1999 Ford F-350 Super Duty Build - Building for Extreme Excursions

Before you just pop off on an international off-roading trip, you need to do the most that you can to make sure your drivetrain will survive the trip. This means upgrading what you think you need to, and replacing anything that could possibly wear out, even if it is still good. Our truck had only 80,000 miles on it at the time of shipment, but we still replaced every potentially worn drivetrain piece we could. The automatic tranny was still functioning fine, but we certainly didn't want to take any chances and had it reworked by Orange County Transmissions. The folks there added a few hop-ups and firmed up the shifts, while they rebuilt the entire unit. It's a good thing too, because they told us the tranny was hanging on by a thread and would've busted in just another couple hundred miles. That would not have been a pleasant surprise thousands of miles away from the nearest Super Duty tranny service center.

Once the tranny was in, we headed to South Bay Truck & 4x4 to finish off the rest of the drivetrain. We pulled every U-joint in the truck and replaced it with a new one. The driveshafts were sent out to be completely rebuilt, and the axleshafts were checked to make sure they were in perfect condition. We even added new ball joints just to be safe. When we pulled the front differential cover off, we found that we had the Dana 50 axle. The Dana 50 is a sad axle that has the housing and looks just like a Dana 60, but carries a Dana 44-sized differential. Because of this, we made sure to leave it open so as to take as much stress as possible off the little diff and 30-spline axles.

We pulled the front Dana 50 and rear 10 1/2-inch Visteon differentials to match the gears to the tires. We chose 4.56 gears in each for the best match of gear strength. When you start dropping to lower gear ratios (numerically higher) than 4.56, the pinion gear head starts to become smaller and therefore weaker, according to some experts. For the ultimate in no-fuss traction, we dropped a Detroit Locker into the rear axle. The automatic Detroit Locker has fewer potential failure points than a selectable locker, and has proven itself strong and reliable on countless trips for us.

You want to make sure you can see everything well during the entire trip. Of course, you need some good lights to see at night, but this goes for more than just lighting, as you need to have an excellent pair (not the $5 ones) of windshield wipers which won't harden up and crack and to be able to move mud off your windshield. Wipers don't seem like a big deal, but if you can't see clearly, your chances of mishaps increase dramatically.

Don't fool yourself into thinking nothing major will happen. You have to be prepared to rescue your vehicle out of a river, should it be necessary. Therefore, a winch and recovery equipment were necessities to pack.

One of the smartest things you can do when you get a spur in your ass to do some crazy trip like this is to plan well in advance. If you can finish the truck up early, you can take time to drive it around, test it off-road, and make sure that everything you did to the truck is working well. Once our truck was finished, we immediately took it off-roading and put 500 miles on it before we put it on the boat. If something was going to happen, we wanted it to happen within U.S. borders. If you rush to finish a project just before your deadline, you leave yourself open to disaster.

Hopefully, we won't be eating our own words in two days when we arrive to meet the truck. We'll report back to you next month with how the Super Duty performed during the trip.