The gray and black ones in the "before" picture are actually the ones it came with from the factory. I do have the the older ones in black and silver though w/ the older shaft style radio hole cut outs. This wood grain pattern was discontinued I believe when Ford started using the other wood grain pattern in 85 and 86, plus they no longer painted silver accents on the 85-86.

The truck does not have AC, so actually I am looking for this same woodgrain pattern w/o the ac vents. I have so many of these, but most of them are for trucks w/ ac. This one howeverm has the hard to find, rare possibly, FOG LIGHT switch. I mounted the factory fog lamp switch in the dash (the hole is already there for it), so it lines up the switch lever w/ the Fog lamp overlay on the bezel. This is the only one I have come across in some time.

 

They looked like the same ones that come with the XLS model.


As for fog lamps, yes that is a extremely rare option. I've only ran across one in the wrecking yards and the fog lamps assymbly on the front bumper themselves were toast otherwise I would have grabbed it.

The only other option that is more rare than the Factory Fog Lamps, I believe, is the Electric Mirrors and switches. I have yet to see this option at all except in factory literature.

 

Likeswise, as well as the rear window defogger on non-sliding rear windows. I was interested in seeing what the buttons look like and where they mount on the door panel. The wiring harness is already wired for them, like almost all the otehr options. That's what I love about these trucks - it is relatively easy to add options. I have a complete power windows and locks set up for my 85. All the harnesses, motors, actuators, switches. I'll post a step by step photo when I do that this spring.

As far as the actual factory fog light that where on the bumper, where they mounted on top or below the front bumper? Also, where they just the fog light or where they enclosed in some sorted of housing?

Thanks

 

The electric mirror switches mounted to the door panel just below the arm rest in the same area as the power door lock switches. The literature I have shows the switches mounted above the power lock switches, BUT, it is a drawing and not an actual "Live" picture. Ford artists were not always pinpoint accurate I've found.


The Fog lamps were mounted below the bumper. Just to the inside of the frame and bumper bolts. On my bumper there are mounting holes for the housings and lamps.

You can see what they look like installed on the blue and white Styleside truck with the freewheeling package here.

http://www.fedrelandsvennen.no/amcar...p/bilder/6.jpg

 

Thanks for the info and link!

 

Another FTE member asked me about the diff steering wheel versions. Here is a good pic of Thicker vs Thinner steering wheel:

 

Yep, Ford calls the thicker one Soft Grip, or Soft wrap. according to the brochures.

 

Going to have my seat reupholstred this Monday. I'll get back then.

 

I'm not that hard to find NavyMIDN, just follow the trail of smoke! Got your and Cfdrives' PM, and if you guys don't mind I'll reply here.

Here is the link to the latest attempt at a homemade, fiberglass dash:
http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350-dash.html



Unfortunately, I didn't get to finish it. My crewcab is my daily driver, so whatever isn't finished gets driven that way until I can get back to it. Unfortunately, that ended up being about two months, and in that time I acquired several large cracks inside, due to my not finishing the end supports that tie the dash to the original factory bolt holes on the door pillars. I didn't expect to leave the dash unsupported for a couple of months but I did so I paid for it. So right now enough of the factory dash is back in to support the original cluster, and give me a place to put the lame radio. Once it's warm (i.e. late spring) I'll try to revisit this.

What I'm probably going to do, dispite the time and cost involved, is make a new dash out of foam or honeycomb, then fiberglass over that much the way F1 tubs and airplane parts are made, and get a shape I actually like. The goal behind the homemade dash was just to fill a need - have a place to install a digital cluster, as well as a 13" 1024x768 XVGA touchscreen for the Pentium 4, 3.2ghz PC guts that went with it. This combination of electonics would give me DVD and media playback for passengers, GPS-based directions and road maps, Wifi (11B/G), and sprint PCS data (secondary internet) for downloading maps. The PC also acted as a firewall/router thus the 8-port ethernet switch under the dash gave full internet access to anyone in my truck with a laptop. I also cobbled together a simple OBD-II reader/writer for EEC bin sucking and sending, and added a linux program called "wine" which simulations various Microsoft Windows so I could have Paul Booth's EECEDITOR program running on this as well, for in-vehicle tuning. This was in preperation for the installation of an EEC-V and a 500cid TT stroker which I also didn't finish.

The electronics - cluster, PC, touchscreen, network - worked flawlessly and was based on Linux, Fedora Core 4 if anyone finds that detail interesting.

Before I made the fiberglass dash (well, five or six of 'em) I made an "adapter" to convert the guts of a digital t-bird cluster to run "fine" in place of my F350's analog cluster.

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350-cluster.html



I also did some other interior "upgrades" though not as grand in execution. My bench seat was very worn in the driver's area from my butt sitting on it for 13 years and about 400k miles, so at a PA junkyard's annual "dollar day" I picked up a pair of incredibly clean dark red minivan bucket seats and tracks and fabricated "monkey grade" mounts for them. They are very comfortable I have to say. So minivans are useful for something after all!

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350-seats.html



And I also installed a dark red, tilt-wheel town car steering column and wheel:



At this point the large "hole" in the steering wheel has been replaced by the air beg's "shell". I drilled out the rivets of the air bag assembly, to carefully seperate the rubbery cover from the metal guts inside, then drill off the air bag ignitor and inflator, then reassemble the back frame and the rubbery cover and reinstall onto the steering wheel so it looks nice. Then I inflated the airbag on the front lawn so I could toss it in the trash and not potentially injur the garbage men. Poof! That was fun.

The other interior mod I did was to install a roof console. One of the things that "stinks" about crewcabs is the factory light in the center of the roof is the identical unit to the ones Ford installs in regular cabs. So the amount of light you get when you open the door is minimal, and we all know the plastic light covers yellow and crack as they age. So again, leeching parts from a minivan, I rewired an overhead console and slapped it into my crewcab to give four map lights, a plethora of switches to control things (bumper lights, roof marker lights, trailer brake control power and the behind-bumper air compressor). It also has a digital compass as well as a temperature gauge, so with the simple wiring of a DPDT switch and two sensors, one outside and one inside the console itself, I can view outside and inside temperature. The outside one unfortunately worked loose and got sucked into the fan and I haven't gotten around to fixing that yet and there's so much other stuff to do but I'll get to it eventually.

http://frederic.midimonkey.com/f350-overhead.html

 

Wow. Again, you are very talented. I would never attempt something like that. However, you have inspired me to try to build my own center console for my bronco. I actually have already built buckets and a center console onto a homemade slider assembly for my 83. It worked out great, but the Trans Am seats are wore out and they hurt my rear. For the time being, I put a factory bench back in, now I am just watching for some decent tan buckets. Anyway, very nice work and please post again when you finish.

 

A center console isn't too bad to make, using many different materials.

You could use wood and route/bevel the edges with a rounding bit for nice smooth edges... stain or paint to match or contrast if you prefer...

or fiberglass over a large styrofoam block that you shape into what you want your console to look like... or fiberglass over "handyboard" which is very stiff, and very cheap wood-like material which holds glue fairly well, at least well enough to hold together so you can f'glass over it.

A friend of mine made a custom console for his chevy crewcab out of plywood, but in the area between the front seats he included an igloo cooler, then fiberglassed over the entire thing, then skimmed with bondo then painted to match his black interior. It came out quite nice and the lid of the igloo has four cup holders, two at each end, so that solved his cupholder problem.

There's a lot of ways of making such things... you can also do the "rib" method which I used to make the last dashboard in the above links. Essentially it's a piece of thick but cheap wood (plywood), with ribs glued to it upright, then stretch tightly a cotton based fabric over the ribs and glue or stable to the plywood underneath, then soak in resin, lay your fiberglass on top of that, then cut holes for cups and lids and hatches, drill for switches if any, then skim with body filler and sand for the rest of your life until you're ready to prime/paint.

The next dash which I hope to make this spring, will be integrated with the center console. Actually it will be three pieces, but screw together where you can't see it so it looks like once piece. This way I can get it through the doors and into the cab. Also changing the electronics quite a bit. Going to use the towncar bits and got myself a much brighter, 15" LCD touchscreen for the center, except this one I can dim much easier. The first one, while very rugged, isn't dimmable unless you push buttons on the back. This one uses an ordinary variable resistor which I can relocate so it's easier to adjust for nght time driving. I might be able to make it automatic too, with two ***** that are switched between depending if the headlights are on or off.

Oh well, just random ideas for ya.

 

I got my F-100 back today with the seat re-upholstered. I think it looks pretty good. I wanted to stick to the stock theme as much as possible. I like things plain and simple. I guess you could call me a "simpleton".


I also replaced/changed the following interior parts:

Dash cover.
BOTH door panels.
Insulation pad.
Black rubber floor pad.
Door weatherstripping.
Felt window liners.
Took out the radio(nonfunctioning) put in delete plate.
New cigar lighter element. HEY, GOTTA CHARGE THE CELL PHONE...right?

I can't post attachments so check out the pics in my gallery

 

Looking good man, looking good!

 

Here's mine, check my galleries for more pictures:





and heres the really pretty one :

 

I have a 85 Extended Cab F150, I want to try and put suicide seats facing each other in the back of the truck. I was wondering if anyone had tried this or has any ideas as to how to do it. Also, I am looking for the best place to mount a CB. Dont want to put it up on the dash. So if anyone has any ideas I would love to hear them. Thanks.