Papa's Truck

This truck was bought in 1972 by my wife's grandfather. We purchased it in 2000 after he passed away. The truck is a 1972 Ford Ranger with a 390 engine and a C6 transmission. I have made several modifications to it in order to make it more suitable for our main use which is pulling our horses to the local saddle club shows. Among the main modifications I have made are:

I swapped the original front suspension for the suspension from a 1976 Ford truck in order to get disk brakes.

I installed a frame mounted receiver hitch and wired the truck for electric trailer brakes.

I re-wired the headlights using larger diameter wire and relays in order to use halogen headlights.

I mounted 2 - 55 watt halogen lights under the rear bumper to aid in backing the trailer at night.

I installed the seat out of a 1995 Ford F150 XLT. To see pictures of the seat and how it is mounted click HERE

Ford truck enthusiasts will notice that the trim is not original. The original trim was pretty much shot and my father and I had a pretty good collection of late 60's trim so since this was destined to be a work truck and not a show truck we decided to use the trim off a 1969 Ranger. The hubcaps were donated by a friend of ours and the tailgate (not on in this picture) and several other parts were given to us by a neighbor. All the paint, bodywork, etc. was done by myself. The paint is Omni Urethane base coat/clearcoat in the original color.

 

While building the engine in this truck I made a tool to install the cam bearings.  Click here for pics and information about building a tool like this.