The time has come to begin a new project journey. For some reason that I can’t fully explain, I’ve had an itch to add a truck to my life. It had to be old, and it had to have a bit of style. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to my 1965 Ford F-100… Project HoonTruck.


I’ve been scouring Craigslist for some time now. My search ranged from Los Angeles and Orange County down to San Diego and then out to Palm Springs, the Inland Empire, and even Imperial County (which is Breaking Bad-ville). This is all southern California which means there are many old trucks out there.
Some folks want tons of money. Some folks are trying to offload crap. My goal was to find something in the middle; an affordable, daily driver project.
That’s exactly what I’ve found here.

Under the hood there is not the original 352 that came fitted to this St.Paul-built-truck. Instead, a previous owner has swapped in a 390. That larger FE V8 is paired with a four-speed gearbox, and it all drives the rear wheels.
The engine has loads of power… well, it did once I learned how to adjust the carb.
Our man Jason handled the initial viewing and haggling of this one for me, and he then drove the truck to his place. He mentioned the problems that I already knew about: the driveshaft vibrates, the dash lights don’t work, and there’s a bit of smoke out of the left side exhaust.
I hopped on a train in Santa Ana with Oceanside as my destination. Connor picked me up at the station in his Focus ST. My backpack and tool roll in tow (Thanks Zach Bowman), we drove the 20 minutes to Jason house. There she sat… my “new” truck!
We checked the oil (low) and the coolant (low), filled both up, and then I hopped into turn the key. Trivia question: What does this truck have in common with a Porsche 911? Anyway, she fired right up on the first twist.
I bid Jason farewell and set off for home. First stop was, of course, a gas station since I have no idea how accurate the fuel gauge currently is, and it was reading empty. I filled up and went to leave… nope. The truck wouldn’t fire up. It was cranking, but I couldn’t get it to go.
Like an idiot, I’d driven to the gas station with the choke wide open. I’m not sure if that was affecting the ability for the truck to start because, as you all know, I’m a moron once you open the hood. I called Jason, and he came over. We eventually got the truck started, but it was dying when I was off the throttle.
We got the truck back to his house, with a few restarts along the way. When it was running though, that engine felt strong. Back in Jason’s driveway, I called the one man I know who can help me at this moment: Tim Odell. I told him about the 4bbl Edelbrock carburetor sitting atop the engine, and he told me what the three screws do to the engine. Fiddling with the two air/fuel screws and then the idle screw, we got the truck to fire up. The idle was very high, so I backed it down and we took it for a test run. It went great, so we brought it back to the driveway, brought the idle back down to around 1k, and I set off for home, far later than I intended.
I adjusted a carb! This may seem like no big deal to most of you, but it always feels like a major victory for me (see: Datsun road trip).

I hit the highway and the vibration that arrives around 25-30 miles per hour completely disappears above 40. I’ll be taking it in to get balanced and see if that fixes everything. If not, we’ll be looking at u-joints and other bits. For the smoke, which is minor, I am going to handle the valve seals in short order. Other issues include getting a proper battery tie down (It’s a thick string right now… seriously), and … that’s really it.
From there, I’ll figure out minor upgrades to do along the way. The truck already sounds badass, but maybe we can fine tune the noise. I’m going to add some new tires, and I want some black Cragar-style wheels similar to what the Country Sedan used to wear. Then I’m just going to drive it and find new things to do as they come to me. If you have ideas for the truck, sound off below.
Oh… and while driving home, I got the dash lights to work. Jason never turned the light knob all the way to the left.
Welcome home HoonTruck!
[Sorry for the camera phone images. My big camera needs a bit of love at the moment so I left it home. A proper photoshoot is coming soon, and video will happen shortly after that.]