Hi all,

As I mentioned in my rust repair thread I'm suffering from a bad case of project creep, which seems to happen to me all the time. It all started out when the heater core started leaking. I was able to source a brass and copper core from a local radiator shop but it wouldn't be in until Monday and this was on Friday, a dangerous situation for me, truck in the shop and I'm bored waiting for a part.

This truck is my plow truck, I maintain 2 miles of private road with 30 residents living on it, I used to do it on an atv but got tired of freezing my a** off every time it snowed. One thing I noticed is the wipers packed up really bad and I'd have to stop and clear them which meant getting out and getting cold again. I was searching for a solution and found some aftermarket add on electric window defrosters designed for plow trucks to keep their wipers from freezing up. I had them on the shelf as well as a set of heated mirrors so I have a weekend lets put them all in.....

The strip that goes vertical at the drivers side edge of the windshield was easy to install so it went on first. the strips come pre spaced on a backing paper so you just line it up and pull the paper out from under it while pressing the strips to the windshield.



Now the horizontal one in the wiper park area is a different story, the backing paper won't conform to the curve of the windshield so I had to cut the strips apart and down to where the paper backing was only 1/4" wide so the paper would be flexible enough to follow the contour. I laid out where I wanted them with a sharpie on the outside of the windshield and thought I would just follow the line from the inside. With the refraction of light when looking through glass at an angle I was way off on hitting my target and had trouble keeping it online so I devised a method where I could line it up better. a little clunky but it worked.





That allowed me to get the wiper park area on in a fairly even manner, there are still some bobbles but it's good enough for a work truck.

Then came the heated mirrors, the hardest part was running the wires inside, this truck had no wires to the door or any holes to run them through so some drilling and grommets was necessary, I also found some rectangular blind spot mirrors to add above the main mirrors.





I drilled the flange of the main mirror to mount the blind spot mirror to get it high enough to clear the main mirror and it needs a bracket made to clamp it to the top of the main mirror to stabilize it a bit so it doesn't shake to much, it's usable now but I'd like it better. With this setup I can see the car beside me in the mirror and out the window at the same time so it eliminated the blind spot altogether.

Running the wires for the mirrors is when I found out how bad the rust issue was. https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...st-repair.html

After adding all this new electrical stuff and all the extras the truck already had I needed to come up with a way to get 6 switches and all the control circuitry in a useable manner. The PO (FEDX) had just stuck switches under the dash anywhere they could for what they added. What I needed to switch was the roof top beacon, Rear "work lights" I use them for backup lights, switch from the standard headlights to the raised plow lights, Mirror heat, and 2 switches for the window defrosters. I finally decided that the empty space above the radio would be a good place for the switch panel. I folded up an aluminum panel and ends which I just JB welded together to make the box, I didn't take any pics of this process so all I have is the finished product, I painted it with Hammerite black.



The panel also is home to the 2 modules that run the windshield defrosters and 2 relays.



The 4 big blue panel lights are an experiment, they will be blacked out with just the emblem of what the switch is for showing in blue when the lights are on. I haven't finished that part of the project yet so no pics yet. I wanted to be able to find the switch I'm looking for in the dark bouncing truck.
This is what it looks like in the truck with the blue lenses missing. (they are in the process of being painted black)



There are 2 extra switches for future use in there as well. Everything runs through relays, I don't trust these china switches to be safe at their ratings, The beacon requires a flasher to run it and a relay plus switching between headlights requires a DPDT switch and the switches are SPST. I used 2 relays to simulate the DPDT switch, these and the relay for the beacon are mounted to the panel under the steering column.



And to power all this I ran 3 20 amp circuits in from the battery, the 2 window defrosters require 20 and 15 amps each both of wich I wanted switched with the ignition and the 3rd circuit is hot always. Here is where I added the circuit breakers and relays for the switched supplies.



Now you may have noticed that the dash in the previous section changed color half way through. that happened when I was putting the dash pad back in, it's pretty bad, speaker grill mostly missing and several other cracks as well. I thought I should do a quicky fix on it before it goes back in. I will most likely replace it in the future. but this just a work truck...

I cut out the raised areas around the cracks plus the rest of the speaker grill area and used bondo to fill the cracks (I know it will crack out but it looks better that it did) and sanded smooth. I also installed a $10.00 speaker grill over the hole. Then when it came time to paint it, I really don't like blue interiors....., the whole interior came out to get painted black an the few broke pieces were picked up from the local Men's mall.
and I threw a cheap cover on the seat, I'm planning on replacing it with a late model seat when i get the time to figure out the mounting. I haven't found a bolt it seat in any better condition than mine.
So here is the dash, seat and the new roll on bed liner floor.


already dusty.




Already dirty, I think I need to find some good floor mats.



Now I had the wonderful headliner, the PO had used a staple gun to keep the fabric off of your head but he didn't get the diamond tuck pattern right so it had to go. I was going to just scrape off the remnants of the foam and paint it black figuring no one looks up there anyway so I taped the corners together and rolled on a coat of exterior black latex house paint.



Darn thing didn't look to bad so I gave it another coat but the folds in the cardboard showed pretty bad so I ran a bead of painters caulk and spread it with my finger to fill the cracks.



After a couple days of drying I put another coat of paint on and it looked quite nice but the imperfections showed up. then it hit me, it needs some kind of texture to hide the imperfections so I went to the fabric store and bought a piece of black burlap, laid down a heavy coat of the latex, laid the burlap into the fresh paint then proceeded to put another heavy coat over the burlap. I ended up needing to put a stitch of upholstery thread in each of the four corners of the fold line to keep the burlap from lifting but it came out great, it looks fantastic. The pic doesn't do it justice but everyone that has seen it loves it and it's dirt cheap.



So that's where I stand trying to get the project to come to a close, I still need to work on the door panels, the tops are badly sun damaged, I have an idea for that. more on that later if it works.

that was 3 weeks of spare time, I think it was worth it.

Thanks for reading,
Brian

 

Now that is thinking "outside of the box"! Keep up the good work!

 

That is a pretty awesome idea for the headliner!

 

The tops of the door cards were deteriorated pretty bad so I gave them several coats of plastidip. it worked out OK there is a definate lip where I taped it off but it looks better than the ratty top that was there. I lucked out a few days ago, while at the Pick n pull a new truck showed up with a black interior and both door cards were there and in great shape so that's even better.

Here is the plastidip cards.

It would have looked better if I had taped it off under the trim.

I also got the indicator lights on the switch panel done.

Lights off.


Lights on.


from left to right, Roof beacon, Plow lights selects upper or stock lights, Work/back lights, and mirror heat.

I got new wipers and felts for the side windows, How do you attach the felts to the door cards with out a monster stapler like the factory used?

Brian

 

I tryed to glue mine but its not holding. I will probably pull them bavk out, drill holes through both the panel and felts and use bailing wire to attach them better.

 

I use pop rivets. works awesome. clamp with two pair of vise grips, then drill 3 holes, then pop rivet them

 

Pop rivets work well. Be gentle and you may need to use small washers to distribute the load.

 

Wow, some really great work! How did you paint the lenses with the graphics?

 

It's a combination of paint and a clear round inkjet label that I printed a negative image of the graphic on. first I put a blank label on and painted the lens black, then I took off the blank label leaving an exposed area the size of the label, then the printed label was put in place of the blank I just removed I didn't get a perfect fit so I hand painted around the edge of the label to seal it with black, I then sprayed on several coats of satin clear and wet sanded the face to get rid of the imperfections from the label and hand painted ring and re coated with the clear.

The biggest problem was printing the labels, 1 pass through the printer wasn't enough to block the light effectively so I had to make multiple passes through the printer to get it dark enough making sure the sheet was lined up the same every time. I think I made 5 passes through the printer to get it dark enough PITA.

The clear inkjet labels are available up to full sheets and this was an experiment to help with future full panel back lit instrument clusters I'm thinking of trying.

 

Wow. Very cool! You have a MUCH longer attention span than I do!!