After some fitting, marking and cutting, my inner fender is ready for install. I didn't realize that there was a difference between the 2WD and 4WD inners.


Spent about an hour and a half cleaning up all of the bolts for the front end.


I got the core support, radiator, inner fenders mounted and driver's door aligned. I am using a 73-79 core support. There are 2 bolt holes on the ends of each inner fender that do not line up with any pre-threaded holes on the core support. I drilled and reamed a new hole. Hopefully the new bolts won't interfere with mounting the grille.

 

My steps for aligning the doors made some quick work of it. Probably about 3 hours total combined for both doors. I removed the doors by removing the pillar bolts and did not mess with the door mounting bolts so that is what probably saved a lot of time.

1. Center all of the bolts, snug up and close the door. Take note of front to back, top to bottom and how flush it is.
2. Start with the vertical adjustment
Use a floor jack and blocks of wood in the middle of the door to raise it to the proper height + 1/4"
3. Without lowering the jack, slide it out from under the door and reposition it where the door will be fully opened.
4. Open the door and rest it on the jack & wood. Loosen up all bolts just enough to feel the door shift. Snug the back up and close. Repeat until your lines match the box. I left the jack at this height.
5. Loosened the bolts just enough to be able to take a pry bar and adjust the front edge flush with the cowl. Close and check.
6. I had to loosen the bottom hinge only to get my back edge even from top to bottom.
7. Marked the latch post, and adjusted to have the whole back edge flush with the back of the cab opening.

 

Good Job posting these instructions! There are a bunch of novices and gearheads here but not as many body techs I believe.

 

In all honesty, I am just winging it, and learning as I go. I figured since I was doing it, I was going to write it down and maybe help someone else out along the way.

 

I use a sheet of paper as a gage for adjusting the door with the rubber seals in place.
I place paper between the seal close the door and move the paper a long to see where it's loose or to tight and adjust door as needed. This way not air noise coming in on the road well less cab noises..
orich

 

After 5 years of sitting, I got the truck running.

2 tsp of Marvel Mystery oil down each cylinder
Turn motor over a few times with ratchet
New Autolite 45 plugs
Cleaned distributor rotor contact
Cleaned points

She fired up and ran for 10 minutes. Then just died.

Cleaned the points again and she fired back up and would stay running and re-start easily.

I will take a video after I get the front clip all assembled.

 

COOL! Just get all old gas outta it.

 

Yep. There had been about 5 gallons sitting in the tank all along. Transferred it to my fire starting can and put some fresh fuel in.


Removed the passenger side window crank mechanism since I couldn't raise the window. Cleaned it up, greased it up and it is now working fine. Almost lost a finger putting it back in the door. Let my grip relax for a second and it started coming down.

Put the passenger side fender on as well. Dropped the ratchet down the pillar and spent 1/2 hour trying to get it out. I still have to figure out how the lower fender bolt connects to the underside. I see the bolt hole in the fender, but there is nothing to run the bolt into.

 

The only gauge that was working was the Ammeter. Once I found my missing pigtail and wired it up, it works. I put a test light on my fuel gauge orange wire and it I got the pulse voltage. Same on the oil sensor lead.

Removed my fuel float which is still solid and swung it left and right with no change on the gauge. I opened up the resistor box and cleaned up the resistor wire and copper contact. I was able to get a reading from Empty to just over 3/4 of a tank. I could see that the copper contact did not go all the way to the end of the resistor when the float hit the stop, so I carefully bent it just a little. Now the gauge will read from E to Full.

I still have to figure out my Oil and Temp gauge
Oil - with the key off it reads High (pegged) when I start the truck, it slowly goes to the Low level.

Temp - I have 2 posts on the sensor. I used the same post that I removed it from on tear down but I don't get anything. I am going to move it to the other post tomorrow and see what happens.

Fenders are on, my son helped with the grille. Mounted headlights buckets today and my son and I put the hood on.

 

Core support - I am using a 73-79 core support. So far I have had to modify it in the following ways.

2 of the inner fender bolts on each side didn't line up. Reamed a new hole and used a bolt and washer. Their positions can be seen on previous posted pictures.

There are 4 inner/center grille supports. For the top 2, I just had to drill a hole for the bolt. The bottom ones almost lined up but not quite. The bottom supports also connect the inner fender to the core support. Even if I ream a new hole, it would be very close to that bolt. I flexed the lower portion of the grille and it didn't move much at all. I am going to leave these two disconnected.

I had to drill new holes for the ground wire for the headlights.

There are two hood latch bars. The one to the right (as you open the hood) lines up with a current hole. I just had to move the bolt clip and the secondary latch lines up fine. The one to to the left, I have to ream and shape a new hole to get a bolt clip in there. No measuring is required because there is a rectangle already contoured into the core support. Make the rectangle, slice the clip on, mark it, ream it and done.

It sounds like a lot of screwing around, but for $50 for a new core support with no rust was well worth the modifications.

 

Tackled the rear drums today. When I took the first one apart, I laid out the parts as I took them off and thought "Build it back up from bottom to top and it should go smoothly." The little adjuster cable kicked my butt. I couldn't get it on the pivot if I left it until near the end of the process. I couldn't keep it in shape long enough to get the adjuster bracket to stay in place as I tried to hook the bottom spring. I finally got it. Good gawd. The neighbor made a timely visit when I did the second one. I said, hold this while I pull the spring and that was that.

I need to start the fronts tomorrow since I popped a wheel cylinder on our test run the other night. Should they be the same other than the parking brake arm?

 

Went to replace the front shoes, hardware and adjusting hardware and found that my drums come off just like the rear drums did. I am glad that I didn't have to press the drums off.

On the rear there was a parking brake link bar. On the fronts, there was a connecting spring in the same location as the parking brake link bar that went in the same holes as the upper springs. My manual doesn't show this spring and we couldn't find it in a parts kit or as an individual part. We even looked a couple years newer, regular truck and heavy duty. Can't see the whole spring in the pictures. Since it's not in the manual or in the parts kit, how critical is it? What is it?

 

I know the spring you mean. The assist spring. These VEHICLES were buit with them, but at some point Ford decided they were not needed, and stopped servicing them. No one makes this spring. Ford never decided to stop using them, the aftermarket decided to stop making them. They are still made for the f100 and all 10" drum units still.
THIS IS JUST HERE SAY OKAY FROM THE NET

 

1ST,carefull. In 1968 there were 11 X 2 and 11 X 3.
There were also regular and self adjusting possibilities. Only the self adjusting got the shoe to shoe spring. Part number was C3AZ2035A.
Bayer Ford shows one......325-356-2777.
Mustangs Etc. shows two.......818-787-7634.
NOS Parts LTD. shows one......972-937-2201.
NOS Only shows two..............800-667-6659.

 

I have the 11 x 2 drums. I wonder what the other differences between regular and self adjusting are. Does regular mean like the rear?

On another note, I got my oil pressure gauge working. I remember you telling me that there were differences in wiring between the Gauge and Light instruments. I swapped out the sensor for one for the gauge and it now reads fine. I still have to figure out the Temp Gauge.




Made the modification for the hood latch. When I mounted it like the first picture, I realized why my hood was still open 4". DOH!!!!. A quick flip, greased everything in the latch and now it's like buttah.





I just like this shot. When we were preparing it to fire up, I did measure the stroke and it's at 3.75". There is also a little aluminum tag stating it's a 390.