New guy in So Ca - High Desert

[timster]

Moved to Ridgecrest, CA a couple of months ago. Currently I have a 71 F100 shortbed, 3rd owner, have had it for 10 years. Was a stripped shell when I got it. First I had a 351W with AOD. Had problems with the 351, had been rebuilt and in a friends mustang and ran good in it. We horse traded and I got the W and somehow it developed a balance problem. After a lot of head scratching, several different flywheels, seems a very rough looking 289 harmonic balancer and a bad torque converter were the causes. I had a 5.0 H.O. EFI + AOD and a RJM harness for another project. When I sold that project, the buyer just wanted the body for parts on his project, so I put the "modern" power train in my 71. Took some time to get it sorted out, but loved to be able to start right up with no pumping the gas, messing with the choke, etc. Had 2.5" duals, generic turbo mufflers and H pipe, exiting in front of rear tires. The ride is good, steering not so much. Never been a fan of the Ford power steering setup. Fixed the worse of the body issues and swapped in an EFI ready tank where the spare tire was and pulled the behind the seat tank out. Currently has that beater shop truck look that is the style these days. If I keep it I will eventually tear it down for bodywork and paint. Sounded good, and cruises pretty nice. Kind of a running project at this point. Needs a lot of little things. Alignment, better wheels & tires, couple small rust holes patched, fuel filler door I installed needs better bodywork.

My truck is currently in North Carolina. Going to try and sell it so I can buy something here. Maybe a Nova or Falcon. But if it doesn't sell, I will have it transported and then drop it with a CV swap and either a rear axle flip or a IRS from a T-Bird or similar. Had a donor T-bird at one time, but this was before people were posting about how to do the IRS install.