My friend & old shop mate has been working on a pretty neat project for the last few months. He was never a fan of lifting trucks, but wanted something that would sit higher than most stock ride heights. So he sent out to do an F700 Conversion.
Once Zach had the funds he located a truck listed online in upstate New York. Wanting something that is clean and rust free, he knew he was gonna have to go out of the state of Maine. The truck he found listed as clean was located at Caledonia Diesel , in Caledonia, NY. So one night at Midnight Zach, Angelo, & I set off on a 30 hour round trip to upstate New York. Once we arrived we weren't very happy to find that this "Rust Free, Very Clean" truck that the gentleman at Caledonia had lured my friend into coming to see, was a rusty old ass POS farm beater truck. I mean the guy talked this thing up so much, and was very firm on his $5,800 asking price. It as a 95 F700 with 236,000 miles on it. Diesel 5 Speed. The thing was such a heap it. The tread was separating, the frame was flaking, the cab had holes every where. I was more pissed than Zach. Zach offered him $5,000 being as he had driven all this way and didn't want to go home empty handed. Brian the sales man didn't want to budge. The guy had gotten the brakes to work previous to Zach coming out and told him he wouldn't budge cause they had put $1,200 into running a brake line and labor involved in bleeding it out. The sales guy was actually pissed off that he offered him less than the $5,800 sight unseen agreed upon offer for this "Mint, Rust Free Good Condition Truck".. We drove around the corn fields for a while and thought about it and ended up telling the guy we were gonna have to pass. He started to yell, but Zach held his composure, I couldn't help but giggle cause I wanted to sock the guy for wasting my days off. As we left I hopped on Craigslist and found another F700 in Rochester, NY for $5000, with only 85,000 miles also listed as clean. It was a gas job automatic, and looked great in the pictures.
We met the guy, he had it on ebay and it was ending in three hours - so after a little ebay trickery I bought it on ebay for like $4800. The guy does E-Scrap and was using the truck for his business. He was a great guy & we could tell he took awesome care of his stuff. He's half the reason I post on this board actually, he turned me onto e-scrap as I was mainly a vehicle recycler. Anyways after the hectic change of plans we had trouble with insurance but we got the truck set and we drove it home. Arrived back in Maine at 6am a day after we set out.
f700pickup by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
Zach sold the box off from it for $1200.00 and the lift gate for another $200.
He was pretty concerned about finding a rust free dually bed for the project, and again went and shopped online, found one in Florida for $640.00 and bought it off ebay - then drove his little turbo diesel rabbit conversion pickup truck down with a trailer to get it. (Averaging 48mpg down and 43mpg back)
1380550_10151754307819751_2085292692_n by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
1398613_10151755299134751_1477103995_o by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
He wants it to look like a factory made large pickup.
1073152_10151762734389751_1939484109_o by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
He doesn't want to do anything crazy or flashy but he did drop a couple g's on nice alcoa rimps.
rims by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
He got the bed lined up and made a frame spacer so the body lines match.. after getting the axle lined up and the holes drilled we cut the frame now its just about ready for paint.
1465966_10151819901749751_1186674762_o by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
magdrillzach by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
1404907_10151853167749751_2146400617_o by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
1398294_10151855829309751_1438856416_o by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
Its gonna get sanded and painted white with new everything on exterior (lamps, lenses, mirrors, foot steps etc) he also is planning on running dual tanks in the stock locations. Should be a fun summer truck and it will haul the trailers around no problem. He's looking into getting the triple car trailer to go along side his 12,000lb equipment trailer he currently has.
1495327_10151954952254751_178487770_o by woodmanyoel, on Flickr
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