It seems that the taillight mounting location my have been change by your P.O., here's mine.

 

You have stock lights, Julie has late-model shields that are about 3" taller (moving the plate down further)

Truck looks great, BTW

 

Ross look at the centerline of Julies bracket, it's basicly even with the hinge of the tailgate then take a look again at mine. Another thought is which way the bracket is mounted could account for the lower stance.

 

The blue dot ordinances were typically adopted in the 50s. The blue dots were a fad or badge of the hot rodder/street racer back then, much as the odd colored head and tailights favored by the "tuners" today, so it was used as an excuse to pull over those "hoodlums" and look for other illegal modifications, or just for harrassment. I'd be willing to bet that 90% of the non gearhead LEOs even know what a blue dot tailight even is or that they weren't stock on these old vehicles. Writing a citation for blue dots might be seen about the same as writing a citation to Julie for driving in a housecoat (California law prohibits a woman from driving a car while dressed in a housecoat).

 

Look again at my picture in post #5. Your brackets are mounted in the two upper hole Marty, mine in the two lower. And as Ross pointed out, with the bigger lights, the license plate bracket monts lower on mine by another inch or so. (beautiful truck BTW even with the Effie back bumper on it - shhhhh!) Plus, the brackets withthe shields bend down slightly and htose with the stock round light stick out straight - about another 1/2 inch difference. That makes a big diff too. Can you get a close up pic?

Holy Crap, I'm definately going to jail! No more late night trips up to the liquor store in the old robe!

It's illegal to drive without shoes on in California as well - like how's the cop supposed to know you don't have your shoes on?

 

I bought a boatload of "Ford Truck" books a while back, with lots and lots of pictures of original and restored trucks. Having the rear plate partially behind the bumper seems to be normal with the "shield" type tail lights. Odd, but true. It bugged me at first, but I figure if that's how they rolled off the line I'll leave it that way.

I kind of like the rear bumper brackets that pull the bumper up and in towards the body. But then the license plate is really completely obscured. A recent "Classic Trucks" issue showed a Blue Ford truck with the bumper pulled in like that, and they relocated the license plate to the center of the bumper. But to me that sort of changed the look of the truck in a not-so-good way.

Gustave

 

My truck has the bumper tucked up and in closer to the truck. I like the way it looks, but it makes the tag mounting a challenge. I'm still weighing the different options. I'm like you, I'd prefer the tag mounted underneath the left tail light, but I'm not sure I'll be able to pull it off with my bumper the way it is.
-DV

 

[quote=Julies Cool F1;8164738]Look again at my picture in post #5. Your brackets are mounted in the two upper hole Marty, mine in the two lower. And as Ross pointed out, with the bigger lights, the license plate bracket monts lower on mine by another inch or so. (beautiful truck BTW even with the Effie back bumper on it - shhhhh!) Plus, the brackets withthe shields bend down slightly and htose with the stock round light stick out straight - about another 1/2 inch difference. That makes a big diff too. Can you get a close up pic?

Can't get to the back of the truck to take a picture. I did note that the brackets are mounted under the hinge mount for the tailgate.

 

[quote=HD74;8165644]Interesting! Could be the straight armed ones or could be the slanted armed ones on upside down (sloping up ward). They aren't on upside down are they Marty? The "U" part attached to the light should have the opening down.

It could just be an optical thing too. To be honest I tried to get the plate at a point where it wasn't obscured, and have it not interrfere with the tail gate. I couldn't get it to work, so I'd be interested in seeing what you did!

 

I spent some more time looking at the rear bumper of my truck. It's either an after-market bumper or perhaps a bumper made for a later model truck. After looking at the way the brackets are bolted to the bumper and the frame, clearly who ever put them on there just wanted to "make it work". The brackets are being held on by one bolt on each side on the bumper, and one bolt on each on the frame.


It looks like that if I flip the tail light mounting brackets around so they point up, I'll only need to relocate the bumper down and out about an inch. Since I need to modify the bumper mounting brackets anyway to fix the hack-job, I might as well make room for the license plate underneath the tail light. I could get by with it as-is if I just mounted the license plate to the roll pan underneath the tail gate, but I really like the look of the plate underneath the tail light.

I'll post some better photos once I get the modifications made.

By the way, this is a photo of the truck the way I bought it. I'm in the process of taking it back to more of a stock look. I've already raised it an inch, and I'll be painting it Sheridan Blue and putting a set of Wheel Vintiques wheels on it (along with several drive-train and interior modifications).

-DV

 

Am I just smokin' bad dope tonight or what? Didn't you used to have an Effie bed on your truck to start with DV? Or am I thinking of someone else?

When I went through the back bumper experience, I found that only 53-56 brackets werer available but were supposed to be the same as the 48-52.

Also, the back bumpers being advertised as 48-56 are actually stock tothe 53-56 trucks, and the rolled back bumpers were supposedly the stock back bumpers for Bonus Built.

But another member did some research and brought up an interesting point - trucks were shipped from the factory without back bumpers so he said. I looked at every drawing in every catalogue I had and there was not a back bumper on a single one. Interesting point.

BTW in order to get the 53-56 bumper brackets to bolt up to my truck, I had to cut the lip off the bottom of the frame back about 6 inches to prevent the downward curve of the brackets to not hit the bottom pf th efram when bolted up!

The rolled back bumper that is thought to be the stock Bonus Built back bumper is pictured in post #5 but was not chome as mine is they were painted black.

 

I bought brackets (from LMC IIRC) about 5 yrs ago, they seem to fit up perfectly? I have just loosely installed them, not permanent.

 

Same person, different truck. I still have the first one, which is ironically the same color as my new truck. I'll probably sell the first one to someone who is more interested in making a street rod than putting it back original.

-DV

 

The brackets for my bumper are actually too wide to match up with my frame, which would make sense if they're intended for a 53-56. Whoever installed it cheated with the bolts to get it to bolt-up. I'm not happy with the way they did it. We'll probably just cut the brackets and weld-on some new steel to match-up with the F1 frame. Not a big deal in the overall scheme of things. Just one more thing on a long list of things to do.

-DV

 

[quote=Julies Cool F1;8166878]Checked mine today and the opening of the U is up JFYI and the brackets slant upward.