Hi all! My name is Rick, aka Tert, 24 years young from Christchurch, New Zealand, and I just bought a '77 Beddy rolling body from a mate for a cool $100 cash! Until just three days ago I had completely forgotten that this friend of mine had the Beddy sitting in a paddock at his parents house a short drive out of town. As soon as I contacted him inquiring about it, he said "$100, come get it", and that was that.
My step father has had a 253/trimatic/9" diff swapped '76 for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, me and my siblings would sit in the back and poke faces at strangers that couldn't see us through the 5% tints - although his has been garaged for something like 10-15 years, Bedfords are a touch nostalgic for me, and the idea of owning an old school V8 CF Beddy has enticed me since I understood just how damn awesome cruisers they make.
I've had a knackered 308 sitting in storage for probably coming up four years now, and although it needs an absolutely 100% ground up rebuild, the motor is 80-90% complete, is Chev patterned, and came with a lovely, hopefully-in-good-nick TH400 tranny. It is 30-over-thou as it sits, and needs at least a very good hone if not a light bore, as the previous owner let it sit in the elements for long enough that the motor looks like its 1000 years old.
So, the plan is:
Disassemble and acid dip entire 308
Machine what needs machining at local engine builder
Rebuild 308 myself with light mods
Try and find an extra $1000 to rebuild TH400
Cut engine hole wider and deeper
Mount drivetrain
Fabricate new engine cover
Find, buy, shorten/lengthen, rebuild and install big diff, probably typical Ford 9"
Have driveshaft made
Rebuild front suspension with new bushes ect
Rewire entire van from scratch with new lights etc
Sort out brake booster with big disk brakes for all four corners and plumb it all up
Cut and fix all rust, including stripping and resealing entire undercarriage
Mounts seats, pedals, seat belts, and gauges
Get it re-registered, WOF'd and on the road
A very big, time consuming, expensive list indeed. My short term budget is something like $8k NZD. After it is running and legal, the bodywork will commence. Having said that, the only serious rust I can find is around the windscreen, the rest looking bloody reasonable considering I pulled this thing out of a paddock
My step father is selling me some 14x8 and 14x10 hotwires, which will go on some time during the bodywork stage, I think. My main motivation cosmetic wise is to end up with something like this:
Real progress begins in around a month, when my drift car gets sold:
Hope you guys enjoy the thread.
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