I purchased this stock brown and white Ford F-100 1/2 ton 2-wheel drive pickup in Boise, ID, from the original owner in 1980. It had a little over 100K miles on it and was in great condition. In 1985, I made a decision to fly up to Alaska to work for the summer, and ended up staying here. It was two years later when a friend of a friend loaded up the bed of my truck with some things I left behind, and drove the 3500+ miles from Boise up to Anchorage via the Alcan Highway.

I drove it around Anchorage for roughly two years before I made the decision to re-build the engine. After I pulled the engine and sent it to the machine shop, I couldn’t imagine a freshly re-built clean engine sitting in a dirty engine compartment. I decided to remove the fenders and inner fenders. Then off came the bed, and it wasn’t long after that the cab was off! After gazing at how dirty the frame looked, I decided I would need to get it sandblasted and powder coated black, and that’s when it all snowballed.

Engine: 302 w/extras. Chassis: lowered 2″ front, 4″ rear. Gas shocks, 4-wheel disc power brakes, Ford 9″ 4:11 gears, C6 trans, custom gas tank w/filler cap in bed. Interior: leather, power windows, power seats, wool carpet, Auto Meter gauges, Ididit steering column, Flaming River steering wheel, customer center console for iPad, Kicker speakers in kick panels, Kicker sub-woofer and amp behind seats.

So my decision to re-build the engine morphed into a complete frame up rebuild that took me 22 years to complete. Now I know most of you are thinking, wow, 22 years! What took him so long? It all came down to either having the money and no time, or a lot of time and no money. I can honestly say these projects are never really completely finished because there’s always something new or something better coming out. At least for now, I can enjoy driving it around on the long, beautiful summer days in Alaska.

A huge thank you to LMC Truck for having the pieces and parts to help me get my project to where it is today.