or money to press on with my restoration. After a couple of years, I decided to join the Pa Air National Guard with the hope to land a full-time position. In the meantime, the family decided to move back to our home town of Lebanon and to a house with a garage. I did manage to eventually get a full-time job with the Air Guard. Things were looking up, a house with a garage, a new job and maybe some time and money to restore the old girl. As fate would have it, joining the most deployed unit in the Air Guard, I was deployed during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. More time spent away from my restoration project. I was never able to get the truck to my house and purchase an air compressor to work on the truck. I’m now retired from the PA Air National Guard after 34 years of military service.
This is a full frame off restoration, almost 40 years in the making. The truck lived its life in Pennsylvania so could imagine the amount of rust the truck had. The typical areas, floors, cab mounts, cab corners, fenders, inner fenders, radiator support, all of which have been repaired or replaced. I removed the rusted rain gutter and flared the roof line at the top of the doors. I converted the front to disc brake twin I beams from a 1973 F100. The engine is still the 289 I originally put in it. It’s being rebuilt, bored 30 over with an Edelbrock top end kit giving it about 300hp. The three speed on the column is being replaced with a Tremic T5 5 speed on the floor. The original rear was replaced with a Ford 9” with 3.50 gears. The plan is to keep the truck it’s factory color of Rangoon Red base coat clear coat. The frame was completely stripped, blasted and powder coated. The truck was a basic no frills vehicle. For the most part the truck will look original, no power steering or A/C. Originally the truck only had one outside mirror on the driver’s door, I will be adding a mirror to the passenger door. Another upgrade will be to add a passenger side sun visor as the truck only came with the driver side. A rather unique upgrade I did to the truck was to cut out the entire steel bed floor center section and I converted it to a wood bed. The bed wood is local red oak that was planed and cut to size to fit the bed.
