Since last August 2021, I have been restoring my 2004 F150, it's been some time slowly working on the restoration, and dealing with a slow recovery from heart and renal failure from five years ago. This all began from just wanting to replace cab corners, rockers, and clean up the frame and undercoat it with Blaster undercoating, and secure other areas with cosmoline.


Project start, descaling with an air scaler and air hammer. It's unbelievable the amount of rust and rock salt builds up in the frame and undercarriage. This truck is meticulously cleaned and washed every winter, but clearly, that wasn't enough. Really wish I did more with oil undercoating.








Aside from all the rust, road salt, brine that was eating away at the bed and the rest of the truck I've noticed the front frame plates beginning to swell up like Violet Beauregarde. I suppose I'll have to address this though I am not that confident to cut these off, however, I have designed a few replacements. Unsure what type I'll go with.












Carriage, removal of seats and carpet. The purpose for this is more room to move around and check the rest of the floor pan. Additionally, after all the bad metal is removed I'll scuff up the carriage, alcohol wipe, then coat with POR15. Perhaps I'll add a sound and heat barrier if time allows. The carpeting also needs a good cleaning at the local high-pressure car wash.
































I don't understand the amount of surface rust inside the cab dash supports. I find it ridiculous Ford made no attempt to zinc coat the supports and all the other bare metal supporting the dash, even under the seats.




Need to repair both fenders. I'll have to fab up some pieces and fill in the wheel arches.

 

With all the descaling look what I discovered.










Designed a wiring/loom track for what rotted out, had a local fab shop cut and bend them.


























Passenger floor pan. A new adventure. Looks ugly... turns into a flinstone drive.






















At this point I am debating if I ought to just purchase the sectioned floor pans online, they're 90 a piece. That's not economical with DIS income. I have plenty of sheetmetal. You'll see that brackets under the floor pan (carriage supports) need to be fabricated too. Body mounts for both passenger and drivers need to come out, and I'll just cut these marker marked areas with a plasma torch since I just bought a Herocut.

 

Driver's floor pan. I'm just starting to dig into it. This seems like a lot more work than the passenger.













Last but certainly not least the bed. Unsure if I'm going to attempt to restore it or look for another. This color scheme is VERY hard to find and paiting a bed will run me around $1500 at the local body shop. Back panel/front of bed corners inside are toast, and I haven't even had time to pull out the bed liner to see the rest of the corrosion. The bed does seem solid until steping up to the front corners. The bed needs to come off in order to weld in the cab corners.



















Will update as progress allows me to.

 

If you live in the salt belt it's very likely your truck is like this too. I hadn't realized the extent of the rust until I got under the truck and poked around, and poked some more and more. Wasn't like this three years ago. Body frame plates are toast so I designed a new plate though still in the process. The spacer between the cab plate and the floor pan is in good condition. All of this will receive a new coat of rust-stop paint and will be heavily coated with Blaster Surface shield after the restoration is completed. I've considered Cosmoline for the new fabricated parts. Fabricating with 18 ga













hopefully the paper will hold better than sheetmetal. paper doesn't rust.

 

desacled. rust cookies.










spacer is solid and no rust. cleaned the area and bathed it with rust-stop. new plates will be cut soon. two plates one for the bottom around the good spacer and the other will be welded over the top of the two. will be more rigid that OE design. again entire truck will be bathed in lanolin after everything is restored.