We are kicking off our “Old to Bold: Chargezilla” video series! You may have seen our classically cool 1965 Ford F-100 truck before, but now we can tell the full story behind this electric re-power project.
This video series could not be possible without our friends at LegacyEV.com, 101Motors.com, and FOX shocks.
Here is a bit of a back story.
We fell in love with this old farm truck the moment we saw it in a craigslist ad. It’s big, tall, 4WD, and somewhat unique. It was in the middle of winter two years ago, but Tommy and Roman jumped on it and bought it on the spot. The instant love affair with the truck went sour when Tommy was driving it 25 miles back to our offices after the purchase. The heater core sprung a leak, hot steam was making it nearly impossible to see, the brakes were not working very well, and coolant was pouring onto the floor of the truck. We took it to our favorite mechanic – Toby, and almost everything was wrong with the truck.
With Toby’s help, we fixed up the truck a bit and made it somewhat safe to drive, but it’s still a bit of a monster underneath. It’s a combination of a Ford F-250 heavy-duty chassis and heavy-duty axles with an F-100 cab on top of it. It has a desirable divorced 4×4 transfer case, a used-up 4-speed manual transmission, and an engine out of a heavy commercial Ford truck. The truck has a lot of charm, but it is very difficult to use on a daily basis. In fact, most of us dreaded the notion of driving this old truck in town or on a highway – so it sat for many months in a garage…
We wanted to give this truck a new life. We looked into V8-swapping it and giving it a new transmission. We have been down this road with another project truck – Big Green – Square-body Chevy. We put a brand new Chevy Performance ZZ6 V8 into that Chevy. However, replacing the heart of a truck is not easy. We ran into many problems with fuel delivery issues with that project.
We connected with the guys at Legacy EV through a mutual friend – Dean at Colorado Teardrops Trailers. The Old to Bold Chargezilla idea was born! What if we could electrify this old farm truck, and make it into a daily driver EV that still has all of its old charm, utility, and macho looks? Legacy EV makes it easy to find the right EV-swap components, and the guys at 101 Motors shop are expert builders.
Check out the first episode on our TFLtruck Youtube channel.
