I held my fathers hand and prayed and talked and thanked him how monumental he was in raising me and then our unbendable frienship. I just talked. You can too, hold his hand in yours if that works for you two.
And true-though we put a ton of $$ into the blazer over the decades the darn thing still gets me to and fro despite flipping the odometer 3 times. But holy cow the 99 F250 blows my mind! What do you think about the 89' 4x4 with 2 plows Horkn ? I had a 1/2 hour conversation with the gal tonight (on speaker, WWW listening in background, shaking his head). She'll deliver it here in a few weeks if WWW agrees, I'll be able to spend the $$ then after the certain something happens then. I didn't even look, I assume it's gas.
Yes, "TTB". No 96 or older F250s came factory with a straight axle...and the light duty f250 started using A arms in 97...same as the new body style F150. The IFS/TTB suspension was a terrible design with leaf springs...not a fan...worked fine with coils though. If you think about it a bit, how dumb is it to hook suspension that travels in an arc to springs that are meant to travel straight up and down, except for some twisting, and bushing flex That said, there are a ton of them out there still, and they held up ok, just rode crappy, and could be a good retirement plan for alignment rack guys sometimes...and tire shops...
My buddy's old 84 f250 with a 351w had a solid front axle. Maybe it was swapped? It was an old farm truck. Probably a super easy swap. I suppose with the coil springs it did make more sense. There's a ton of there, it was a good compromise, actually better than real IFS.
1980-1996 F250 with a straight axle...it was swapped. Oh, and putting the shackles on the front of the spring...stupid, stupid, and just plain dumb...think about how a leaf spring wants to move/compress when going down the road...it sure doesn't want to go forward! Pretty bad when a couple rednecks with a torch and a welder could improve on the original design.
Or it was a 350 with a pair of junkyard F250 fenders on it? Actually...IIRC the F350s we're TTB in the early 80s too...up to 84-85 maybe?
Speaking of truck repairs... I saw this guy on YouTube - Whistlin diesel. Seems like he makes outrageous trucks and then tries to destroy them.
Sorry to hear about your SIL, you were so close you should've stopped in for just a bit. I was busy doing a bunch, actually met up with Canadian border VT briefly since he was to somewhat nearby.
Would have loved to, but time was very pressing, and we would be way too distracted. You and Dawn were on our minds. Wished I could have remembered that rout so I didn't have to go through Colby road and that airport. What a bunch of twist and turns.
Its too bad the 3 of us couldn't have got together when I was out there in the terrible New England heat.