Project No Truck Payment: F-150 Brought Back to Life

Forum member looking for a good F-150 without a big monthly payment spruces up 11^th gen truck with a blown motor and rotted bed.

There are two main types of build projects here on F150Online – full ground-up restorations of classic trucks and simpler repairs made to daily driven F-150 pickups. Today, we bring you the latter, with member jtrimm walking us through what he calls Project No Truck Payment. As the project name suggests, he wanted a reliable pickup without a big monthly payment, so he found a Ford F-150 from the 2004-2008 generation with a blown motor and significant rust damage. He then detailed the improvements made to this 11^th generation F-Series pickup, showing how you can put together a truck from that era on a budget.

The Introduction

When jtrimm first introduced the forum to Project No Truck Payment, this is what he had to say about his new-to-him Ford F150.

“I bought this truck purely for fun and to have zero truck payment. Here is a picture of when I first bought it last year for $2,500. I had to replace the engine which had a bad cylinder (4.6l) and that cost me $800 it was a 4.6 out of a 2005 crown vic. After replacing the motor I couldn’t have asked for a better truck.”

He didn’t walk us through the engine replacement process, but it seems that it was likely a pretty straightforward swap, as the new 4.6L should have dropped right into the engine bay of the F-150. At that point, he had spent $3,300 for a strong-running F-150, along with plenty of elbow grease.

Exterior Improvements

Once the OP had replaced the engine in his F-150, he turned to the cosmetic upgrades. He was lucky enough to find a clean bed in the exact same color for $400. He had to remove the STX emblems and the two-tone stripe decals along the bottom, but once those were gone, he had a bed that matched his truck perfectly. . He also added 4×4 decals to the bedside where the STX logos had been when he purchased the bed.

Next, he had to replace the fog lights and reseal one of the headlights along with realigning the front bumper. While working on the front end of the truck, he removed the plastic lower trim piece below the bumper and added an LED light bar in the lower grille opening.

The last upgrade to the exterior of this F-150 was a set of wheels and tires from a 2009 Ford truck, sans the wheel center caps. At that point, the truck looked pretty good around the outside – especially for a project that cost less than $4,000.

Interior Upgrades

The changes made by the OP to this interior of his F-150 are fairly minimal, with the only real change being the addition of the center console from an Expedition. It fit cleanly between the front seats and matched the color of the F-150, but it interfered with the floor shifter for the 4WD system. To fix that problem, he removed the factory lever and made a new, shorter unit that would move freely alongside the larger center console. Not counting the work that he did to the 4WD lever, this change only cost the OP $20.

This certainly isn’t the world’s flashiest build, but if you are looking for a dependable Ford F-150 on the cheap, this build project shows how you can get a very solid truck for less than $4,000. Of course, this method requires you to swap an engine and the bed, but if you have the mechanical know-how to do that, you can get into a great truck like this one on a tight budget.

Patrick Rall

"Before I was old enough to walk, my dad was taking me to various types of racing events, from local drag racing to the Daytona 500," says Patrick Rall, a lifetime automotive expert, diehard Dodge fan, and respected auto journalist for over 10 years. "He owned a repair shop and had a variety of performance cars when I was young, but by the time I was 16, he was ready to build me my first drag car – a 1983 Dodge Mirada that ran low 12s. I spent 10 years traveling around the country, racing with my dad by my side. While we live in different areas of the country, my dad still drag races at 80 years old in the car that he built when I was 16 while I race other vehicles, including my 2017 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat and my 1972 Dodge Demon 340.

"Although I went to college for accounting, my time in my dad’s shop growing up allowed me the knowledge to spend time working as a mechanic before getting my accounting degree, at which point I worked in the office of a dealership group. While I was working in the accounting world, I continued racing and taking pictures of cars at the track. Over time, I began showing off those pictures online and that led to my writing.

"Ten years ago, I left the accounting world to become a full-time automotive writer and I am living proof that if you love what you do, you will never “work” a day in your life," adds Rall, who has clocked in time as an auto mechanic, longtime drag racer and now automotive journalist who contributes to nearly a dozen popular auto websites dedicated to fellow enthusiasts.

"I love covering the automotive industry and everything involved with the job. I was fortunate to turn my love of the automotive world into a hobby that led to an exciting career, with my past of working as a mechanic and as an accountant in the automotive world provides me with a unique perspective of the industry.

"My experience drag racing for more than 20 years coupled with a newfound interest in road racing over the past decade allows me to push performance cars to their limit, while my role as a horse stable manager gives me vast experience towing and hauling with all of the newest trucks on the market today.

"Being based on Detroit," says Rall, "I never miss the North American International Auto Show, the Woodward Dream Cruise and Roadkill Nights, along with spending plenty of time raising hell on Detroit's Woodward Avenue with the best muscle car crowd in the world.

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