Thanks keiths78f150! I take that as a very high complement and don't feel worthy to be lumped into the same category as MaulMaul and Mike!

I really enjoy working on this truck and couldn't do it without so many of the kind people on this forum.

 

Hey All,

Just a quick update on my progress. Since my last post I started to assemble the front clip and get the radiator mounted.












I wanted to put an electric fan in so I pulled a fan from the thunderbird and decided to build a shroud for it. I'm not a metal worker by any stretch of the imagination but this is what I came up with.





After spending all day Saturday on that little shroud I temporarily mounted it on the radiator support and decided I didn't like it. There wasn't a lot of room in between the back of the fan and the water pump pulley... it was too close for my comfort. I had no more room to adjust the fan depth as it was barely hovering off the radiator. Instead I decided to get a shroud from Dennis Carpenter and the factory fan setup.






I also had a chance to bend some trans-cooler lines. I got away from the pre-bent lines because I was afraid the headers were going to interfere with them. Instead I ran them up the frame rail and then under the alternator before bending back towards the radiator. I haven't connected them to the radiator yet or secured the lines to the frame because I'm trying to find an adapter that will go in between the 5/16" inverted flare nut on the end of the lines and then into the radiator where there is no female flare. I have some adapters on the way from Summit now. Also, you can see a panel I cut out and painted in this picture where the stock heater box went. I purchased an aftermarket unit from Nostalgic Air so I no longer needed the huge hole where the heater box went.







Lastly, I cut the last coat of clear I shot as there was some orange peel in it. I re-shot some of the interior pieces and now I can move forward with some of the assembly.







Thanks for following along and I hope all is well with your trucks and your projects!

 

Hey all, looking for advice on some rusty door repairs. I posted this question over in paint and body but that forum is not very active.

While I was sanding the doors I noticed a lot of rust through the lower inner metal, just above the overlap joint. I'd like some recommendations on fixing this. I want to do it right but I'm terrified of buying a lower section, cutting my existing lower and welding a new one on. I'll be the guy that can't close his doors cause they're too long or they'll look horrible and be too short. If that's what I need to do though I'll try it.

If there are other suggestions please let me know.

Here's what the doors look like.

 

If it were me I would seriously try to find some better doors.

I'm a rookie bodyman but I'm sure that if you blasted the lower edges to get rid of the rust you not going to be able to get rid of rust in the folded seam and it could easily come back and ruin a new paint job.

My doors were really clean but I did soak the seams a few times with Ospho just to be sure. Time will tell if it works.

Good luck...truck looks great.

 

Might be getting an old truck soon... and this definitely sparks my interest.

Subbed

 

If you decide on a new set of doors, let me know. I happen to know where a set are that looked pretty good if they haven't been scavenged.

 

Thanks Grinner! I think you are right.

Today after church I stopped by the junkyard where there used to be a handful of dent sides but today there was only one and it was in bad shape. I'm going to look into the lead Maul Maul gave me otherwise I'll buy some new lower panels.

 

Thanks Thed! It's a lot of fun, and money , but I would highly recommend it.

 

Thanks again for the tip! I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Ahh I don't really plan on spending too much money on it. It'll be a beater that can tow the Ranger around when needed for her V8 swap - which will eat up most of my income.

THIS would be perfect for me.

 

Hello everyone, hope you all are doing well.

Just posting a little more progress on the truck. I've been working on the truck bed lately and a little in the engine bay. I also had a chance to finish sandblasting the doors.

The truck bed has been sandblasted. In the process I found a few bad spots- either badly dented and covered with bondo or rusted out completely.
















In the engine bay I finished running the fuel lines, including mounting a new fuel filter to the engine support cross member, and I also finished plumbing the radiator and hooking up some of the vacuum lines. I placed all of the lines in a stainless steel wrap from spectre. The stuff is decent but I'm not sure I would use it again.










Next up I need to finish up some of the vacuum and pcv lines. Then I need to get the cab insulated with dynamat and start to mount the new A/C I got from Nostalgic Air. I also need to do some body work on the bed and doors and then get them primed.

Speaking of the A/C has anyone tried mounting the compressor on passenger side of the engine rather than the drivers side? I'm thinking that would make the heater hose lines run a little cleaner into the passenger side of the cab.

 

Hello FTE, I hope everyone has had a great Christmas and New Year.

It’s been a while since I have updated my build thread but a lot has been happening. Since my last post I have done the following:

I started placing Dynamat in the cab and mounted the A/C Evaporator along with a speaker and the defrost duct. I got the A/C system from Nostalgic Air in Tampa, FL. The documentation was great and install has been pretty easy. Best yet, they adapted the stock A/C controls to work with the new system.




I had to weld in a few repair panels on the bed.






Including one very big repair panel I cut out of a truck at the junk yard.









I mounted the A/C compressor and condenser and ran all the hoses. I decided to put the compressor on the passenger side to clean up the hose routing.











Shot some epoxy primer on the bed.




Had to use a little filler after my metal work (maybe a little more than a little in some spots).





Shot some more epoxy primer on top of that.










Shot some bed-liner under the bed.




Painted the front of the bed and the back of the cab so I can mount the bed on the frame and free up some garage space.




Mounted the dash.




Started running electric with a new harness from Ron Francis.









And the big news is that last Sunday I cranked it up! Right now there are only headers so it sounded like a stock car was in my driveway. That was an awesome hour or so while we cranked it up and dialed it in!

Thanks for reading along and I hope your Ford Trucks are coming along too!

 

Hello FTE,

This weekend I made some pretty good progress on the truck. The wiring is pretty much finished (minus the dash and gauges). I'm really liking this Ron Francis wiring harness and with the help of the diagrams on Fordification and the shop manuals its been pretty easy to merge the new harness into the factory controls.

This week I hope to start working on the doors and I'd like to start planning out what I'm going to do for the gauges because I want to replace the factory gauges but keep the factory dash. I'd like to go with analog backlit gauges so if anyone can offer any input here I'm all ears.









Hope everyone had a great weekend.

 

Hello everyone!

Things have been a bit slow lately but I got a few things done so I wanted to update the thread.

I started working on the doors which was way overdue.

I started by taking some measurements from inside and outside of the door so I would know if I got the new repair panels into place. I also used a piece of cardboard to trace the basic shape of the door (from the sides) so I had a point of reference. I could use this cardboard tracing to get the length of the door right and make sure the profile stayed consistent across the repair.

Then I started cutting the new exterior repair panel to the approximate size I needed. I used that as a template to cut the exterior skin of the door panel.








Then I tacked the new skin into place.





With the new exterior skin in place I started working in the interior panel. Using the same technique I started by cutting the new repair panel into size/shape I needed. Then I used that as a template to cut the interior door panel to size.





Then new panel was tacked into place.





I only tack welded the panels into place at this point because I wanted to make sure there wasn't any fitment issues once I got the door hung.









I started on the drivers door but haven't hung it yet for a test fit. Once I confirm the drivers door is good I'll finish welding the repair panels and then shoot the doors and hood with epoxy primer.

One other thing I was able to finish was the steering column. That was a bit of a bear getting shift tube to engage the keyed shifter arm while ensuring the steering flange had the correct spacing with the steering coupler. I replaced some of the components along the way such as the turn signal switch, transmission shifter dial and others. I repainted the column assembly itself, the collars and the plastic pieces.








Thank you for following along!

 

Awesome work! Keeps me motivated to work on mine. Keep us updated on the progress.