ckuske

Hi All, I've been wondering... my truck orignally had Type 6 pinstriping on it. I believe it had this I've been looking, and haven't been able to find a Pantone color, RGB, or even color sample anywhere. I can try to dig up a picture from when the truck was new, but I'm hoping someone has this info somewhere? I'd like for it to be as close as possible, and "Blue" and "Blue" doesn't help much in the description. Oh, and the paint code that was original (and will be again) is Midnight Metallic, Code 3L Thanks! Chris

Thanks all! This wheel is much better than the one on the truck now... to make it perfect I'll use the kit that Perry is putting together and it'll look brand new. (see http://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Woodgrain-repair-kit-for-ideas-only-td30473i40.html#a35208) -Chris

Thanks, I picked it up. Good price, but shipping is a little steep. Still worth it for the condition it's in, Rosewood with cruise is hard to come by.

Do you think it fits an 84? I’m actually after the horn pad to replace the one I have.

Hi Perry, I'm back online after a busy July. I don't blame you for not wanting to drop serious cash on Rosewood specimens, but these are pretty nice and representative of good quality Rosewood (IMO) https://www.ebay.com/itm/1980-1986-Ford-F150-XLT-Bronco-dash-cluster-BEZEL-RADIO-BEZEL-WOOD-GRAIN-NICE/372738294930?hash=item56c8ef0492:g:5IYAAOSw9rtdU2Fd Thanks to 1986F150Six for the find in the eBay section

I bought it myself actually, so I'll tell you guys how it goes.

Oops, yep. I had a typo in my question so that didn’t help either!

That was me, thank you! The top one is tempting, it's pretty close to the original. Just curious, what are you searching for bring these up?

@fuzzface2 - Thankfully, mine *appear* to be decent. No major damage at least. In some areas there might be a little surface rust but nothing like the front panel/sill.

Six, that front panel is not the right one it is for a style side he needs a flare side panel. I did not have the $$ for a new front panel I had a left over cross member from a style side that I cut to fit after trimming the rusted part off the panel. As for removing the bed to replace the wood & cross members it may work to set on the front & rear sills and try and to slide the parts in. If you have exposed rafters in the garage you can support the bed from them with straps to make it easier to slide the parts in. You can just make out the orange straps I used when lifting the bed sides off the floor I was making. I will be pulling the bed apart for painting and will also hang it from the straps to get all edges. You can pull the sides off leaving the fender bolted to them to take up less room and lean them some place out of the way. Mine were stored behind the truck for a long bit. I don't have to deal with the wood floor any more I went ribbed metal. Dave ---- Thanks for all the feedback everyone! You guys are awesome. I went out and took some pictures of what I'm dealing with. Obviously the wood needs to go. The front bed panel is rusted out on the bottom (where water collected, I'm guessing). The crossmember (is this the same thing as a sill?) looks to have damage do it as well. I've labeled the pictures below. What assessment do you guys have of this damage? My going in position is new front bed panel, and the crossmember needs to be replaced. How far down the rabbit hole do you think I'll need to do on this repair? Goal is all new wood and bed strips (and rust gone, obviously) Image 1: Image 2: Image 3:

Thanks Gary! I'm trying bit by bit... not much time to work on things and I'm limited in space but a little here, a little there... I think I worded the bed issue incorrectly: I need to order (I've seen it on LMC) the front panel of the bed, not the rear panel of the cab. That being said, given I have no space to put take the fenders off and store them in my garage... can the bed wood and rails be replaced without taking the whole bed off? Kinda a silly question possibly, but trying to figure out what I can easily pull off in my workspace, and what I can't. Thanks!

The dash looks great and would be happy to have it in my truck. Take it you have LED bulbs in what color and did you remove the colored lenses? As for the wheel I have heard of others looking for parts better than they have on a car or truck and when that part come along they buy it and then sell the one it replaced. They may do this a few times till they get one they are happy with. The other day I was in Auto Zone and saw they sell rolls of wrap. I saw they had a wood grain wrap that I may look closer at to use on my dash parts. Project for another day LOL Dave ---- Hi Dave - I left the blue colored lenses in, I just put blue LEDs in behind them to increase brightness. I didn't want neon blue, so I think it looks pretty good. On the Rosewood topic, I may order a yard of this and play around with cutting it to shape: https://www.customautotrim.com/vinyl-wrap/wood-grain-vinyl-wrap/dn-wgrwb/

Gary will have to confirm this is the right piece: https://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-1980-89-FORD-TRUCK-REAR-CAB-PANEL-F100-350/223125760396?epid=20021457856&hash=item33f354e98c:g:cTYAAOSwJRxbSmze How doe this compare to the horn pad you have? https://www.ebay.com/itm/78-86-F150-F250-Bronco-Steering-Wheel-Horn-Pad-F150-F250-Lariat-Cruise-e150/113741526941?hash=item1a7b85f79d:g:6X0AAOSwasRc0zXi It's better for sure! I'm actually already watching that one on eBay. The price is OK, I'm just biding my time to see if anything better comes along. I kinda doubt it though... I wrestle with buying something that's not what I really want, but is an improvement. I don't want to have a great one come by a week or month later, and wish I had waited. Thinking to myself... Am I the only one that plays these games with buying parts?

Hello Bullnosers, I haven't posted any updates for quite awhile. Life outside of working on my truck has been keeping me quite busy. Late last year, I decided to start working on the interior a bit. My truck has the Rosewood interior which I really like, but it is a bear to find any decent looking replacement parts. Heat and sunlight is not kind to the Rosewood finish. Here is my instrument cluster and bezel before I started working on it: And during: I repainted the gauges with the Testors model paint color (posted on this forum somewhere), put in a new-ish plastic lens, and I got super lucky and found a nice bezel that looks much better than the original. I also found some silver airbrush paint to restore the edges of the cutouts of the bezel. Apply with a nail q-tip, works great. OK, so good to go! Project done! As we all know... NOT SO FAST... I climbed into my truck one day to hook the speedometer cable back into the cluster, plug in the power connector on the back of the cluster, and button it all up. I instinctively put my foot on the brake, and much to my surprise, the pedal went to the floor. Hence, this picture of the master cylinder: As you can see, there was ZERO fluid in the back brake lines. I hadn't opened the cylinder after buying the truck back... it had probably been that almost that bad for quite awhile but the tipping point finally came. Embarrasing... Long story short, I put new fluid in, bled the back system, and pumped and pumped. No fluid leaking out... so I'm not sure how it lost all the fluid in the first place. It's been a few months now, and the level still hasn't gone down. I also bailed out most of the fluid in the reservoir for the front half, and it looks much better. I wasn't brave enough to completely drain the front and then have possibly all the brakes screwed up. For another day. (I don't have much experience working on brakes) Now that the brakes are fixed, I went to button things up (again). Test the lights, gauges, etc... temperature gauge isn't working. ARGH! Ran the wire to ground, the gauge works. So, it's the temperature sending switch on the engine. Replaced it last night with a Motorcraft part I found on eBay. Now it works, and here's the result: Next big task is to start replacing parts of the bed (mainly the front panel near the cab). I'm also trying to find a Rosewood horn pad (with cruise) that is in good shape. You'll notice on the second pic that the previous owner peeled(!) the trim off the bottom of the horn pad. Striking out mightily so far in my hunt... To be continued (are any of us ever going to be "done"? Probably not...)

Thanks for the suggestion guys, it is indeed different but better than the black plastic showing now. The PO just peeled all the Rosewood off the horn pad on a whim because it was peeling I guess... I may try some 3M vinyl samples and see how it looks. That way my original plan on the cluster bezel, but I lucked out and found a nice one on eBay for a reasonable price. This looks really good color/pattern wise: https://www.metrorestyling.com/3M-DI-NOC-Rosewood-Vinyl-p/dinocrosewood.htm Maybe some time and an X-acto knife would have good results

Ok, thanks though! I've managed to scrounge everything else together, that's the last piece for me. (and the hardest apparently)

I'm probably too late, but do you have the horn pad with Rosewood? Is it cruise perhaps (crossing fingers big time)

Yep, those are the pockets I remember in that first link! Now I just gotta find the money. Hmm, humans only need one kidney, right???

Thanks to you both! Glad to know that I wasn't mistaken - sounds like I'll live with the ones from LMC. I really wish I hadn't thrown the originals out (this was back in 1999 when I was eighteen and dumber than I am now, haha)

Morning All, I've been scouring eBay and I've been coming up short. I know there are some eBay wizards here that seem to find great stuff. I've been looking for map pockets for my F150 (they were removed and discarded by the PO, but they were there originally). Problem is, they don't look like any I've seen for sale. The originals were hard plastic with no carpeting, and fairly wide as well. These on LMC are the closest, but the original ones were one big compartment or very close - there were no partitions that I can recall. http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/FD/full.aspx?Page=60 Does this ring a bell for anyone, or am I remembering things incorrectly? Thanks! -Chris

Thanks for the tips everyone, I got it worked out tonight and it's acting normally again. It was a bad ground after all...

Hi Steve, I measured the C208A connector, and Pin 1 (supply voltage) and Pin 13 (tach return I think?) are both registering ~12.6 volts. Seems like everything is as it should be. I think that means the connector is OK? Are there any other pins I should be checking? Or is there a way I can test the tach by itself?

I just did the LED bulbs in my cluster and before putting the bulb sockets back in I hit them with eraser. It did turn the eraser black but did not look like it did anything to the copper. Then I would say it did not because I had to wiggle the sockets to make better contact for them to work. If there is a next time I will be using 600 grit sand paper as I know they will be clean then. I wonder if that cluster plug is not making a good connection? Then again he had to remove the gauge nuts so maybe that is the issue? Dave ---- Thanks guys. Just a little more detail - I never actually took the tach out to paint it, I just masked it off when it was installed. That being said, I took it out and cleaned the contacts and nuts, and still no luck. All other lights/leds/gauges are working. It jus bounces right to 6k RPM when the ignition is turned to on. It was working fine before I took it out... I guess I may have damaged the PCB itself. I guess the next step is taking an Ohm meter to to the PCB and seeing if anything odd pops out? I'll look for that ground wire too, thanks Gary.

Hello All, I've been cleaning out the interior of my truck - lots of dust and grime from when my dad was in construction. So, I took most of the dash out and cleaned everything up and repainted the gauges while I was at it (and installed LED lights for the instrument cluster) I just plugged the cluster in to make sure all the bulbs were working, and mostly success with one strange issue. When I turn the key to "on" (not start), the tach pegs all the way to the right above 6000 RPM. I haven't tried to start it up fully yet because obviously something is amiss. Any ideas? I'm afraid the PCB on the back has a problem somewhere but I'm not sure where to start. Seems like a grounding issue. Thanks!

Those are nice, and half the price of others I've seen. Thanks for sharing this, Dyn