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Josh, thank you for the offer, I will keep that in mind! My little tow dolly seemed to handle it fine though. I got stuck in the soft yard when I went to retrieve the parts truck on Saturday and wound up having to call AAA to winch me out. That was pretty... humbling.
Decided to add an external transmission filter to the sport Trac to keep the transmission happy for a while. To drill the holes to mount it, I figured removing the bumper cover was turned easiest way to get to the reinforcement.
Ordered a new old stock rabs valve to hopefully cure my every so often rear brake sticking issue on the f250.
Did a little work Monday to the truck. Got the head back on, and the timing chain and back on. Got to order a few parts, I'm gonna put stud girdles on it to hopefully keep everything happy.
Dave, yes C6 tranny is what the previous owner said. I towed it probably 15 miles before it started acting up. I immediately dropped the driveshaft at that point but it was too late. I guess I'll have my buddy go through it for me. I didn't realize that they came with plywood, I would not have expected that in the 80's! I see the slats are in bad shape, most of them are rusted away near the front. Someone before me welded in some angle iron to support the floor near the cab but the sides look pretty bad (inner sides that is). I was thinking to repair it with diamond plate but now that I know it was originally plywood, I'm thinking about going back that way.
You can get all the cross braces, front & rear sills and the front panel. There is also a wood block kit that fit between the cross braces (up side down U channels) and frame so you don't have metal on metal making noise.
The metal strips that fit on top of the wood. You cant get 1 type and I think it is the ones for the plywood floors. There is also a way to tell if the truck came with boards or plywood by the number of metal strips but I cant remember what one have what number. So don't trash them metal strip running front to rear as they may be the ones you cant get.
On the bed side panels, you cant get them and if you find used ones they maybe just as bad as what you have.
Because they bolt to the wood and the wood stays wet the bolting lip rots away and now you have nothing to bolt the sides down with.
I was able to make patterns from what I had left of the lip to make cardboard patterns and used them on flat stock to make new lips and welded the lips to the side panels.
I may still have the card board patterns somewhere on the bench.
That panel that cardboard is on should also have a lip that fits under the bolt lip.
Because no one will see this from either side (fender covers most of the outside) I just made it flat and welded it to the bottom edge of the bolt lip.
Because the cross braces and sills were to much $$ I went with a metal ribbed floor from my parts truck and used what was left of the rear sill and the step braces.
Long bed ribbed metal floor trimming to fit
Front steps & braces
Rear sill panel
If I didn't have the bed liner on the floor I would have looked into doing a fake wood paint job and if it did not turn out good I could have just painted over it LOL
You may want to post over in the 80-86 area we have a lot of flare sides there, F.O.G (Flare side Owners Group) there, some know more on the wood bed than I do because I went metal.
Dave ----
Dave it looks like the previous repair attempt involved welding in angle iron to the front panel, and then welding the strips to that angle iron. The front cross brace, that the steps are secured to, is rusted away. I am not sure which way I'm going to go with the repairs, but definitely will not involve any wood. My goal is sturdy and functional without looking too jury rigged! Hopefully without having to remove the bed.
The bed bolts (6?) went thru the wood and think 3 of the cross braces so what is holding the bed to the frame now?
The hard part is getting the old bed off based on what you said of the welding, so you can see what you have to work with.
Going back together is not heard at all even using plywood. Cross braces go down, wood on the braces and the sides on the wood.
Using angle iron on the front panel & the side walls would be ok as a quick fix. I just don't see how you can get around the front or rear sills.
What is this parts truck you also picked up? Take it's a style side and if so long or short bed and what shape is the floor?
If a short bed the bed should bolt on and if the floor is good but the sides bad you can do as I did and trim the sides off and use the metal floor to bolt the flare sides to it.
May need to work out something for the step braces and the rear sill for the tail gate to fit but it was not that hard to do.
Four Oaks is not that far If you want some weekend to come by or I can bring my flare to you (be nice to get the truck out for a little drive) so you can take a closer look in day light I can do that.
When parts are missing and jerry rigged it can be hard to picture how it should be from the factory and how's the best way to fix what you have.
Dave ----
Josh, thank you for the offer, I will keep that in mind! My little tow dolly seemed to handle it fine though. I got stuck in the soft yard when I went to retrieve the parts truck on Saturday and wound up having to call AAA to winch me out. That was pretty... humbling.
John, you are just having all the fun aren't you.
Originally Posted by Sparky83
My Morning commute to work today didnt start out so well....
Ouch a sidewall blow out. That doesn't look good.
Originally Posted by Cracker289
Dave it looks like the previous repair attempt involved welding in angle iron to the front panel, and then welding the strips to that angle iron. The front cross brace, that the steps are secured to, is rusted away. I am not sure which way I'm going to go with the repairs, but definitely will not involve any wood. My goal is sturdy and functional without looking too jury rigged! Hopefully without having to remove the bed.
Perhaps a close inspection of replacing the bed floor with the steel ribbed from a fleet side... Might want to go examine Dave's truck closer one afternoon.
nope... and looking at the other 3 tires it looks like it was just a matter of time before one of them did... on every one of them i found the sidewall splitting right at the bottom of the treadline... im use to microcracks in the sidewalls especially with "soft" summer performance tires... but theres actually good sized splits up just below the treadline i didnt see before last time i cleaned the tires... dunno if its being caused by driving summer tires in the winter or just something that happens with soft performance tires... but i ordered some new rims and tires (along with lugnuts to match).. and figuring come summer maybe getting some "winter" tires for the old rims when moneys more plentiful... that way i can swap them out between the seasons...
Tires don't seem to last as long as they used to, Shawn. Guy at a tire place said it's because they don't use as much petroleum in them as they used to. And certain types of "tire shine" would help dry out the tires. Besides $$ there must be a reason it's being recommended to replace tires every 3-6 years. Regardless of miles on them.
Tires don't seem to last as long as they used to, Shawn. Guy at a tire place said it's because they don't use as much petroleum in them as they used to. And certain types of "tire shine" would help dry out the tires. Besides $$ there must be a reason it's being recommended to replace tires every 3-6 years. Regardless of miles on them.
even in the older days i always heard 7 years to change em... feels like just yesterday i had replaced the tires... this is the 3rd set ive had on this car since i bought it in 04... that includes the originals... which i hated the stock tires from the day i got the car... had to many close calls with accidents because they wouldnt hold the road... since putting performance tires on it i havent had the traction issues i had with them stockers... the current tires are the same as the ones i put on before when i got rid of the stockers... loved em but hate the cracking issue with them.. this time some Nitto NT555 G2's are going on... similar in tread design and known plenty of other stang owners that have run them and seem to love them...
Put the truck to a little bit of a test today. Towed my new boat over an hour to the lake and back of course. Uncle Jesse did awesome! My new sled. 2013 Hewes Redfisher 18.
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