82 f150, shortbed, stepside, 300 six, 4 speed, 4x4

Hey guys, thanks to all who have helped me out recently with wires, the transmission swap, etc etc, I got the truck running this morning! Sounds pretty decent too. It started up and ran ok for a minute then got real rough and died out. But I put some new gas and two bottles of heet into the tank and that seemed to do the trick! It blows out some smoke when you rev it up but I think its just the bottles of heet (one had fuel system cleaner) as it didn't smell like oil or coolant.

It still needs a bit of a tune up, floor pans, rockers, cab corners, the t-case shift lever hooked up, the transmission tunnel cover bolted back in and a Ujoint for the front drive shaft but it is on its way to completion! Ill post some updates as it progresses along.

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looks nice and sounds pretty good i would love to have a truck like this

 

Awesome gotta luv them 300s sounds good

 

Hey thanks! I was surprised at how good it sounded too. I haven't worked on it since the weekend, I'm either at work or it is raining! I can't win this week! I am taking a look at ordering floor pans, rockers and cab corners right now. Looks like Blue oval truck parts is the cheapest place to get everything from. It's total came out to be about 35 dollars less than lmc.

My one main concern with the truck is on the passenger side rear of the cab, not only is the cab corner gone but the metal going along the floor of the back of the truck. I don't have anything to bend or shape metal with and I haven't seen a replacement panel anywhere. I can go up to the junk yard and see what they have, I've had them cut sections of bodies out for me before and its gone well. I'm just wondering though, if I find a good enough truck there, if I should just have them cut everything out that I'd need to do everything on my truck if the m metal is good. All the replacement panels are a bit of money and I cant find the one that will give me the most trouble. Anyone have some recommendations? There's a few pics below!

 

Scoot the picture out a little more we cant really see what your looking at except rust. Not really sure where on the body it is.

 

If you look at the top picture, that is the inside corner of the cab. You can see someone has already replaced the "cab corner" with a patch piece you can buy(see the little rusty spot welds they made to mount it?). But as you can see, it only patches the outside, not the inside.

I have patched together two trucks like this already. It's not a good situation. There is not good way to patch the inside part of the cab that you are looking at. Both trucks I have done, I just layer fiberglass cloth in that area, since it's so irregular. This basically keeps stuff you put behind the seat from falling out in the road, but doesn't do much for strength. If you look to the right of the picture at the bottom of the floor, there is a hump in the floor. This a "U" shaped brace that runs from one side of the cab to the other, and has the cab mounts underneath it. It supports the whole rear of the cab, and as you can see, is rusted out on the ends.

I know it's a lot of work and trouble, but if you really want to feel good about this situation, you should find another cab. You can patch them like I did, and it works ok, but it's not the ideal situation. If you do get another cab, make double sure to seal the seam over top of the door on the cab roof(on the outside). The seam cracks and leaks water inside, and this is what does a lot of the damage you are looking at.

 

Maybe this is why the guy who I bought it from decided to sell it, tough spot to fix. Im gonna try and make it to the junk yard soon, see if i can find a good cab. The rest it shouldn't be bad to do, I don't really have the money, time or resources to do an entire cab swap. Thanks for the tip about the seam sealing, I will make sure that whatever I end up with is sealed up!

 

Here's a picture from the bottom of the truck, you can really see it good here: