38 NOVEMBER 20194-WHEEL & OFF-ROAD
FEATURE
JACK OF ALL
TERRAINS
FULLSIZE FORD WHEELER
BY Harry Wagner
[email protected]
PHOTOGRAPHY HARRY WAGNERT
H E R E’S N O SU CH TH I N G A S TH E
perfect vehicle. The more tasks
you expect from a rig, the more
compromises you have to make.
Jesse Coss realizes this is true,
but that didn’t stop him from
building a truck that is very, very
good at hauling across the desert and crawl-
ing over rock s. Is it a Trophy Truck? Nope. Is it
a rock buggy? It’s not. But Jesse’s truck does
a great job of just about everything.
He started 10 years ago with an inex-
pensive 1997 F-250 diesel with 630,000
miles on the clock. These trucks have TTBfront ends, so the first thing Jesse did was
replace the Dana 50 with a Dana 60 solid
axle from an F-350.
Jesse drove it like that for years, but
then over the last few years the truck has
been upgraded with more horsepower
and bigger shocks. Front coilovers and
rear trailing arms with coilovers and
bypass shocks allow the diesel rig to blast
across the desert with reckless abandon,
and while they weren’t inexpensive, the
low entry price allowed room in the bud-
get to add the high-end Fox shocks. The
solid axles and 40-inch Pro Comp Xtreme
MT2s, combined with the torque of the
diesel engine, allow the Ford to crawl any-
where that the sheetmetal fits. That might
not be per fect , but it’s pretty darn close.1
The front suspension is a three-link that uses an Artec truss to mount the 2x0.250-wall DOM
links that are fitted with 1^1 ⁄ 4 -inch rod ends from RuffStuff Specialties. The 2^1 ⁄ 2 -inch-diameter,
16-inch-travel Fox coilovers are fitted with 300- over 350-lb/in coil springs to handle the weight
of the diesel engine. Jesse wants to add bypass shocks to the front, but for now the Fox air bumps
keep the suspension from bottoming.1