The Truck of Doom: An Occasional Build Thread

OK...I am declaring this one "Mission Accomplished!"



You can see there's still a little slack in the floor up near the front of the transmission hump, but it's really not as bad as it looks in the photo.  I'm confident that with a little time and use, it will lay right down.  All the trim is back in place, the seat and seat belt bolt holes are ready, all I need now is a seat.



As a bonus, the repainted kick panels look really good - SEM paints are the bee's knees.  And as a bonus bonus, the kick panel vents should now work again; the passenger side was completely blocked with leaves and trash, which are now gone.  The driver's side had bigger problems; it had its own share of trash, but it was also stuck closed.  I discovered a blob of something like rubber cement or silicone caulking was gumming things up; that's gone and now the vent opens and closes like it should, probably for the first time in 39+ years.

Cool!  The seat should be done this week?  Or is it next?

Anyway, it looks good.  And, I'll bet it sounds much better than it has - ever.  

Nice!

Gary Lewis wrote

Cool!  The seat should be done this week?  Or is it next?

This week, I'm told.  I'm guessing Thursday or Friday, but I didn't ask for a specific day.

Anyway, it looks good.  And, I'll bet it sounds much better than it has - ever.  

Thanks.  And I'm really looking forward to getting it out on the highway for a listen.  

Floor looks good!

So with the seat unavailable until probably the end of this week, I've got time to work on other bits of the truck.  One thing I want to do is replace the speedometer cable, which of course requires removing the dash pad:



This isn't my original pad; that one was completely shot when I got the truck and was replaced with one I bought from a guy online four years ago.  The replacement pad came from an '81, so it is only barely newer than my original...and is starting to show its age with the dreaded speaker grille disintegration.

Otherwise the pad is pretty good, so for now I'm thinking of making a grille cover from leftover scraps of floor vinyl and seat vinyl.  No idea whether this will work, but it will at least hide the damage.  Long term, I don't know what to do...did I read somewhere that there was a 3D-printed repair for the grille?  Something like that might be nifty, but that leaves the rest of the pad susceptible to damage.  I expect in the long run I'll end up with a cover, but I don't really want to do that.  But I do like that better than the idea of paying NPD $530 for a new pad.

If I'm going to replace the speedometer cable, I have to get my A/C ducting out of the way...which reminds me of another problem.  The ducting in my truck (dealer air, remember) is some kind of fabric-covered wire-frame stuff that is beginning to dry rot.  Has anyone had luck replacing this with something new, and if so what did you use?  I see a number of vendors, including my local NAPA, sell this type of thing.

I believe it is fellow member Reamer who manufactures the 3D grill covers. He and Gary Lewis designed the piece.

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1359252-dash-speaker-hole-area-repair-plate-finished.html

That looks like a really slick solution - but I couldn't find it on Shapeways.  Maybe our gracious host will swing by here in a bit with a link?

I just emailed Reamer notifying him of your quest for knowledge.

I usually don’t like dash pads either, but ended up putting one on mine for now.

I’ll probably get one of these speaker grilles one day.

1986F150Six wrote

I just emailed Reamer notifying him of your quest for knowledge.

You are a scholar and a gentleman!

Thanks, David.

I take it Reamer is printing them himself now, instead of having them done elsewhere?

I don't know if he is doing them or having them done.  Perhaps he can tell us?

Dorsai wrote

 Has anyone had luck replacing this with something new, and if so what did you use?  I see a number of vendors, including my local NAPA, sell this type of thing.

If those options for some reason don't work out, and you want to see if you can make at least some parts of the factory plastic ducting work, I have the ductwork that I pulled from my old dash just sitting around looking for a new home.

salans7 wrote

If those options for some reason don't work out, and you want to see if you can make at least some parts of the factory plastic ducting work, I have the ductwork that I pulled from my old dash just sitting around looking for a new home.

 
Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.  But...plastic, you say?  Did your old dash have factory air?  Mine are some kind of doped fabric.

Yep, factory air uses plastic ductwork. The problem with dealer air is that they use a non-A/C dash. The driver's side section of the duct will fit the dash, but the passenger side may have to be modified to fit. And then there's the issue of connecting it to the dealer air box, wherever they are located (I've never seen one in person). I assume the dealer air box connects to the collapsible ductwork much differently than the factory ductwork does.

Now that my dash is apart and I'm pulling out the A/C ducting, it occurred to me that this would be an excellent time to install that new headlight switch I bought a while back.  My headlights work fine, but my dash lights flicker on and off unless the knob is in just the right position, so I figured the switch was worn out.

My surprise came when I was putting everything back together after testing, and brushed the ceramic disk with the back of my hand.  HOT!  I immediately thought about the fact that all the power for the headlights routes through that switch, wondered if I'd gotten a defective Chinese replacement, and decided to do some testing.

To make a long story short, it's not the headlights that are the problem - it's the dash lights.  After waving my laser thermometer over the switches for a bit, swapping them in and out and turning things on and off, I realized that it's actually the dash lights that cause the switch to get hot.  Turning the dash lights low apparently causes the excess power to be dumped off through that coil behind the disk, which then gets quite hot - nearly 170 degrees according to my thermometer:



My new switch is probably Chinese, but it's not defective - the old one reached roughly the same temperature.  I'm not thrilled with something that hot behind my dash, but apparently it's by design, and I normally keep my dash lights pretty bright anyway.  Just thought I'd share this in case anyone else finds it interesting.

Good to pass that on, I like my lights dim and the switch gets warm.

You mentioned all the lights going through the switch, I had a 1978 Ford van and a 1974 F250 that when I towed a trailer the switch would get hot and I would lose all the lights momentarily on both of them.

That would get my attention!

grumpin wrote

You mentioned all the lights going through the switch, I had a 1978 Ford van and a 1974 F250 that when I towed a trailer the switch would get hot and I would lose all the lights momentarily on both of them.

That would get my attention!

I bet!  And if I was having that problem, I wouldn't have let my new switch sit in a box unopened for a year, either.