1980 F150 4x4 Flareside Project

You sure have done a lot in what seems, to me anyway, a short period of time.  But I know that when you are in the thick of the battle it seems to go on forever.

Maybe it is time for a break.  Has seemed to help me from time to time.  

That's a whole lot of things done.
Progress is good!  

Are you thinking of planks, or going with plywood like the later trucks?

I hope you keep it around long enough to give us some insight as to how well that YF clone carburetor drives.

Crusty has kept you out of Mrs Rembrandt's hair at least.
Hopefully you two will get to do some travel in the motorhome this year.
Not sure how the vaccine roll out is going in Canada.

I'm looking forward to being free to travel when the second shot kicks in .

ArdWrknTrk wrote

That's a whole lot of things done.
Progress is good!  

Are you thinking of planks, or going with plywood like the later trucks?

I hope you keep it around long enough to give us some insight as to how well that YF clone carburetor drives.

Crusty has kept you out of Mrs Rembrandt's hair at least.
Hopefully you two will get to do some travel in the motorhome this year.
Not sure how the vaccine roll out is going in Canada.

I'm looking forward to being free to travel when the second shot kicks in .

Jim,

Going with planks, I guess. Red Oak seems to be the cheapest hardwood option. Not sure about down your way, but regular lumber prices are insane here right now. A regular 2x4x8 is something like $10 right now. We have a specialty hardwood shop down the road that will sell me the required amount of red oak for about $325, which isn't so bad. I will still have to cut the strip grooves in it, but that's fine...either a table saw or a router table will do the trick.

The motorhome is gone...sold it late in the fall. Mrs Rembrant wanted to trade it for some back yard landscaping and a badly needed replacement deck. We actually did OK on the old thing...paid $13k for it, but sold it for $18k. Now, we probably spent a little more than the $5k difference fixing it up and renovating it, but it was a very welcome distraction during the early Covid days. Like everything else, we had more fun renovating it than we did actually using it. The other issue...gas prices have doubled here since this time last year when we bought the RV...lol. $5/gallon and more is a hard pill to swallow when you get 8mpg going downhill...lol. Still, the Mrs just said this morning that she wants another one, just not yet. Once we get the backyard work done, and all of the borders and lockdowns open up, I think it will become more enticing again. Still, god bless her little heart, she said she'd rather see me build a detached garage before we spent the money on an RV again.

The vaccines are rolling out. Several of my coworkers (over 55) got their first shots late last week. Here in Nova Scotia specifically, we have basically been Covid free for a long time. There are always a half a dozen cases or less province wide, but even in the peak of things last spring I think we still only hit a few hundred cases total. Everybody is behaving fairly well, and we had our own lockdowns that did seem to work, so all is good so far. Even my parents at 70 and 72 aren't too concerned about it...they said they'll get vaccinated, but they're waiting until after the rush when they don't have to wait in any line-ups, etc. Both of them detest crowds, so it's worth it to them to wait (he still makes it to the pub every day...lol, so he's doing fine).

I was supposed to move the truck home this weekend...finally moving out of my work shop, but it wouldn't fit on the trailer. I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and flat deck it today. I'm making a new list today of things to do and will tear back into it next weekend. A little bit each week, and maybe it will be on the road in May.

I have another itch I need to scratch besides a Bullnose: Being thoroughly stuck in the 80's, I have been lusting after a Jeep CJ-7 for 30+ years now. It's one of those things I've always wanted and need to scratch it off my bucket list. So I'm kind of on the hunt for one of those...preferrably and 80's model with the 258 inline 6 and 5spd. I've also been lusting after a four-eyed 5.0 fox Mustang, but not nearly as much...I love them, but I have a feeling that once I got one I would get bored with it quickly. Still, it's another itch that might have to get scratched someday...and I'm always planning ahead for winter projects to keep me busy.

See if the wood shop can get you White Oak.
Because of the cell structure (tyloses) it doesn't act like a wick -and why it is used for barrel staves.
It is much more resistant to water, cupping and rot while not costing premium for flatsawn boards.
If you choose rift and quartered you get that wild ray figure. But that may not be to your liking and definitely costs more in wider widths.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

See if the wood shop can get you White Oak.
Because of the cell structure (tyloses) it doesn't act like a wick -and why it is used for barrel staves.
It is much more resistant to water, cupping and rot while not costing premium for flatsawn boards.
If you choose rift and quartered you get that wild ray figure. But that may not be to your liking and definitely costs more in wider widths.

White oak is double the price, so I was going to pass on that since I don't plan to keep the truck anyway. I would even go with a softwood if it was cheap enough, but it's not looking so good.

Really?
There's that much difference up there????

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Really?
There's that much difference up there????

Yes sir, I believe both Ash and White Oak were almost double the price. I'll check again today but that is what they told me a few weeks ago.

Ash is absolutely no good outdoors.
Rapidly spiking in price due to emerald ash borer.
It will be extinct in it's native range within a decade.

But a lot of premptive cutting on woodlots has lead to low prices, because it was better to harvest healthy trees than watch rotting ones fall down.

Finally back to working on the old 80 Flareside again! I had a friend up the road mill the grooves in my new oak boards, and just got them test fitted into the truck yesterday.




After that I installed my newly fabricated crossmembers (3x) that I made with 2x1"x 1/8" channel...I little heavier than the original stuff, but closest fit I could find.

Today's project is to get the 8 bed mounting holes cut, and the washers counter sunk a bit (Forstner bit). This is a real pain, because you have to get the bed all centered and squared away, and then come up from the bottom to mark the holes...through the frame, and then through the wood blocks which are 2.5" thick...and I'm using homemade wood blocks, so there's no holes in them currently. Anyway...it will be a day of getting in and out from under the truck about 500 times...lol.

I might try using a piece of 1/2" copper pipe to put up through the frame and wood blocks to score the bottoms of the oak boards.

Your bed floor looks beautiful Cory!  😍

1/2" pipe is sized nominal ID so 5/8.
Tubing is sized OD.

(Gary is in the same predicament)
I have transfer punches, but I don't think they are the 8' long that Gary needs for his tool box.
But just a dab of grease on the end of one of your bolts should leave you a mark.

Drill through something tiny (like 1/16") so you can center up the pip on the front of a forstner bit and make the washer recess..

Yes, the bed looks wonderful!  Well done!  

And yes, I was in the same predicament.  And my transfer punches are only 4" long, which leaves them way too short to go through the bed and supports to reach the box.  Janey's solution was to put the bolts in place, heavily coat the ends with fingernail polish, and then push them up against the bottom of the box.  It worked very well.

As for getting in and out of the truck 500 times, yep.  I was worn out last night.  Not sure which would be the hardest - getting in and out of the bed and rolling under an F150 or getting in and out of the bed of a tall F300 (F250 on steroids) that is on a lift.  For the most part I lifted the truck up to get under it so was standing up.  But there were plenty of times I crawled under.  And getting in the bed got to be a real challenge towards the end of the day as I don't let the lift come all the way down or the truck tends to walk sideways a bit each time, so I'm stepping on the step bar or rear wheel to get it and it is still a chore from there.  Plus, I wonder if the fact that I'll turn 74 in just over a month had anything to do with it?  

Good day gents! Happy Saturday or for Gary happy 6th Saturday! I’m hoping to install the new bed wood floor tomorrow so I’m trying to get a bunch of jobs completed today that are much easier with no bed floor in the way ha!
So this truck...which kinda came in pieces if you remember, had no tail lights and what was left of the rear harness was trash. So I made a new harness today with Belden cable and installed a junction box on the rearmost crossmember. So input is from the cab, and three outputs to the 2 rear tail lights and the plate light.

I know it looks a little messy, but I’m going to make a diagram to throw in the file folder (and glovebox) for the next guy.







That’s a new plate bracket from Reamer and a NOS lamp assembly from EBay. I found a new Grote bulb socket and pigtail at a local truck shop this morning.

Interesting...this ‘80 had no ground wire at all to the rear end. My ‘84 has a ground wire to the rear end, but only to the plate light. I think in 85 or 86 they added ground wires for the tail lights. (I used stainless M6 screws to mount my junction box, but they are threaded into the frame so they double as ground lugs...one in the box and one out of the box in case I get ambitious enough to run a dedicated ground wire from up front). Anyway, another step towards being a functional truck...lol

I like it, Cory!  Should last a good long time, and be easy to work on should you ever have to - which I doubt.  

And the license plate and light looks great.

As for the ground, the '81 EVTM shows that they used the frame as ground for the lights.  You didn't have that?

Looking good there Cory.

My 81 did not have a ground wire from the front to the rear either.
The plate light socket (pig tail) you can get at any parts store as it is a GM 1/4 turn type deal.
The pig tail has 2 wires so 1 I have power going in using a connector to remove it from the main harness and the other wire a loop to ground.

IIRC the tail lights ground through the brackets to the bed sides.
Remember I have a metal ribbed floor and I have a frame ground in the engine bay.

BTW even the 81 style side did not have a ground wire to the front, it was done at the tail lights screwed to the bed in the light area.
Dave ----

I'm pretty sure it was the '87 model year change when Ford added a lot of ground 'home runs' to the harness. (this would be late '86 production)

The truck is looking great, Cory!  

Dave,
My ‘84 Flareside has a ground in the rear harness but it is only tied to the licence plate lamp, nothing else. The taillights were grounded only to the bed, through the mounting brackets.

Do any of you know what this wire might have been for on the 1980? It enters the firewall through a large rubber grommet just below the mounting studs for the park brake bracket/assembly. It is light blue and goes up behind the fuse box. There is a plug just outside the firewall and the wire is then green (I think). It has the fabric sheathing on it like the wire for the temp sensor and oil pressure sensor. It did have a single push on plug on the end of it down under the cab. Anybody know what it is for off hand?

I know the 4wd indicator is a single light blue wire with a connector (417) before it reaches the transfer case.

While I know nothing about an early (1980) harness, the wire colour is going to identify it's intended purpose.

Jim's nailed it - that's the 4wd wire.

Great work on the wiring
We have trailer junction boxes on the rear cross members of our flatbed trucks since the wiring always ends up hacked up on those. If you ever wire in a 7way, you have just made life a lot easier for you.

Awesome, thanks guys. That explains why I don’t have it on my ‘84, and why it wasn’t connected to anything on this truck (there was no trans or t case in it when I bought it). So how did it work then? It just went to ground when 4x4 was engaged? I’ll have to check behind the instrument cluster for wiring as the truck has no 4x4 indicator light...just a black blank where the light would be.

The BW1356 trans case in the truck now I assume has a two wire 4x4 switch?
I’ll have to investigate this further to see if this truck will ever have a 4x4 light...it may not lol.

Yes, it is grounded in 4wd, and I believe the 1356 is the same.