Unibody parts blues
 

I have a '63 unibody. Where can I find body parts, specifically patch panels for the bed? I have tried NPD, Dennis Carpenter, MAC's, California Pickups, and Concourse. It seems all they have is tailgates and wood kits.For spending 20 years sitting in the woods, the body is not that bad but there is alot of bad body work on the sides of the bed. I figured someone has to make a fender area patch panel, it looks way too hard to duplicate the rolls on the fender line without a full formed press.
Any help is appreciated.
Also how likely is it that my truck is actually an original 4WD? It is titled as a '68 F100, but I know that it is not since it is unibody. Would the Hotchkis 4wd front axle mean it might be a 250?

If your truck is a factory 4x4 it should have the closed knuckle front axle on it instead of the open end like the 66-79 model trucks do and it would have a 2spd transfer case mounted seperate from your transmission. Also, when you are talking about the fender patch area, are you talking about the front fenders or the area located above the wheels of the bed? I am also doing a complete restoration on my 64 Ford factory 4x4 and have owned around 8 of these trucks that were factory 4x4 models but none were unibody models. If your truck was a factory model your tag located on the door should read a f110 model if it is original instead of a f100 as in the two wheel drive models. I hope some of this information is helpful to you. Lewis

Big Blue there were no factory 4X4 unibodies. I've some that were body or frame swaps. If yours is registered as a 68 it is probably a 68 chassis with the 63 body dropped on it.

BigBlue63, check your private messages.

i feel your pain...bed panels for any of the trucks aside from a stepside is impossible to find...Im in need of 3 of the 4 flat panels in front of and behind the wheelwells on my styleside longbox....side panels, let alone patch panels for a bed I have yet to see...
As to the VIN, on 61-6 trucks, the vin is on the frame, RH rail on the top surface in front of the front crossmember and behind the core support mounting area...would be about parallel with the generator or alternator as viewed from the side. The VIN on the frame is boxed on either end of the frame by a large star....On a unibody..61-3...the tag would be on the glove box door inside....as to the VIN itself....anything other then an F10 or F25 for 1/2 or 3/4 ton trucks respectively is a factory 4WD....usually an F11 or F26....

Keep us posted....if your uni is solid in the wall that splits the box from the cab then you got a good start as from what I have seen, they go away on the outside areas first.


Keep Us posted on what you find :)


-cs65

I have no tags or vin plate at all on the truck that would indicate that it is even a '63. The story behind this truck is that one of my buddies has 36 acres on which his cousin let some junk men park some vehicles years ago. I had seen the truck there for ever (or at least as long as I can remember) just sitting in the woods. When things got rough, my friend was made an offer on a piece of the land by a developer and took it. That piece of land was where the truck was sitting. We had to clear all of the vehicles off of the land since the junk men abandoned them (mostly because of the appoximately 500 scrap tires they left with the vehicles). I could not stand to see that old truck scrapped, so I removed the 300 straight six that was shoe horned in it and dropped in a 302 with AOD. There never was a transfer case in the truck. The VIN tag and title that was in the glove box said 1968 so officially that is what I will call it, but I know by the body it is not (because of the unibody) and I am assuming '63 because that is what was written on the windshield. I wanted to let everyone know the story so I do not sound ignorant when I say I can't use and tag or stamping numbers to help identify exactly what I have.
As far as the body, like I said it is amazingly solid but has some wrinkles. All I have had to do so far is fabricate some floor pans (which is ok since I needed a deeper transmission tunnel for the AOD). The bottoms of the doors have some rust as well as the tops of the bed rails. The sides of the bed are pretty wavy and I would like to just replace them if possible.

Have you wire brushed the RF frame rail in the area I mentioned yet.....the number is there and i have heard many find it also on top of frame rail under the cab area....

Sorry I took so long to get back but we just had a baby. I did look for any numbers on the frame and found none. The area that you are referring to I believe was where a cross member was welded in who knows how long ago. I know that the frame is however not a '68 by looking at it. The whole frame is relatively straight where a '68 dips down in the middle. This frame only has one slight elevation in the rear and none in the front.
The only section of bed I am in need of is actually just the fender openings. I think I have a pretty good template to fabricate the rest of the bed sides, it is just the inticate rolls of the teardrop type opening around the wheels that is going to give me a real problem. I do not have any strechers/shrinkers with a deep enough bite to make the flared out areas. I guess I could make them in sections but that would be pretty tricky.