1976 Ford F250 Highboy FOUND ABANDONED In Barn For 18 YEARS! | Amazing Detailing Restoration!

We found a 1976 Ford F-250 Highboy sitting in this barn for the last 18 years, and we need to pull it out and transport it 200 miles to our shop in Ohio, which we were instantly faced with a major issue. Oh no, it's not going to fit! But in order to get here, let's go back to the beginning when we first found the truck. Alright, so how long has it been in this garage? Oh, roughly 18 years. Whoa! Wow, so it's obviously a Ford, it's an F-250? It's an F-250, 1976 Highboy. Oh man, we've been looking for one of these forever. We've done two F-250s, a Ranger and then an Explorer F-250, but we've been looking for a Highboy for, I mean, well, since we started working on those other F-250s, and if I'm not mistaken, that's because of the drive. It has a narrower frame. Oh that's what it is. And I believe it came out of the factory with a 7-inch lift. I've never seen an actual Highboy, like I said, those are the ones that actually bring the big money. The other two that we did, very cool, but these are like the highest sought after ones. This is a beautiful truck, how long have you owned it? Since I was 18, just out of high school. It was my dream truck when I was 18. I gotta know, when you bought this when you were 18, how much did you pay for this truck? $800. $800? $800. I bought it from my aunt in New Jersey. I called her up, I said, hey, you still got that truck? And she said, I just sold it. And I asked her if she would hold it. She got out of the sale and it ended up being mine. Wow. Probably two years after that, stripped it to the frame, and you can see the frame's painted yellow. Don't ask me why I painted it yellow, but I painted the frame yellow. And my dad and I redid the whole body. So it's got a lot of sentimental value? Definitely. Does it run? With a little gas and a battery, we can make it run. Yeah. This thing is, it's in really nice shape. Yeah, I mean the other two that we did were in really good shape too, but it is a very tall truck. You have some massive tires on there. Is there a lift kit on it? There is. So like I said, seven from the factory, and I put a homemade two-inch under the body. Oh boy. Well, our trailer is 84 inches to the top of the door. So this is going to be interesting. So you said you've been working on it a little bit, trying to get it started? I put plugs, wires, cap rotor, a new electronic ignition box. Well, we're going to cross our fingers because I don't know how else we'd get it out of this garage and even near the trailer. That's like problem one is to get it to the trailer door. Problem two is to get it to fit inside the trailer. Brent, show them why it's so difficult to get this thing out of here. We're basically on the side of the hill and the hill continues to go up there as well. So we can't get the trailer back here at all. And even if we did get the truck into the trailer back here, there's no way my truck would pull it up this hill and everyone can laugh in the comments, oh, Ford can't tow. There's no way. Unless I had big mutters on there and even that'd be scary. And now we're going to put a brand new battery in it and some gas in the carburetor to prime it. I want to take a second to say if you're not subscribed to our channel and you're enjoying this video, we have some of the craziest videos in barn find history coming in the next month, including some stuff that YouTube has never seen before in the barn find genre. You don't want to miss it. Take a second and subscribe right now with your notifications on and hit the like button because it helps out this video as well. All right, let's see if she'll start. Send it. Oh, it sounds good. Oh, wow. First time this thing's moved in 18 years. Wow. Look at this thing, Brent. Holy smokes. But that was only our first issue. Then we had to figure out how we were going to get it into our trailer. So then we hooked it up to a Chevy truck and we pulled it up the hill, but we had no brakes. So if we lost this truck or lost our cable, we were going to be in an absolute world of hurt here. But our only option was to take it up this hill and to another street. And there was traffic that pulled up behind us. But part of me thinks that they were OK with it because I would love to be behind watching something like this happen. It's not every day you get to experience a classic F-250 getting pulled down the road. So first we decided to unbolt the light rack and lay that down inside the bed. That way we could get a little more clearance. And we've fit other F-250s in our trailer like this before. So we wanted to give it a go and see what would happen since we were already two hours away from home. But right away we hit our first issue. The lights were not clearing. So we tried our next option, which was taking some air out of the front tires to get a little more clearance. We literally only needed one inch to get in there. And mind you, we spent two hours just loading this truck up and also being two hours away from home, we had no idea if it was going to fit or not. But RJ and I were not going home empty handed. And after a bunch of finagling with Rowdy and Rodney, we barely got this truck into the trailer. I don't know how that worked, but thank God it did. All right, we have the truck loaded up somehow by the grace of God. And we're about to head back to Cleveland. We figured this would be a good time to let you guys know that we are searching for enthusiast vehicles that have been left in barns, just like this F-250 was. So if you have something that, again, is an enthusiast vehicle that's extremely dirty that you would like to see featured here on WD Detailing, go to our Instagram or our email and send us pictures of what you have, as well as where the vehicle is located. And we might just come out, pick up your car and detail it completely for free. Now let's get back to the shop. This is hands down the largest vehicle that has ever been in the shop. We've done other F-250s like this, but not on this big of tire. And also, isn't this an actual Highboy, right? This is an actual Highboy, and it has a two-inch lift that Rowdy put on himself. So this is literally the biggest vehicle we've ever done and featured on the channel. The hood is almost as tall as me. I really enjoy this. This is probably the funniest part of the whole truck, and I love that he put his name, but it's also the word Rowdy, so it looks cool because this truck is pretty Rowdy. I think this is the coolest truck we've ever had in here. It's awesome. I do love the deep blue color. I think the yellow frame's a little interesting. I wonder how that's gonna clean up, but I like it. Do you like the military tires? The tires are sick. These tires? Excellent. I love those. Yeah, we had to deflate these extremely heavily to get it out of the trailer, and then we actually popped one off the bead, and then me and Mike almost blew our faces off trying to get it to go back on the bead, but it's all good now, and we're about to detail it and make it look brand new for Rowdy. You guys let us know which one you liked more in the comments. If you like this nice navy blue color or if you're a fan, like Mike said, of the red ones that we did prior. But we have a lot of work to do this week because, again, this thing's huge. First things first, we have to start with the bed. Scoot down a little bit more. No, a little higher, a little higher. Have your mouth above it. But first things first, we have to start with the bed. There you go, Mike. Look at that. A little lucky horseshoe. Horseshoe? For when you get to galloping. I think this is the first horseshoe we've found in anything. Brent, go show them our junk wall. This is where Mike puts all the stuff he finds in cars. It's great. Look, the first dollar we ever made, our new horseshoe, other stuff, stickers. I think the world's tiniest violin is somewhere over there. Engine room. Yeah, there's a tiny violin somewhere over here, I think. Oh, yeah. A little car. The rest of it looks to be actual junk, so we're going to grab the garbage can and start chucking stuff away. Also, if you guys are interested in any of the detailing products you see us using in this video, they're all made by us, packaged by us, and shipped out by us to you. You can see how amazing they work. They'll all be in the description below. All right, we're moving on to the engine bay of this F-250, and I have no idea what engine this is, but I have a debate with Surgeon over here, and I think he's wrong. I think that this is a 360 small block. I don't think so. What do you think it is? I think it's a 460 big block. What do you guys think? You guys got to let us know what engine this is. I'm not sure, but from what I looked up online, the high boys did not come with that big motor, and four-wheel drive trucks also didn't, but this is a modified truck, so I guess it's possible, but this does not look like a big block to me. I think it is. I mean, just by doing some Googling, and Google says 460. I don't know. I think you're just used to small LS engines, so you think that this is really big. I mean, I don't think Google would lie to us. What do you think, Brent? No. That's a hot take. I mean, it's not a V10. No, it's not, like the newer trucks, but I think it's a 5.9 liter. I think this is the 360, but you guys be the decider in the comments below. Who's right? Who's wrong? He's wrong. And we'll see. Absolutely. Also, before we clean the engine bay, Mike, and if anyone's eating, they should probably not watch this part of the video, but we have a little rascal, little Stuart little. That thing's annihilated, dude. We're going to remove him and then actually get to cleaning the engine bay with our citrus degreaser. The big block. Big. Big block. It's a little block. It's a big block. Baby block. Big block. Joey, what'd you think it is? I said originally I thought it was a 350 small block. That is not accurate, so I'm going to have to go with Mike at the 360 because that's not much bigger, but it's definitely not the 400s, that's for sure. Now to clean this engine, whatever size it is, we're going to use our citrus degreaser, which is also safe for your engines at home. I use it on my own personal car and it's going to do an amazing job of breaking down any of the grease that's in this engine bay. That way, whoever works on this truck to get it back on the road is going to have a nice clean slate to work on. Is that a bird's nest? There is a bird's nest. Yeah. Now, before we do any iron removal or clay barring, I wanted to show you guys the color and depth of this blue paint with it being clean just from washing it. And it looks absolutely beautiful. I think I like this blue paint more than the red ones after seeing it all clean. I'll leave it for you guys to decide in the comments, but this truck is just getting cooler and cooler by the minute. Look at how good it looks without even being polished yet. All right, guys, now we're going to move on to the interior of this big F-250. So let's go check it out. They installed these side steps. They're definitely not factory, but this thing is huge. Wait, Mike, before you get in, come around to this side. I just noticed something. What is under the seat there? Oh, God, it stinks in here. Oh, this is a magazine that we probably can't put in the video. This makes a lot of sense now. I'm going to toss this out. Moving on to the interior and like climb up in here, I got to say the first thing that jumps out of me is not this awesome steering wheel, but the smell of this truck. Really, really gross, and I won't spend a lot of time in here because of that, but it's awesome. It is a manual truck. It's got high and low, four, and not much more. You know, it has a radio, it has air con in here, but again, a very base model truck. Like back then, they just gave you what you needed and literally nothing more. This actually reminds me of the steering wheel that's in our Mustang. Funny enough, it's a ribbed wooden steering wheel. It looks very similar to the one in the Mustang. I think it's a different make, but very, very similar, which is pretty cool. Another thing, funny enough, this truck has the exact same floor mats that were in the red F-250 we did, so those were probably pretty popular back in the day and also very cool. I love the look of those floor mats, but as I said before, this thing stinks. I'm going to get out of here, get this seat out of here, and get started on the interior. Once we got into the glove box, this is the culprit of the disgusting smell, completely packed to the brim by a mouse nest. We quickly realized that the backing in here was cardboard, so there wasn't much that we could do with that in order to clean it, so what we're going to do is order a brand new one for Rowdy, and we're going to have that replaced because if we cleaned it, it really wouldn't do much and it wouldn't sanitize it enough, so it makes more sense to just replace that. All right, now it's time to polish the high boy, and we have a bunch of oxidation that we're going to have to remove. Rowdy did repaint this truck, and it's not the greatest paint job in the world, but we will definitely be able to remove some of those light scratches and all of that oxidation and bring this blue back and hopefully make it pop a bit more, but thankfully, really not in the worst shape, so let's get to it. All right, guys, we are here with Mark, who is the winner of our 1965 Mustang, and he's actually wearing the hoodie that he bought that won him the Mustang. Mark, thank you so much for coming all the way from Washington to have us reveal the car to you. I'm really, really excited for you to see it, but I was curious, how long have you been watching? Are you a new viewer that just bought a hoodie and got lucky, or have you known what we do? Actually, I've been watching for quite a while. I want to say two, three years. When I first started, you were still in your old location. Oh, in the underground garage? In the underground garage. That's a deep cut. So, yeah, it's been great. I love watching. I've always been someone who's enjoyed cars. I enjoy detailing my own car, so enjoying what you guys do, because it just takes me back to doing my own, so. Heck, yeah. Well, I got to say, you're an awesome candidate to win, so let's not waste too much breath. Let's go ahead and show you the car. Sounds good. I look forward to it. That is amazing. This is your car. It's going home with you. It definitely does look a whole lot nicer in person. Yeah. I hope so. Not that it looked bad on screen, but it looks great. Every time we give away one of these cars to see the smile on your face, or to have you come all the way from Washington to take delivery of a car that you won for an $80 hoodie that you bought. I mean, I just thank you for supporting us. I thank everyone else for supporting us, because this is one of the coolest shops in the world, where we get to work on classic cars. We get to sell great detailing products, and then give away classic cars, too. Very full circle for us, so. It's very appreciated on my part, too. Again, I didn't have any expectations of actually winning such a nice car, but I really enjoyed the hoodie as well, so I'll wear them both. Wear this and drive this at the same time, and make sure to honor what you guys have done, and all the work that you've done on this car. Well, Mark, again, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you again for your support. Absolutely. Thank you for a beautiful car, and a beautiful work you guys do. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. But now, we have to take that truck back to Rowdy, and get his reaction. All right. So, we're here with the owner, Rowdy. We're about to reveal the truck, but we're going to do it a little bit differently, because we have a couple of factors that are preventing our normal reveals. Right now, it is raining, and also, this truck is extremely difficult to get out of the trailer, and we need some heavy equipment to help us pull it out, because we can barely even get in the truck to get it started, and it's very tight. So, we need to take our time in getting it out, so Rowdy's going to help us. But, I guess we're going to reveal the rear end of the truck to you right now. Can't wait. Ta-da. All right. Not exactly the best reveal. It's looking good. I can see myself in the bumper. The chrome, actually. Yeah, the chrome came out amazing. It came out nice. It's awesome. Okay. It was a lot of fun to work on, but I don't think we should take too much time showing you the rear end of it. Let's get it out of the trailer, so you can see it before the sun goes down. Clutch. Clutch in, Joey. All right. Clutch out. All right. We should be good for a second. All right. Let's put the KC light back on. Come on, Joey. Let's take it up here. Just watch the side over there. You got to turn your way. Okay. What do you think, Roddy? Isn't it great? Oh, man. That was a nightmare. It's clean. You just had to put 37s on it, didn't you? I know, right? Oh, man. I thought it'd be really cool with 37s. I mean, you're not wrong. But, man, is it hard to transport this truck. We dried the truck for you before we brought it to you. Yeah, so. That's okay. But, the paint definitely is shinier. Oh, without a doubt. Yep. Look at that. Not that you can tell, because it just took a second to dry. What's the plan for next? Brakes. Brakes? Yeah, that's a good plan next. New wheels and tires. Then you're driving it? Get it running. Yeah, I think it'll be like a showpiece. I'll take it to car shows. Heck, yeah. I'd love to hear it. Well, thank you so much for allowing us to do it. Thank you for dealing with the difficulties of getting it in the trailer, as well as out of the trailer. It looks good. It was worth it. For anyone that thinks that we don't put a ton of work into these videos, I wish you could have seen the week with this truck. This truck was work. Yeah, absolutely. But, we do it for you guys, and we do it because we love it. And, we're very thankful to have this as our job. And so, we hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a thumbs up. And, if you want to see more like this, hit subscribe. And, stay tuned next week, because we are launching our next giveaway. And, you guys are not going to want to miss this one. We'll see you next week.