Fred Williams
Brand Manager, Petersen’s 4Wheel & Off Road
Photographers:
Harry Wagner
For $50,000 you can buy you a desert-romping, rockcrawling, stump-jumping Ford Raptor, but many of us don't have that type of capital just lying around. So we found this low-buck Blue Oval truck and dragged it home to build our own farm-style tough truck out of (for far fewer ducats than Ford's latest and greatest).
After finishing the suspension installation, we bolted on some 35X12.50R15 General Grabbers on 15-inch Mickey Thompson wheels. These cast aluminum wheels have robust steel inserts in the lug seat, and the tires should be perfect for our next desert trip.
Our '79 F-150 came from the backyard of a family in Nevada. While it has some miles on it, there is little rust and a strong drivetrain, making it perfect for backcountry bashing. BluFerd (as it was quickly christened) has a 351M, a C6, an NP205, a Dana 44 front axle, and a Ford 9-inch rear. Over the next year we'll be upgrading the old iron into an everyman's dirtmobile.
When we first came home with our new Ranch Raptor we slapped on some old 33-inch mud-terrains we'd been saving for a Jeep project and hit the dirt. A few good jumps, a busted brake line, and an engine fire later, we dragged the Blue Oval back to the farm for some upgrades. The 33s fit fine stock, but the low nose and limp suspension had us perusing the BDS Suspension website for an upgrade. The next thing you know we were in the shed swapping springs and bolting on bigger rubber.
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