Missouri Farmer Builds His Own Custom Pickup

Missouri Farmer Builds His Own Custom Pickup PICKUPS Modifications 12-3-24 "New pickups are designed for city people. They don't stand up to everyday farm work, not to mention the high price you pay," says Terry Riegle, Sparta, Mo., who decided to build his own "custom" pickup rather than buy a truck he didn't like. Riegle carefully identified truck parts he wanted for his custom pickup and "did a lot of measuring" to make sure they would all fit together. He ended up with a modem-looking pickup that combines parts from 1969, 1971, 1973 and 1977 Ford pickups, a 1969 Mercury automobile, and a late model Dodge van. "All the parts I used had been tried and proved. Since I built it I've put more than 20,000 miles on the pickup with no problems. I wouldn't trade it for a new one," Riegle told FARM SHOW, adding that he spent only about $2,000 to build the truck using primarily junked parts. The base of the pickup is a 1971 Ford F-250 4-WD chassis that Riegle bought in Wisconsin for $500. "I wanted the high clearance of earlier model F-250's so I could have used any model up to 1976. The truck has so much clearance the young guys in town think I installed lifters. The '71 chassis also has the benefit of a rigid frame. When truck manufacturers went to twin I-beam suspension, pickups lost their much of their strength because of the way the chassis `scissors' over obstacles and uneven ground," says Riegle. Another advantage of the F-250 is that the 4-speed transmission has a separate transfer case and three separate driveshafts, unlike later models where transfer case and transmission mount together. Riegle says separate components make the truck easier to maintain. Added space for the transfer case and driveshafts is also one of the reasons the F-250 has extra ground clearance. For the body of the truck, Riegle chose a 1977 F-100. "This model works great be-cause it's modern-looking and fits the F-250 chassis with little modification," ex-plains Riegle. The F-100 had 102,000 miles on it. He bought it at a salvage yard for $1,200. He says he could also have used 1978 or 1979 models, which have basically the same body. To mount the F-100 cab on the F-250 chassis, Riegle hung a pulley from a tree in the farmyard and then loosened all the bolts around the cab. He hooked a chain around both ends of a pair of oak 2 by 4's he put through the cab windows and tied a third chain to front radiator supports. He used a tractor to lift the cab off the chassis and put it into place on the F-250. Both the cab and the bed of the F-100 adapted well to the F-250 chassis except for the gas tank and filler tube. "The gas tank is located behind the seat in the cab of the F-250 but it's at the back of the chassis on the F-100. I got a 20-gal. poly tank from a Dodge van and mounted it at the rear of the F-250 chassis by cutting through the cross members behind the rear end. The hardest part was fixing the filler tube so I could use the fuel port on the '77 body," says Riegle. The engine for the custom-built truck, a rebuilt 390 cu. in. Ford, was salvaged from a 1969 F-250. "This is one of the best engines Ford ever made but, unfortunately, they stopped making it in 1976. I got a deal when I bought this rebuilt engine for $100," says Riegle. One luxury feature Riegle wanted in his pickup was a tilt steering wheel, which Ford didn't install in their trucks till 1978. He used a steering column from a 1969 Mercury. "I cut off the original truck column and the bottom half of the Mercury steering colum and welded them together. The worst problem was connecting the truck wiring up to the steering column. I got a wiring diagram and by a process of trial and error we were able to get the ignition and turn signals to function normally" he says. Other parts in the custom pickup include a Posi-Trac rear end from a 1969 F-250, which replaced the rear end in the '71 chassis, and rear bumper-brackets from a '73 F-250. He also installed a homemade goose-neck trailer hitch, mounting it directly to the frame of the truck before he put the bed on for extra strength. What

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