I installed a sleeve / partial inner fender and steel bracket on our 75 F150.
Drilling the bolt holes and rebolting the hood hinges was no big problem.
HOWEVER, 2 of the 3 bracket bolt nuts fell into the cowl...AND the hood
hinges need more adjusting. Perhaps the hinge bolts on the hood can
be adjusted. ALSO..I was not expecting the need to remove the fender.
I didn't.
ONE MORE CHALLENGE....I bought from Carpenter the rubber strip that snaps onto the top edge of the fire wall. Many of the holes do not line up.

Any suggestions?

 

The stuff in the cowl or hood can possibly be retrieved with a magnet or gripper tool and a lot of patience. Tape up the paint to protect if you want.
Plan B (not sure on this) you might be able to remove the driverside vent assembly inside the cab if you have a non-AC cab, or a metal panel if AC cab and gain access. I can't remember if this provides access to the inside of the cowl or not.
Plan C cut an access hole and weld it back in or find new bolts/nuts and leave it.
If you had a 78 or 79 hood they have openings in the underside that would make it easy to get access inside. This feature I believe was to allow the hood to crush in a collision and absorb energy rather than be forced through the windshield cowl etc.

As for the cowl strips the early year models have a different hole spacing than later cabs. Your cab may have been a swap at some point. Carpenter lists 73-79 but I seem to recall something in the instructions in my carpenter kit that mentioned the difference in years. LMC does not list one for 78-79 but to use the 67-77 strip and start install on driverside and ignore last remaining hole. Do the clips slide on the strip for better alignment?

 

You want a picture of the inside of the cowl?

 

Inside of cowl panel end: 1979 ford truck.


If these are broken off you can retrieve them and weld them onto a small pice of sheet and drill out the old hole. Thread a bolt to hold it in place and weld the part back in.

There is an older variation with cage nuts holding a loose square nut. They can deform and the nut can fall out. These are more work to repair. Which ones do you have?

 

There's always this? Looks pretty basic.

 

How easy is it to remount the front fender. The inner fender sleeve would not slip
under the edge of the fender. That's ok until I bolted the hood hinge in place. The
hood is a 1/2" higher with the sleeve setting on top of the edge of the fender.
Nothing comes easy.