Hey Joe,
Hmmmm.... I'd fix the bed wood - that's not a huge project & it makes the truck fully useable & it looks great. A good paint job is hundreds of hours of grinding & sanding. Around $7K if you have someone else do it.

If you plan on doing the body work - just do it piece by piece in the future as time & money permit. In the meantime you are out driving your truck & enjoying it. If you've got a kid getting to driving age I can promise - you don't want to paint it & make the body perfect. My daughter ran into a parked car 2 weeks after getting her driving license - nothing big - but the front fender has a nice bang on it. My son rolled his jeep doing stupid offroad crap. We just flipped it back up but it didn't help the paint job.

Put it back together & drive it - let your kids have fun & don't worry about using it like a truck to carry stuff.

Ben in Austin
1950 F1

 

Most people who don't do the work when it's apart never go back to do it, in my experience. How many cars do you see driving around in primer for 5, 6 years? Interest wanes, priorities shift. I would at least get it uniformly in primer, even without bodywork.

 

It depends on what your want and need?

Personally, I would fix the rust now... paint your interior, running boards, firewall and inner fenders (even if your going to use different colors). Then drive the truck... If you save up the money to paint it you can always take the bed off, remove the glass, and remove the front end and spay everything. Just my 2 pennies! Number one thing is to remember to enjoy the progress and truck!

 

That's some excellent advice guys. You are giving me lots to think about, which was the purpose of this thread.

I currently don't have a bed and I'm planning on building a wood flatbed (It had a flatbed on it although not wood, it was a Knapheide bed)
I started this dis-assembly almost 3 years ago. Actually that's not too bad considering my life and budget.

As I was getting my son to weight lifting this morning I got to thinking about things like the interior. If I don't paint it before I start putting everything back in, it will be a bearcat to do later. hmmmm......

I definitely need to inspect everything when the weather warms up. Well and after I get the chassis all working like it should.
This has been a lot of fun so far. The only frustration is that I can't move any faster.

 

I'm with Bobby on this. I waited until all body work was done on mine, then I assembled it by myself. Resultant are some "boo boos" that I will have to spot paint. The compromise would be to spot paint the firewall, inner cab, etc then assemble. That way you can get the truck on the road, and finish paint when you are done.

Free advice flows like beer at a bachelor keg party.

Tom

 

Well Joe, I have mixed feelings about this too. I can drive my truck, but it's a long way from being "finished".

Like others have said, once you're driving it, it seems harder to go back and take it all apart again. Knowing I would want to drive it now and take it apart again "someday" to do body work and paint, I purposely designed the wiring harness to make it easier to remove the cab and disconnect the dash components using the fuse panel.

In my case, the truck has no rubber seals or fender welting, so it creaks and groans and screams continuously while in motion. But I'm willing to live with that until the "someday" comes...

 

Joe- I've been working on the F3 for over 10 years stop & go because of life too. If I could do it all over again I would make it road worthy and drive it. Work on it more when I could but still have the fun of driving it. I look at it this way I can't get the 10 years of time back. Getting older just makes it harder to do some of the things I could have done with it. Make it safe somewhat realiable, drive it and have fun! Besides your wife will give you extra points if you make your mother in law happy!!!!

 

I have mixed feelings about this. I took my 56 M100 apart about 10 years ago when it was a fairly nicely running and driving, an all around nice 10 footer and it`s still mostly apart.
How I wish I had driven it more before stripping it down for a ''quick fix''. My friend, a good bodyman painter, keeps faithfully promising to get back at it more in these last 3 years but life gets in his way too.

 

I do a lot of paint and bodywork...here are a few pros and cons for you to consider. If the cab is OFF the chassis you can move it around and tilt it to get easy access to almost any portion of the cab. If the cab is ON the chassis then it is held firmly in place and is sometimes easier to work on...plus, the chassis (behind the cab) is a good place to stand when working on or painting the roof.
If it were me and I felt like I wanted to get the cab on and get the truck running again, then I would prep the underside of the floor and paint the floor and firewall. That way you can bolt it up and still be able to paint the cab in such a way that it looks good. Good luck!

 

Oh really? Maybe I should drive Betsy down to El Cajon... I bet I could find a way without getting on a freeway...

 

I would normally be happy to help you out Joe but right now I am finishing up on a 53 F100 and I have my own 56 waiting in the wings. The wife wants the 50 Merc 2-dr coupe finished sometime before we cash in our chips so I think that I am booked for a few years. I think that by the time I get to the Merc I may just have to give it a HAMB-special flat black job and call it a day...seemed to work for Sylvester Stallone in Cobra.

 

I was just kidding anyway (sort of). Now let's get back to the regularly scheduled thread.

 

Like we ever have a thread in this forum that is not hijacked at some point.

Well it sounds like a bunch of people have had some of the same thoughts as me. That's encouraging. I'm leaning toward putting the body on. Since I don't have a standard bed that simplify's things a little. When I get the chassis really running (I can't wait for that! And yes, a video will be taken.) I will take a much closer look at the body parts which will help make my decision.

If anyone has any more stories or thoughts I would love to hear them. So would others in my situation. I mean at this moment we have 290 people viewing the 48-56 forum. That's a lot more people than actually post.

When the weather warms up, I need to offer a meal or two and some cold beverages to some of you guys within an hour or two to have you inspect my work and BS. Hmmmm Brats on the grill sounds real good right now.

 

Only eleven hours for me. Is this an offer to host the next TS event, Joe?

 

Actually I would love to...the wife might freak out though.(Actually that pretty entertaining. ) You know.... I have a nice park just down the hill from my house with a shelter and plenty of parking and I live on a dead end street, my inlaws live less than a mile away with a big empty lot and swimming pool....hmmmm

It's not isolated like Doc, but it's a pretty small town. We have one stoplight. We do have a motel about a mile from the house and nice hotels 20 minutes away....