With the current price of diesel and my usual restless nature, I was wondering if any of you gasser fellas could maybe give your opinion of my latest cure for winter boredom.
I have a decent rear clip from an 01 Supercab Lariat short bed and am thinking of building a shortbox reg cab Lariat 5.4 liter truck. This would be a backup for my diesel crewcab, a way to get away from the noise and hard to park nature of my daily driver.
Just wondering if they ever made such a truck to make it worth the work to have such a combination?
Short-box, regular-cab would be great for snowplowing. Plus think what rear-steering would add to a short box too! I've thought about cutting down the box many-a-time, maybe even to 5.5 feet. It would be a blast to drive off road. Maybe a bit more dangerous on-road at high speed. I can't see getting a boost in gas mileage, though--maybe a half mile [img]/forums/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif[/img] The "Trucks!" show on Spike network did or is doing a short-bed project.
__________________ 2008 F350 XL Reg Cab 4x4, 5.4, 15,000 mi on 5/08. Blizzard 810 plow, Polycaster spreader.
2000 Excursion 4x4, 7.3, 176k mi on 5/08. Some mods but nobody cares (;
2007 Edge AWD, 5k mi on 5/08.
2001 Honda Rancher ATV 4x4, plow, 3,400 mi on 5/08.
Now that I am thinking I know someone here on the forum made either a drag truck or Harley edition showtruck like I am describing but I just want to make it a simple daily driver.
I am leaning towards building a 5.4 2wd truck as the diesel parts out there are priced a bit over what I want to spend and like I say, driving a gasser is probably not such a bad thing these days. One thing is though, regular cab trucks down here are almost as rare as hen's teeth but luckily, since I have the Lariat interior I should be able to find an XL worktruck somewhere cheap to do the conversion.
The only hiccup I can think of is getting a gas tank to fit and still be able to hold at least 20 plus gallons of fuel.
As far as handling goes I know they make a shortbox reg cab Lighting edition a few years back and they seemed to be ok.
If you want a project...stick a pre 2003 V10 into a 97-04 old style F150. Make sure you find a 7700 to put into. Already has the suspension, transmission and rear end. All you need is an engine, wiring harness and computer. Been seriously thinking about it myself.
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2008 F350 KR,CC,6.5 on order
2006 F150 Lariat Crewcab
2000 F150 Supercab 7700
The shortbox lighting was the old body style...to the best of my knowledge there was never a factory shortbed regular cab based on the super duty platform from 98-current.
Actually ALL Lightnings, The '93 to '95's and the later vintage '99 to '03 or whatever years they were built were ALL short wheel base regular cab F-150 2-WDs. That was the who reason for the Harley trucks, to get extended cabs and I think 4WD avail. with the higher HP Lightning engines.
Funny but true story, In Jan. '96 when I was shopping for My PSD the first dealer had a left-over '95 Lightning that had never been sold but Demo'd (Imagine that!) for almost 1000 miles that I could have bought for about $14,000 "Out the Door" with remainder of Factory warranty. Sticker price was well over $17,000. Glad I bought My PSD though.
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Denny
'96 F-250 Reg. Cab 4X4 5-sp POWERSTROKE
294,000 mi & NO Problems, LUK Clutch, and the Cat is buried in the back yard!
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