How is everybody, What are your truck plans for the new year

Hi everybody, I haven't been my usual rambling self lately. I work in a supermarket and the holiday season is nothing short of H E Double Hockey Sticks for me. Just want to say hi and see how everybody is doing and what everybody's truck plans are for the new year.. I'm going to use my end of year bonus to get Brutus either a behind the seat shelf organizer, or a tool box for the bed and some new carpet. I got Brutu's front tag in. Got it from pictureitonthis.com. When i was getting ready to throw the envelope away, i felt something in it, they also sent me my tag on a small refrigerator magnet. Pretty cool. It's finally cold here in Louisiana and getting ready to put up the Christmas decorations and have been working on Holiday music on my favorite instrument, the Hammond B3 Organ

Morning, George & Nick!

As said, I like that tag!  And, I liked the music.  Put me in the spirit!

I can only imagine what working in a supermarket would be like these days.  Wow, that has to be busy!

And my plans for Big Blue are to work on him and then drive him.  Work on him and then drive him.  We had so much fun last Tuesday on our outing that we are planning another, soon.  So I plan my work to have him ready to go, although right now most of the work is done off the truck and then installed.

But our trips are the "very cautious" types.  We take our lunch and don't go in any place.  If we stop for gas I then use hand sanitizer to ensure I don't bring germs from the pump's handle.

Glad you started this thread as I'm curious what others are doing as well.

Gary, it's kind of the same with us, work on the truck, drive it, work on it, drive it.  depending on whats going on with the covid, we may be going to a gathering with the F150 mafia , louisiana chaptor next month.

Good morning all have the 83 f100 apart new paint, grill, front fenders,and dash pad winter project at a farmer friends we buy hay from trailer loads that is, oh and original door mirrors

Hey, nice thread for the new year! Looking forward to saying goodbye to 2020.

Worked 11 years for Albertson's and am very familiar with life in the grocery business. It was harder back in the day, as there was no UPC code scanning, everything had to be marked. They didn't supply us with those powered pallet jacks either, everything was manual. No union, so if you were salary, you worked lots of hours. I'd leave sometimes after midnight and have to be back in at 4 am. Most of my weeks were 60 plus hours a week. During the holidays and inventory, I'd work 70-80 hours/wk. I don't look fondly on those days gone by and glad I got out of it. To this day, I can hardly walk into a grocery store. I hope it's better for you, my friend.

As to the truck, pulling the factory rubber flooring and installing carpet, new floor mats, seat console, fixing the fuel gauges, having the spray in bed liner touched up, and putting new tint on the windows. That will probably do it for awhile.  

Work, drive, work, drive.

My list is something like this
Brakes.
Steering
Transmission?
Front end rebuild much further down the road

Hopefully by the spring my wife and I will have bought a property out here and I will be using the truck to haul lumber, concrete, drywall.
Right now Im sweeping chimneys and installing woodstoves so we work 9 and 10 hour days and hopefully get a slow down after the new year, but people are at home a lot these days and they seem to like making fires.
As always, I appreciate this forum and everyones efforts to make it and keep it a friendly community. I wont get on my soap box but I think we all know how rare that is these days.

Maybe at some point next year I'll at least get the engine dropped off at the machine shop. I don't really want to start putting new parts on the truck elsewhere until the engine is done because I don't want the new parts to sit exposed to the elements while I'm waiting on the engine.

I want to replace my seat with one like the one in Nick's 1986 1/2 F150 and later on get a seat cover like he's got.

This next year, I hope to go through and restore the interior of the truck. I’ve got some holes in the floor that need fixed, air conditioning to get functioning, new carpet and sound deadening, behind the seat storage, get a new seat, get the radio functioning again, fix some leaks, and just a good deep clean in all the nooks and crannies. It’s a lot but thankfully I have most of what I need, just gotta find the time.

And of course fixing anything that breaks in the meantime

By the way, George and Nick, I like y’all’s truck! It looks good!

Only plan I have is to hopefully get my engine build finish this year.  Would have been this year but the virus had other plans.  Could try and do more this year if the IRS would get with the program and get my refund sent out but nope they started an audit when i filed in Feb then they shut down they sent me another letter saying 6 to 8 months in july when they opened back up and here it is December and still no refund.  I hope they are adding daily interest to my refund since it is long past when I should have got it.

I am with you on the cold weather here in Louisiana. Live just out of Baton Rouge. Love this cold weather. Need to finish up the 9 inch diff install. Plans are to pull the 5.0 and install 351W roller motor.

On the Bronco:

rebuild the carb

replace power steering pump (Saginaw???)

build and install driver's side rocker to match the passenger's side I did last year

'wheel it!  I didn't get enough trip time in it this past year.  Hopefully we can fit in at least one, maybe two or three bigger trips this year (my company wants me to burn up some of my saved vacation time...)

getting into pipe dream territory here rather than plans, but I'd like to find a high pinion front axle, and maybe next winter install that

On the pickup:

start trying to replace it ,  I'm getting too much rust, so I'm thinking I should start looking for another '90s crew cab 4WD

otherwise, as little as possible to keep it going reliably

On the motorhome:

Use it!  We made a few trips in it this past year, but hopefully we can do more this year.  Going along with 'wheeling the Bronco more!

86 1/2 Brutus wrote

I got Brutu's front tag in.  Got it from pictureitonthis.com.  

Funny you mention front tags! I just scored one of these old Ford Trucks plates online a couple days ago and it is currently in the mail and on the way. It's not perfect, but I'll clean it up and it will look right at home on the front of my truck. I like my plain front bumper but have been wanting something to break it up a bit, ya know? I've been looking for this exact plate for about 3 years now.



The funny thing is, it showed up in an incorrect online ad on the other end of the country. The guy had a grill listed for sale as fitting 1980-1986 Ford trucks and Broncos, and he was throwing in this vintage plate with the grill if you bought it. However, the grill was not for a truck at all, but for an Econoline. Anyway, I inquired about the plate and made an offer for it. Should be here next week.

As for 2021 Bullnose "stuff" plans??....

For my 1984 Flareside, the winter to-do list is something like this:

Install front swaybar and replace radius arms while I'm doing it.
Finish painting interior plastics (Have correct paint now from Vinyl-Pro)
Fix small spot on the floor on driver's side.
Change trans and diff fluids.
Thinking about changing out front rotors and installing new (old) southern dust shields I have.

As for the summer of 2021, I'll be getting the old girl out for the local Thursday night cruise-in, and I'll take in as many car shows as I can.



Oh, and I'm not liking my chrome wheels as much as I used to, and have been having terrible urges for a set of vintage style aluminum slots. More to come on this after Christmas possibly...lol.

I will also be working steadily on the old 1980 Flareside 4x4 project.

Current status is below...



I picked up a used radiator for it today so I now have everything to finish off the engine bay and install the core support and hood. I still need odds and ends like a new battery, and I have to patch up the old core support a bit and add brackets for the later style radiator I picked up.

After that, I'll finish off the rear half of the frame,
Install new rear leaf spring hangers and leaf eyelet bushings, etc.
Grind frame rails, treat the rust, and paint.
Then, on to rebuilding the Flareside bed...and I'm still not sure of how that is going to happen yet.

Anyway, that was a long story, eh?
Lots and lots to do. I have no time to be bored at all.

Peace & Axle Grease!

Cory

I don't have much in the way of big goals this year...the main thing I'd like to do is get my doors, hood, and body panels aligned properly - everything is super janky right now.  I'd also like to get the 'new' tailgate on and the truck painted, but that will depend on finances...and I'm seriously considering buying a new daily driver next year if I have to start commuting again, which will suck up my spare cash.  So we'll see what happens.

Machspeed wrote

Hey, nice thread for the new year! Looking forward to saying goodbye to 2020.

Worked 11 years for Albertson's and am very familiar with life in the grocery business. It was harder back in the day, as there was no UPC code scanning, everything had to be marked. They didn't supply us with those powered pallet jacks either, everything was manual. No union, so if you were salary, you worked lots of hours. I'd leave sometimes after midnight and have to be back in at 4 am. Most of my weeks were 60 plus hours a week. During the holidays and inventory, I'd work 70-80 hours/wk. I don't look fondly on those days gone by and glad I got out of it. To this day, I can hardly walk into a grocery store. I hope it's better for you, my friend.

As to the truck, pulling the factory rubber flooring and installing carpet, new floor mats, seat console, fixing the fuel gauges, having the spray in bed liner touched up, and putting new tint on the windows. That will probably do it for awhile.

Oh John, you know my pain.  I work in a tiny grocery store, only has 4 isles, but the meat department does more volume then all the big chain stores in the area combined.  We are actually very famous and in the back of the store we make and smoke our own sausage.  You may have heard of Veron sausage.   We are the originators.  Still done the old school way.  We esasily go through 50 to 60 pork loins per day.  Couple all this with the covid mess and having to wear a mask, to which i cant wear my glasses because they fog up and have to get out on the floor blind as a bat with people crawling allover me not social distancing and just totally being rude, very very rude..  Its tough , thankless work.

Have you thought about putting the carpet ontop of the rubber floor mat.   Brutus needs new carpet, but right now i have carpet from my old 78 LTDII in it.  It almost fits, but there was nothing left to the original carpet and had to put something there.  the reason i ask you this is because we put carpet underlayment under the carpet and it really quiet things down big time.  I was concerned that when we get the new carpet that it may be to short because of the underlayment, but from what i read, the new carpet has to be trimmed to fit, so it may work out.    Just a thought.      I want to tint Brutus's windows as well

Frank Wyatt wrote

I want to replace my seat with one like the one in Nick's 1986 1/2 F150 and later on get a seat cover like he's got.

Thank you Frank.  I love that seat, its actually nicer then the original.  You shouldnt have any trouble pulling it off.  The only issue i had was this.  Both Brutus and my truck, the 88 f150 xlt Lariat, which is now the parts truck.  They both had similiar seats.  Brutus had the seat with the told down arm rest and it was high back on the driver and passenger side.  we would have recovered that one, but it was broken in so many places.  we tried to take the back off the original seat and put it on the one from my truck, but the back part of that seat was busted as well.  The seat in my 88 was the same style seat with the exception it wasn't high back, instead it had the head rests which you havent seen yet.  Here was our problem.  The seat in my truck is red.  thats the main reason we had to cover it.  the seat was in near perfect shape with just a small seam split on the driver side.  but it's red.  so that means the headrests are red.  The seat cover although it coveres the seat perfectly, the area where the fold down arm rest is, it does not cover behind it so we had to paint the part of the seat that is still exposed blue.  the color matches dead on, and does look good, but the paint makes the material hard.  I'm not really worried about it in that area for nothing really comes in contact with it, but even with the arm rest up, you can still see some of the original seat.      Gary had mentioned SEM and i think i want to to maybe go that rout on the head rests when i re-do the door panels.    The material on the seat cover is available for sale by the linear yard, and i want to buy a yard of it and re-do the fabric inserts on the door panels.  Those are painted as well, and they do look good, but just like the seat, the material is hard and scratchy

Rembrant wrote

86 1/2 Brutus wrote

I got Brutu's front tag in.  Got it from pictureitonthis.com.  

Funny you mention front tags! I just scored one of these old Ford Trucks plates online a couple days ago and it is currently in the mail and on the way. It's not perfect, but I'll clean it up and it will look right at home on the front of my truck. I like my plain front bumper but have been wanting something to break it up a bit, ya know? I've been looking for this exact plate for about 3 years now.



The funny thing is, it showed up in an incorrect online ad on the other end of the country. The guy had a grill listed for sale as fitting 1980-1986 Ford trucks and Broncos, and he was throwing in this vintage plate with the grill if you bought it. However, the grill was not for a truck at all, but for an Econoline. Anyway, I inquired about the plate and made an offer for it. Should be here next week.

As for 2021 Bullnose "stuff" plans??....

For my 1984 Flareside, the winter to-do list is something like this:

Install front swaybar and replace radius arms while I'm doing it.
Finish painting interior plastics (Have correct paint now from Vinyl-Pro)
Fix small spot on the floor on driver's side.
Change trans and diff fluids.
Thinking about changing out front rotors and installing new (old) southern dust shields I have.

As for the summer of 2021, I'll be getting the old girl out for the local Thursday night cruise-in, and I'll take in as many car shows as I can.



Oh, and I'm not liking my chrome wheels as much as I used to, and have been having terrible urges for a set of vintage style aluminum slots. More to come on this after Christmas possibly...lol.

I will also be working steadily on the old 1980 Flareside 4x4 project.

Current status is below...



I picked up a used radiator for it today so I now have everything to finish off the engine bay and install the core support and hood. I still need odds and ends like a new battery, and I have to patch up the old core support a bit and add brackets for the later style radiator I picked up.

After that, I'll finish off the rear half of the frame,
Install new rear leaf spring hangers and leaf eyelet bushings, etc.
Grind frame rails, treat the rust, and paint.
Then, on to rebuilding the Flareside bed...and I'm still not sure of how that is going to happen yet.

Anyway, that was a long story, eh?
Lots and lots to do. I have no time to be bored at all.

Peace & Axle Grease!

Cory

I remember those tags.  Thats an awesome find and will definately look great on that beautiful truck.    No time for boredum here either.  Once brutus is well, sort of finished, we have to get back on the ranchero.  We had to put it off to the side to get the truck done for a daily driver.  Our crown vic is literally falling apart and we needed something reliable.

Frogger2662 wrote

I am with you on the cold weather here in Louisiana. Live just out of Baton Rouge. Love this cold weather. Need to finish up the 9 inch diff install. Plans are to pull the 5.0 and install 351W roller motor.

Where in LA are you, i'm right dead between baton rouge and new orleans

Jacob84 wrote

This next year, I hope to go through and restore the interior of the truck. I’ve got some holes in the floor that need fixed, air conditioning to get functioning, new carpet and sound deadening, behind the seat storage, get a new seat, get the radio functioning again, fix some leaks, and just a good deep clean in all the nooks and crannies. It’s a lot but thankfully I have most of what I need, just gotta find the time.

And of course fixing anything that breaks in the meantime

By the way, George and Nick, I like y’all’s truck! It looks good!

Thank you Jacob.  it does get alot of looks and of course alot of  " do you want to sell it"    I hate when people do that, sometimes i want to just ask, yea, how much you willing to give.  I get that with the ranchero too.

Hoping to get this installed:

.030 over 460. 9.3:1 compression and a mild cam.