In my line of work i can spend as much as 12 hours a day in my truck. I was wondering if anyone would like to share some of their interior MODS / photos.
Any thing I can do to improve will help.
98 F150 XLT 4X4 3-door 5.4

 

For one check out my sig, but some of the stuff not in there are scan gauge 2 white face gauges, sirius radio, husky floor mats the ones that are molded, I pod, tinted windows as dark as i legaly can get, if my internet worked better i would share some pics but there are a few on my gallery

 

sirius is deff a must if u spend that much time in ur truck

 

yah sirius radio.. my dad travels alot. not as much as you but he has 200k on a 3 year old car. we bought him the radio and since then i havn't seen him listen to the stock radio.

 

hate sirius.... i got an 80 gig zune.... holds a crapton of music and i can listen to what i want when i want.

 

I have a Sirius, and also would highly recommend it. For really busy people, constantly searching the internet to find enough good tunes to keep an i-pod interesting would be maddening. At least Sirius just keeps changing songs for ya, and it's nice in that you're going to hear songs you would have never known to even look for, let alone download.

The seats: Either re-padding them with new Ford foam, or changing them out (depending on the job, I could not see myself spending that much time on the Ford bench-seat that I have). Lumbar support goes a long way, but the Ford seats lose it after the padding gets pushed in enough.

The steering wheel: most steering wheel covers are absolute crap these days. Like the ones from Wal-Mart - a little foam in them, but when gripped they easily just smash down to basically the steering wheel itself. An actual (real) leather wrap (of which I cannot find locally, maybe they still sell them online or something) would keep its thickness. The extra girth really does make the hands more comfortable over the long haul (and I only have medium-sized hands). So much so that when I found the 'new' steering wheel covers were crap, I tightly wrapped key areas of my steering wheel with either 2-mil or 3-mil cord.

The gas pedal: I haven't done it to this truck yet, but in the past an add-on cover to the gas pedal (something aggressive, but more importantly wide) made the stress on the lower leg reduced. After putting one on three of my past vehicles I found why the bigger tractor-trailers have full-foot width gas pedals. They really are so much more comfortable to use when you're doing highway driving and don't have cruise control (my truck does not have cruise). I have bought ones like Truck Accessories | Pickup Truck Accessories & Truck Performance Parts | Truckmod.com, and they have the aggressive cut-metal buttons that give your feet traction, whereas these: Steeda 4pc Pedal Covers w/Curved Gas Pedal (manual shift) might look cooler and cost more, but I sure wouldn't trust them with muddy or oil-coated soles. I want wide AND traction-y. The APC-types used to come with three color plastic inserts - the blue ones, like those that are pictured, as well as black and red (I always used the black).

A small convex mirror on your driver's side exterior mirror: I placed mine on the lower door-side of that mirror, it just seemed to make more sense than putting it all the way to the left, which would put it exactly IN the area that I want to use the regular mirror for. What I found is that after a while my sub-conscious mind was actually using my peripheral vision and this little convex mirror. I wasn't directly checking it, but was 'seeing' it and knowing what was around me without directly looking in it. I know it keeps me a lot safer for passing and such, but I also know that I never look directly in that little mirror anymore.

Seat belt pads: Once you use good ones, they won't seem **** anymore. The ones I liked the most - for comfort - were the fleece ones. Of the people I have bought them as gifts for, they won't go back to not having them either. There are fleece ones on this page,Seat Belt Pads , as well as other types. I would not go for the neoprene ones, as the goal is to get the most comfort. The fuzzy ones aren't my style, but they may be pretty comfortable.

 

thanks for the info please keep it coming. I have changed the seats for leather ones out of a lariat but plan on having these redone with more padding. Tints and a XM radio already along with a jensen dvd / cd 7 inch. I would really like to do somthing creative with the back seat area. It is small on the three door but has promise. I'm thinking of maybe an aftermarket bucket and some storage for ?????
Thanks
Dan

 

Regarding tints - we can pretty much get 'illegal' tint over all of our vehicles down here in Florida (even on the windshield!). The tint guys will normally put on whatever you pay for because they aren't the ones who will get the ticket if you're pulled over - but I don't think anyone gets pulled over for dark tints anyways.

What I did was to go for high-quality tint material (there are quality levels), but I did go for lighter tint on the driver's and passenger's windows... NOT because it was legal (the tint may still be illegal???), but because I use my side-mirrors so much, and because my truck is so long that I have to back into spaces. If I had the darker tint I have on the rear windows on the door windows, I'd never be able to back into spaces at night. As it is, even with my slightly lighter tint door windows, I still need to wire an accessory light to the back bumper to be really able to see what it is I am backing into. That, or roll down my window (which becomes a pain).

The truck doesn't look all that 'off' or unbalanced with two tints, but I wouldn't care if it did - the point is my comfort and my safety. Super black windows on my doors would severely limit my ability to use my door mirrors in dark driving or backing-up situations.

 

yah if you do the two different shades it doesnt look bad at all.. i did the same on my old cherokee cuz like he said its easier to see what you need to see.

heres the only pic i can get



it doesnt look bad at all and i like them cuz its more privacy..

 

I bought a nice ford leather steering wheel cover from Advance. Something else that might help is a "Suicide" ****, especially if you do alot of driving in town.
Tint helps alot, it is much more pleasant to drive with tint.

 

A spot on my self-done cord wrap does sit just a little high, and it did get me contemplating the suicide **** thing. Sometimes I use the spot to rotate the wheel with the palm of my hand. There must be something to the *****.

Heck, if we're going there - an adjustable air-ride seat like a tractor trailer would be awesome, but I don't think those seats can be fit into the cabs of pickup trucks, can they?

Edit: maybe they do make 'em for pickups?Pickup Truck Seats for Ford, Chevy.

Edit: Whoah... these fit factory seats ??? - Air Suspensions for Pickups & Medium Duty Trucks

 

OK
tomorrow and Monday I am going to pull the carpet up (it is new), and head liner and put in some sound material. I will hopefully instal an overhead console with temp and compass at the same time. I will over the next few weeks paint the dash and door panels a brown to match the tan seats. I was thinking about two-tone on the dash so if anyone has ideas or photos of their dash colors please let me know.
Thanks
Dan

 

Use krylon paints for your interior....I painted my dash/door bezels black along with my pillars to match my gauge pod. Looks real good with my grey cloth seats and console. I also mounted a scangauge II into my stereo bezel and turfed my old ipod mount and wired into my console so it is nice and clean looking.