I have all but one or two bolts out of the passenger fender. It is still connected by the door. Where are the bolts that I can't see behind the door area?inside on the kick panel area there is a access hole... may or may not have a small plate on it. one more under the truck, very bottom of the fender

What do call the "inner fenders"? inner fender apron

What do you call the piece that goes across the front that the grill mounts to and the radiator attaches to?radiator support

What do you call the body part that collapsed in the picture above?front cab support

Can you get replacements for these and other sheet metal?
Yes... Dennis Carpenter, Rick @ Carolina Classic's or Tom @ Flashbacks F100

 

I finally got the fender off. I would have never found the bolt you access from the inside of the passenger area behind the little plate. Thanks, Bill W!

I uploaded a few more pictures. Look for the little, tiny square in the upper left corner. They are the last five pictures on the second page.

They show how bad the rust by the cab mount and the bottom of the of door post are. But how clean the fender apron and the bottom of the doors and cab corners are.

(The marks on the bottom of the door are scrapes from the crash.)

Now I guess it's time for me to figure out where to go from here!

Pictures here:
Blue1966F100 pictures by clinkfield - Photobucket

 

If it helps, I went through fixing the same type of deal ... I picked up a 66 F100 custom cab long bed with front end damage. Best decision? Probably not - but I guess I didn't mind the challenge and it wasn't a "complete" rust bucket.

Take your time finding parts - that's some of the best advice I can give. I'm on the east coast, which makes it harder. Here's a list of what I paid for what I ended up needing, if it gives any sort of baseline:

Used, solid inner fender pair: $250
Used hood, upper valance, painted grill (instead of the original polished), stone deflector, passenger fender: $400
New radiator core support: $325 (+ 125 freight)
Core support bushings: $60

In hind sight, it would have been cheaper to try to find a front clip, but it's tough finding a good clip out here on the east coast, unless I'm just looking in the wrong places.

So in parts alone, it was close to $1000. Expect to spend a lot of time fiddling with alignment. Unless you had marked alignment previously, you don't have much to go by. I learned that the hard way. There will be lots of little charges in there as well.

Judging by the looks, you would have had to do some pretty heavy body work anyways, so just count this as an extra jump on it!

 

I still stand by my estimates, with kind regards and respects to Mr. DDavidD, even though I did not know beforehand that he estimates for a living.

In fact, the previous post is more than 25% of my parts estimate, and it only begins to address the parts you will need, and doesn't count the labor. If you can weld, you will greatly reduce the overall cost, but.....

It isn't my intention to start an argument, or insist that I am right, I merely want you to take off any rose colored glasses before sinking too much money into it. If my estimate proves to be wrong, no problem. To repeat, I sincerely hope for your sake I am wrong.

I stand by it because the cancer deterioration of the core support was indicative and symptomatic of all the other hidden damage that you have just started to uncover.

And you haven't finished finding it all. Look under and behind the A and B door pillars, the lower rear of the cab, the tailgate and the front of the bed. <br/>
Look inside the doors. Remove the access panel and check the condition of the inside. If I were a betting man, I would bet you quite a bit that there are pinholes in the outer skin and corrosion through the bottom - but you will not see it until you clean the crud out from the bottom.

I have been wrong before and will be wrong again, but your additional pictures seem to validate the extent of previously undetected damage and validate my estimates.

If I were you, I would examine the truck carefully with a copy of a parts catalog in my hands. Paper version is probably best, and is free from the companies that sell parts. Unless you are intimately familiar with these trucks, you can miss an important section that has disappeared in the rust, but the catalog will show you what it should look like, and will give you costs.

They include drawings of all the body panels and sheet metal parts that they offer, and where they fit. If you have it in hand, you will know where to look, and what to look for, and can get closer to an actual estimate of the cost of the parts you will need.

For example, the core support mounting kit is $75 - and you will need one for it and the set for the cab. Used fenders go for about $200 and repop new fenders are $300, new shiny grill is $500, floor pans and cab supports are about $100 each, sill repair parts - all more money that gets closer to the original $4K estimate.

Only you can decide if it is worth the time and money to repair.

Best of luck to you. Although normally I do not hang out here, someone else asked me to step in, so if I can help, don't hesitate to ask.

PS: By the way, I am not just thinking of the truck, but of the wife also. She has to endure the repairs as well, but doesn't get as excited about their progress when she sees the credit card bills. Hopefully, you can bring this truck back to usability and keep her happy too. Don't ask me how I know that this is important.

 

Forget looking in any repro parts sellers parts catalogs, as they aren't worth two cents for evaluating this type of damage and corrosion.

The 1964/72 Ford Truck Parts Catalog is what's needed, is available on a CD from hipoparts.com for 22 bucks. No one repro's the loose leaf paper version.

This CD catalog is far easier to use than the loose leaf paper version which has 4,941 pages of text, 1,961 pages of illustrations, is placed in 3 huge binders that weigh a ton. I've lifted these heavy binders countless times back then and now.

btw: I see no hood damage of any kind. The force of the collision compromised the hood latch and safety catch, bent the upper grille panel downwards which caused the hood to pop open.

There is no way to know if the R/inner fender apron, left front fender are damaged from the pics the OP posted. The dent in the R/door can be repaired, the bumper can be straightened and rechromed.

The thickness of the sheet metal used on these trucks is far better than was used 1967 and later. Today, the sheet metal is sooo thin, it's impossible to straighten once it's compromised.

IMO, the major problem with this truck is the rust. Why someone would buy a truck in the frozen north (MN, where salt is used on the roads) without having it inspected FIRST, I dunno.

 

NumberDummy - I DID have it inspected by a local mechanic. I'm disappointed with what he reported to me. But to be fair, he mostly looked at it from the outside. And he saw it before the crash. As I said before, all the pieces that are on the outside of the truck are essentially rust free! It makes no sense to me how there can be so much rust underneath and so little rust on the outside. The cab has no rust at all, except for a little bit along the bottom of the tailgate. The doors are solid. The fenders are solid. The hood has a little rust through on the nose, easily repairable if I decided to do it. The inner fenders - solid! The bumper just needs to be rechromed. Actually, it only has a two spots where the chrome is gone. It's straight. Can the bumper just be rechromed in one spot, as opposed to the whole thing?

I'm definitely not wearing rose colored glasses. I can see that there is much work to be done to get the cab in good enough condition. But I also never intended to do anything other than drive it as it is.

I have a line on a cab that is purported to be rust free and can be purchased and shipped for less than $1000. We'll see how that "pans" out. Bad pun intended While swapping a cab out would certainly be quite a chore, I'm up for it. I can't weld and really don't trust welding in new cab mounts anyway. I don't see where there is any good metal to attach the new cab mounts to.

One thing that I am hoping for is being able to straighten out the chrome grill. I know that aluminum doesn't like to be bent back and forth. I definitely don't want to settle for a painted one. I'm scared to try bending it back. See the picture. Any advice before I mangle it more?

 

NumberDummy - can you tell me more about my truck from the VIN info in the picture? Does the Gross Vehicle Weight on the plate conflict with the cool "6,000" sticker on the side of the truck?

 

The following figures are not what your truck actually weighs.

The 6,000 lb. GVWR (Gross Vehicle Weight Rating range) sticker has nothing to do with the 5,000 lb. Ford Gross Vehicle Weight Rating Range.

All this means is that your truck was not certified for anything over the 6,000 lbs. GVWR

The actual weight of the truck, driver any passengers and cargo should not exceed the GVWR.

Notice the caveat Ford printed on the Warranty Plate inre to this: WARRANTY VOID IF MAX GROSS VEHICLE WEIGHT IS EXCEEDED.

Robert (gangstakr) has a source that can straighten aluminum, then either remove the anodizing or replate the anodizing.

I'm not a fan of removing the anodizing, then polishing it, cuz you have to keep on polishing the part for as long as you own it, or the aluminum will begin to turn grey within a short time and corrode.

If the vehicle is parked outside, especially if close to a salty marine layer (like here along the coast in LA LA Land or ditto in much of FL), this will occur much faster than if the vehicle is garaged.

Carpenter has reproduced the '66 Custom Cab (anodized) grille. It's now available again after being MIA over the past several years, but it's not cheap.

 

in agreement with CD if you have rust that bad in support area's on one side look out, ck all low areas i think you'll find a lot more.
maybe a learning thing, an everyday thing for me.
roy

 

Signing on to follow this build. I have a 66 Custom Cab that I am parting out. Most all interior trim is off and packaged for shipping already. And my Grill is way better but not perfect. PM me if interested.

 

Ive fixed worse. But $700 isn't going to cover the damage. You need to sit down and figure a repair cost for the vehicle before you go any further. Once you get that cost then go back to the shipper and settle up.

 

I'm back!!!

I've been having a hard time dealing with getting the cab purchase completed. Never mind why - it's a long story. But I believe I finally have the logistics worked out and hope to be able to consummate the deal soon.

In the meantime I have talked to good body man. What he wants to fabricate new metal for the cab repairs would be more than I would spend on purchasing and shipping the replacement cab. But not way more.

I like the idea of just replacing the whole cab with a dry, Nevada cab. But I have a couple of questions.

One - the doors close like butter on the existing cab. (New cab is w/o doors or glass.) How hard is it to replace a door and get it to hang well?

Two - Am I crazy to want to replace a whole cab? Keep in mind that I am pretty handy and not afraid of hard work.

Thanks everyone!

 

I would much rather replace your cab than repair the rust. from my limited experience you can only see 20% of the rust that is there lurking. If you were to media blast it you would most likely end up with a giant spagetti strainer. Just my 2cents.

 

Can anyone tell me where the neutral switch is? I think that's the name. Anyway, it's the switch that makes sure the transmission is in park or neutral in order to start. When I got the truck, I was shown how to hold the stick in a certain position to get it to turn over. I don't want to always do that!

 

under the dash on top of the column, about where the pedals are....