I was on here a while ago when I had my 2007 1500 quad Cab SLT with a 4.7. I bought it new and sold it in 2021 with a level, 3" body and 37/13.50/17's and fender flares. It ran good at 110,000 miles but when I took the flares off.... It had the cancer quite bad. Put them back on and the truck looked perfect. That black pearle held up great. There was a lot of rust underneath though. Too much to get into so I let it go. Besides, I needed the money then to buy my new charter boat for my guide service.

Well, payments for a nice new truck and CC debt had been adding up so I just sold a beautiful 2020 rapid red/grey metalic diesel F150 Super Crew to pay off a few CC's and buy an older truck outright, so I'd have no payment and cheaper insurance. I'll get another new/newer one in a couple years when most of my debt is gone.

I found an 05 1500 bright red Thunder Road with the 5.7 in really good condition. No rust and a clean interior with no ripped seats. Lovin it so far. And I just found out it has the 3.92 gears. No wonder it would slam me into the seat when I touched the gas. Good to be back into a V8. And in reality, the price difference in diesel (my sold F150) along with cheaper insurance is going to put the cost about the same to operate. Older truck so I'm sure there will be "issues" that will need fixin but I think this plan will work out. Also put 15 gallons of gas in it, and with a few more in the tank my gauge only reads a smidgin over half so perhaps I got the larger tank?

And knowing my history, when its time for new tires it looks like tweaking it a bit to level it is going to be easy and the wheels are 9" wide. So I could put larger tires on there to fill flares as I think adding black fender flares looks sharp on a bright red truck.

 

I had never heard of the thunderroad before this post. must have been a less popular package. However reading about it i found a window sticker for an 05 5.7 thunderroad and it showed a standard 26g fuel tank

thunderroad package was 20" wheels, 3.92 gears, sliding rear window, fog lamps and LSD, so nothing to special all options that could be found in other ways, but maybe not together?

 

I would recommend pulling the tail lights and pushing all the dirt out of the top of the outer wheel house, and make that a yearly ritual. Spray in some rust retarder, like Fluid Film or eqivalent. Otherwise you'll be dealing with rust holds in the bed sides again soon.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I'd pull the rear cover and check out the LSD, they have a bad habit of broken shims (some call them clips) that crack and can end up ruining the housing, tone ring, bearings...etc.

Spraying inside the rockers with Fluid Film or equivalent, replacing the tape they used on the backside of the rocker is a good idea (Typically flakes off and then you have a wide open hole there).

 

Good ideas. Thanks!

 

Yep, I looked it up. I like the running boards and probably wouldn't have bought them, so a plus.
Fog lights? I had them on my standard 2007 SLT. So no bonus.
Hard lid for bed. I love the look but makes the bed 1/2 useless IMO so it'll come off. so, nothing special.
I do like the sliding rear window.
Not a big fan of large wheels (I'm old school and like big tires) but the rims do look good and the tires are about 33/11's on 9" wide wheels. I typically like more aggressive tires but in reality, since I drive on the beach, street tires are actually the best. And I'm liking the 3.92 gears. Definite plus. I'll save the money for oversized mudders for when I get an old Bronco! And when these tires go bald I'll at least have the option to go bigger/wider without getting new wheels since these are already wider....unless this model has the inside clearance issues like the 06's onward do with the struts.

And I looked at the build list on line and have the 34 gallon tank. Whats confusing is a few items down it shows an xtra 2.5 gallons??? ( guess when sold it originally they put an xtra 2.5 gallons in then what they typically include in the smaller tanks for another 50 bucks? HaHa)

 

Every build list I've ever looked up has that x gallons of gas/diesel. My guess is every car gets a fill on the line, how else do they start it? From an accounting standpoint that expense has to be accounted somewhere. Easy enough to just tack it in the build sheet. Probably works out in a tax standpoint