doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Mildly OT: old trucks...

This old Ford has been living up here in Nowhere, Minnesota for something like 10-years now. I fill up the tank, pull the positive terminal connector off of the battery, and walk away from it early every November after hunting up here all Fall, returning in May/June to hook the battery back up and to start driving it again. It sits outside here all winter (& we're and hour and a half west of Frostbite Falls in what can only be described as a brutal winter climate). I did have to put some tires on it last Fall, but otherwise...not much attention gets paid to it.

I had read somewhere recently online that pickup trucks made in this country in the mid-to-late 90s thru the early 2000s were desirable again because they did not have any computer screens in them, only simple switches to control all of their functions. This allows them to age more gracefully evidently?

My brother beat me up here by a few days (a week or so) and he got bored (to windy and cool to fish). His personal vehicle is also a Ford truck (much newer and much bigger) so he has a soft spot for such things (he even owned a '97 F150 back when these units were "new"). Anyway... he always takes the time to keep his own vehicles pretty shiny (as a matter of personal pride of ownership, which I perfectly understand) and since he was bored and patiently waiting on my arrival, he made my old truck something of a pet project.

The newer tires last Fall really helped this old truck anyway (much-taller than what was on it previously [it was badly gearbound before] and a better fit to the 4.6 V8 & 5-speed gearset it came with). It never fails to amaze to me what a little polishing compound, a buffing wheel, and some elbow grease will do for something like this. He even stripped the original rims and repainted them (they were getting pretty rusty) and thoroughly cleaned out the interior (including all of the spider webs that tend to accumulate over the winter months).

I paid $1,800 for this truck (from an airline pilot buddy I knew from church back in 2016) and gave it to my father-in-law here so he could finally have a decent 4x4 truck for life on the northern frontier (his previous truck was a 1989 2-wheel drive F150 that had completely rusted out). Sadly, he passed in 2020 so it became mine again. Probably the best $1,800 I've ever spent on a vehicle btw.

This old truck still drives like it did when I first took possession in 2016. Mileage is unknown (odometer quit at 160k miles) but I'd guess it's somewhere around 200k. It still has its original clutch and original driveline and the interior still looks as good as the exterior. The AC still blows ice cold (I did have to service that a few years ago).

I've never really been a Ford guy but this one's making me a believer.

I'll 2nd that. I bought this one new 29 years ago and it's still all original including the clutch. The grandkids call it "Papa's huntin’ truck.”

I believe I have a few hours riding shotgun in that old girl, and just a bit of time in the pilots seat. Just a nice old truck, perfect around the end of October, beginning of November, when the leaves have given way.

Bet he found a white dog hair or two in the old girl, eh?

Tell Hugh I said Hi, Lloyd.

Best,
Ted

"I had read somewhere recently online that pickup trucks made in this country in the mid-to-late 90s thru the early 2000s were desirable again because they did not have any computer screens in them, only simple switches to control all of their functions. This allows them to age more gracefully evidently?"

True. Cars and trucks reached their zenith shortly before 2000. They had a little computer power to help them be more efficient, but had not turned into rolling, unrepairable computers whose main purpose seems to be costing their owners money.

My 1997 F-150 XLT Supercab, bought new at Kip Kilman's Tyson Ford in Virginia, is still running in Kodiak, Alaska. Between my retirement in October 2002 and July 2004 it crossed the continent eleven times as we moved from Virginia to Washington. In 2011 we drove it up the Alaska Highway and took it on the ferry out to Kodiak. One of the few good pictures of the 1997 I could find was when I brought the rowboat my father built in 1939, that I virtually grew up fishing and hunting in, over from Seattle.



A couple of years ago I sold it to a buddy in Kodiak for a dollar when his much newer pickup collapsed, frame rusted away in Kodiak's salt air!

I'm happy for the good luck y'all have had with those year's trucks, but just cannot completely agree about them reaching their zenith before 2000. I bought a new 2011 F250 4WD XLT with the 6.2L gas engine. It did double duty as a farm truck and a highway truck for a few years then total farm duty after about 2017 when I bought another Super Duty Lariat with the same engine.

The 2011 has 313K miles of hard use, towing insane loads on heavy trailers. No internal work on the engine or the transmission of either truck. 235K on the other one.

I'm going to stick my neck out here and claim that the 6.2L Ford gas engine is the best gas engine they have ever built. Besides a bit of a/c work they have been almost trouble free.

Addendum: I’d forgotten this: One day a few years ago I came out of the garage to find one of my grandsons had the neighbor boys gathered around the open door of the “huntin’” truck and I heard him say, “Look at this. You can put the window down without turning the motor on!” (None of them had ever seen a window crank.). 😎

😁😁

If you leave your electronics behind and drive old 🛻 Big Bro will have harder time keeping track of you. We will be under more monitoring now that mega data centers are being built. Opponents will be placed on special watch list, no future in opposing them. I don’t have to worry about loosing my job, but I'm wondering if they're going to abandon clean renewable energy by using fossil fuels or put even bigger squizze on us to help save the 🌎?