Hang on n00b, I’ll get to you in a few sentences.
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For forgetting we were all n00bs once, who wanted a cool ride, one we could have some fun with, not just a cheap áss, beat up h*nda civic with a fart can.
None of us here NEED a Raptor. We want them.
Let’s remember where we came from.
@julien194b is speaking the truth and the rest of the posters are telling you what you don’t want to hear. I wish I had good friends telling me what they are telling you now, back when I was a stinking 16 year old punk with cash. Permit me to tell story.
when I was in my teens, my older brothers fùcked things all up for me. First with the dirt bike, then multiple muscle cars - 68 charger, 73 Mach 1, multiple Mercury Cougars, 2x 69’s, 1 x 70, and I was insanely jealous. I had money that I earned by the time I was 16 and landed myself a really, really, really nice blue 1970 cougar, 351c. I should not have bought that car, even though it was the bees knees. This thing was original in 1985! Right down to the AM radio, was well optioned PS, PB and front discs !
I ****** it up. First, I hydroplaned it and managed not to to screw up too bad - I don’t think there were any impacts, just spun like mad in what wasn’t THAT bad of a rainfall. Once I’d regained my confidence a few weeks later I took it out and was impressing one of my friends and wrecked it good. Really good. I was damn lucky we didn’t get hurt.
So, I had to scrounge and save more over the next couple of years and I landed a 1970 Olds 442, 455xTH400. I shouldn’t have bought this car either, but I wanted it. L/F fender was a goner / replacement, and the car was showing her age outside, and just a little inside, but she was mechanically sound. -ish. She got me through high school and my first job as an adult.
Then, hot dogging with my friends I grooved the crank pretty awesomely. That hurt financially, quite a bit. It’s not like i could work from home at the time.
I was able to score a series a cheap, beater cars as I slowly repaired the damage. As I did not know what I was doing, I tried to do it on the cheap and failed, ******** up one thing after another - all small things, but they kept adding up.
I got the short block rebuilt, had the heads port matched, and then ran into a set of w30 heads so worked up those. Got her put together and low oil pressure! bad ring install. Back apart she came and I picked up another short block to work on. I managed to get the short block done right, back together, was working on getting her set up - busted a motor mount revving the engine. Replaced that, but when the motor mount went, I broke the bottom out of the radiator shroud. By now, i was growing weary of this project. I whacked the lower out of the shroud and go figure, she would run hot everywhere. ugh. Then, after getting my brand new shroud, installing, I revved it again did the same. fùcking. thing.
oops. About this time I remembered, I’d procured a radiator from a later model olds 98, the highest capacity olds rad. you could easily score and the shroud didn’t exactly line up. I fixed this, measured, and got past it. Got her on the road and holy moly that car launched HARD. Take offs were impossible on street tires, but from a rolling start where traction wasn’t such and issue it was a feeling to behold. Right up until I trashed the bone stock, probably OEM 175k mile TH400. :-( This one really hurt because I’d put so much of my money into the motor and zero into the rest of the car. So the car and project got shelved because I was out of discretionary money and I had burned through 3 beater cars. My mother convinced me to go for a new vehicle, so I settled on an S10 4x4 (yeah, I know). But heck, it got me into off roading. Unfortunately, this and the OUTRAGEOUS full coverage insurance costs absorbed about 85% of my discretionary money. I never got the project finished - I got the TH400 rebuilt, reassembled but at that point I needed money and found a buyer for her and my other Olds parts.
I could have saved a solid $5k in 1980’s money, by going with a beater F150 pickup 4x4, that I still could have had some fun with.
All this is to say, listen to what others are telling you here. A project Raptor that you’re going to have to almost immediately spend a bunch of money on is going to set you back years financially. Get a regular F150 4x4. less expensive, more ubiquitous and therefore more parts availability, no “Raptor tax” on parts, and it’s a solid truck. Save your pennies or whatever small currency you Canadians use, eh. Keep your eyes peeled for the right one. You’ll know when it’s time and when the $$$ situation is right.
Learn from our mistakes.
