FuzzFace2

In between all that I would do other little things to get away from the body work. Had members help with needed parts and 1 was EFI exh manifolds. The manifold that was on the truck was not a truck manifold and needing a front pipe the EFI seamed like the way to go. I was able to pick up a intake water heater because the stock intake was bolted to the exh manifold to heat the intake. I wanted to stay with the stock intake & carb as I am looking for some what good MPG and why no fancy intake & v4 carb. The EFI stock Y pipe is hooked to the stock parts truck exh system as it was in great shape, just used a short pipe to join the Y pipe & system as one. Another member had a stock air filter assy. as that POS would not cut it on my truck. Little cleaning and paint and looks good as new. More members helped with HVAC controls & wiring. When the PO removed this from the parts truck and sold it they cut the wiring and broke the dash to get it out. The panel also needed to be for AC and duel tanks and if that was not enough Ford changed the wiring, plugs & switches between years. Had other wiring issues besides the HVAC / fan & duel tank switch. The ALT wiring was different between the 2 trucks and not wanting to cut & splice the stock wires I made a jumper. At first the ALT did not want to charge but had to swap 2 wires and all is good now. With the cab and fenders in primer it was time to look into the flare side bed. It needed a lot of work & parts some that you cant get like the bed sides because lip that bolts to the floor that rots away. After looking at what it would run for the parts you can get would be about $1000 not counting the wood & metal strips. Parts truck being a style side LB and 1 side caved in from the roll over could not be used as a blot on ....... or could it? A lot of measuring of the LB and the frame of my truck it looked like I could use the metal floor in place of the wood flooring. With a little work ... ok a lot of work I made the LB metal floor fit the flare side SB truck and was able to bolt the bed sides to the metal floor. Cut a little off the front of the floor. Set it on truck to see what needs to be trimmed to fit better. Had to move what was now the bed front cross member a little to line up to the frame holes. Trimmed the back some and fitted the flare side rear side outer panel to the metal floor and finish to look stock. Had to rework the front header panel as it was rotten across the bottom using left over cross bracing. Not welded yet. I said the bed sides lip at the bottom was rotted away had to fix both sides front & back so they could bolt back on to the floor. 1 done with square holes for the carriage bolts. Sides & front panel bolted to the floor. Had to bolt the fenders on to see what it would look like. What I did not show was I had to rework the front bed cross member to bolt the flare side step braces to. Just bolting them to the fiberglass fenders they would of been broken in no time. Dave ----

The parts truck had duel fuel tanks and I wanted that on my flare so rear tank & plumbing was moved over after cleaning & painting. The larger LB side tank would not fit the SB truck so I cleaned & painted the stock tank, new sending units were used in both tanks. When I installed the rear axle I found the brake shoes all wrong, both long on 1 side & both short on the other. Some of the springs where bad so all new drums, shoes, springs, wheel cly and ebrake cables. Could not and did not want to use the parts truck parts as the wheel bolt pattern is different than this flare uses. This will also come back to bite me up front. Cleaned motor & trany and before painting I replaced the oil pan, side cover & valve cover gaskets on the motor. New clutch, pressure plate & throw out bearing all bolted together and put back in the frame. Also been adding other parts as you can see on the fire wall. I had to rebuild the clutch linkage, cant get parts, as all the bushings were gone a long time ago and egg shaped the holes and cut into the rods. Even had to rebuild the motor side cross shaft povit. With the truck as a roller it was time for body work .... I hate body work! The left lower door had rust so I replaced both inside & outside of the door. Did the boring body work to the cab / doors and got it in primer. Mounted the nose from the parts truck so I could work dents it got in the roll over, 1 flare fender had some rust. Once the dents were worked and in primer I pulled them off and had to weld out holes the moldings used, flares did not have moldings. I painted the insides of the fenders before I put them back on. Before the fenders went back on I painted the inside of the cab and door jambs. With the inside painted it was time to get the parts truck dash, it has the AV vents, & wiring into the flare but when the PO pulled the radio & HVAC panels from the parts truck they broke part of the dash. I had to graft that part from the flare dash to the AC parts truck dash then painted it before install. Broken part. Part grafted in. Painted and installed. Dave ----

I thought it was time to make my own post on my project that some of you all ready know about. As the title says it is a 81 F100 flare side custom with 300 six & T18 that I got back in Dec of 2015. It started as a $800 trash run hauler and just do want was needed to make it safe to drive. Well the "just do" part got carried away BIG time. CL picture before I bought it. I also bought a 81 F100 Ranger style side long bed parts truck for $400 less motor, doors, tail gate and some of the dash parts. CL picture before I bought it. Plan was to make 1 good truck out of 2 ..... maybe not such a good plan? The flare side motor had a miss but on the short test drive it did fire off so thinking nothing really bad, sure enough new plugs, did a compression test at same time and all was good, and the motor ran great. Looking closer at the truck the floors had some rust along with the cab corners and rockers. Parts truck not much better so I ordered what I needed thru Tabco.com To do the sheet metal job the cab had to come off the frame and this is where the "just do" part went crazy! I pulled the whole truck apart, cab, what was left of the bed, motor & trany, front & rear suspensions everything off the frame. One side of the floor / rocker / cab corner. Part of the build was to use the inside parts with AC from the parts truck in to the flare side. That is when I was told the fire walls are different between the 2 trucks. Sure enough they are and being I wanted AC what do you do? Swap out fire walls! AC wall set for welding. All painted some masking still in place. I used 2 coats of bed coating both top & bottom of the floor before I put the cab back on the frame. I also cleaned and painted the frame & suspension (from parts truck but will bite me later) and got it back under the cab. Dave ----

Hey Jon, Came across this in my searches today, and knowing you were looking for the EGR block off plate, this thing caught my eye. Isn't there supposed to be a hole in the manifold where the EGR port would be in the EGR spacer? (I know nothing of the 300/6, so this may be a dumb question). I've seen the block-off plate, but it looks like the little tab covers a hole that in this manifold is not present? https://www.kijiji.ca/v-engines-and-engine-parts/windsor-area-on/1980s-300-ford-inline-6-intake-manifold/1387026322?enableSearchNavigationFlag=true That looks like a pre-EGR intake as it does not have the hole for the gases like my 81 does. Now the only thing to worry about is the carb bolt spacing. I hear some of the early six intakes the carb bolt spacing is different and my be the case with that pre- EGR intake. Dave ----

Have you known any one to get pulled over because of the plate? The cops should pull over all the trailers without lights running in the dark and /or plates to start with. They would make the roads safer and make more money in taxes. Then pull over everyone on their phones or the tail gaters. Make the roads a LOT SAFER! For the plates you want to get I bet they are more $$ for each renewal. How much will you be towing, every weekend or maybe 3 or 4 times a year? My F100 will be a back up to my Durango (normal plates) to pull my car trailer when needed and it will get normal plates. And unless you are pulling the trailer for money you don't have to go over scales and even then then unless the truck & trailer are marked for hauling for money you do not need stop. I drive a truck for a living and hauling for money is why you have to scale. Dave ----

I am not a fan of stainless brake lines. They are hardtop re-bend if need be and the big one, they are hard to seal at the fittings no matter how tight you get them. Who did you get the pre-bent lines from? 2 that I know of is Inline Tube and think the other is Fine line. Dave ----

There is a better way. Pull off the left & right plastic kick panels. If you don't have AC you should be able to reach down inside and pull out hands full of crap. If you have AC undo the 4 screws that hold that cover plate on and remove the plate, you should be able to reach down inside and pull out hands full of crap. Yes you should be able to run the water hose down inside the cowl to wash out some of the crap. Water should come the "duck bill" seal. It is the black "duck bill" looking thing just to the left and below the lower hinge. There is one on each side. Now you may need to open the "bill" to get the larger crap out. Dave ----

Backwards again! Got out to the garage at 4am before it got hot and I went off to work. I wanted to get the stat and new housing back on. This is what the old stat looked like and I had the motor running a few times too. So I pulled the 2 plugs out of the new housing put sealer on 1 and put it back in. The other opening is for the heater hose fitting, put sealer on the hose fitting and go to screw it in and ...... HOUSTON WE HAHVE A PROBLEM! The heater hose fitting is to big to screw into the housing! So going to have to think this one over for a fix. Dave ----

I would use the tape as that is what I have in the tool box but if I had the paste I would use just that. When I did HVAC work in a hospital we used the paste 95% of the time. The other 5% was tape as that is what we had on our tool belts and was a small job. In your case if I did not have tape or paste I would use. I do have that in the box too. Dave ----

I would use the tape as that is what I have in the tool box but if I had the paste I would use just that. When I did HVAC work in a hospital we used the paste 95% of the time. The other 5% was tape as that is what we had on our tool belts and was a small job. In your case if I did not have tape or paste I would use. http://www.aircraftspruce.com/cache/370-320-/catalog/graphics/09-28500.jpg I do have that in the box too. Dave ----

I will, need to finish prepping the tail gate and get it in primer before I give this a try. The 1 art supply store I hit did not have the right size roller, to skinny for my liking. Will have the wife get one thru Amazon the next time she orders something. The One Shot paint they say you can get thru Eastwood but will try my local auto paint supplier first when the time comes. Dave ----

Not much moving on my project unless backwards is movement? The radiator has been sitting with vinegar in it till yesterday. The vinegar came out green from the brass? and cloudy from what I was trying to remove. Did some flushing with the garden hose and I see I do have flow thru the tubes I did not before but there could be another reason why this is so. Being the radiator still has the white crust I set it up for another round of fresh vinegar as it cant hurt to let it sit longer. Now the why the reason for no flow: Being I have the system drained and not knowing if the motor had a Tstat, low temp on gauge, I was going to change it out. When I pulled it apart it had no gasket only sealer that I could see and it looked like the Tstat was not opening as it was covered in rust. The block side gasket area cleaned up nice, the Tstat housing not so nice. In cleaning I saw what I thought was a crack. Hit it with a wire brush and it still looked like a crack. Yep put a little pressure on the bolt ear and it fell off in my hand. I checked 4 stores and none had 1 so will need to order it. At that point being hot & sweaty I called it a day, yep backwards movement! Dave -----

I have not looked over the information Gary posted but be nice to know just how far back it goes - hint like if it fits an 81 front & rear with 9" Dave ----

I knew when I was gutting my doors for the rebuild that going back together is going to be fun ............ NOT! Oh I also have the sliding locks to deal with. Dave ----

And that is how the factory did it. That is if it did not have the panel across the tail gate of the style sides. Also if you look at factory painted letters you will see they don't have shape edges from tape. I have not done this yet but what I found for painting letters, the factory roll painted on the letters. A soft rubber roller, think I seen 4" wide, that they used in block printing is used. For paint they used 1 shot pin striping paint. They put some on paper to pull out some of the liquid. They then roll the roller thru to get paint on it then do a letter, get more paint on roller and next letter, etc. They say to practice on the gate before you get paint on the gate so you have a clue how it works. So if you feel artistic and want factory painted letters you now know how. Dave ----

Update: It's still soaking been working crazy hours and when I get home being tired and hot out, 90*+ so hotter in the garage. Then being lazy on the weekend I just left it soaking. I have also given thought to using CLR if this soaking does not work out but will cross that bridge when I get to it. Dave ----

Little up date. I checked on it yesterday and saw it had the white stuff sitting at the bottom but still had it at the tubes. I did take make pick and the white stuff at the tubes and kind of came off. Because I am lazy it will sit another week before I do anything to it. Thinking pour out the vinegar (saving the old) and back flush it and see how it looks and go from there. Dave ----

I have not put any time in on the hood, body work and hate doing it. I don't really see a way short of some how supporting the open area. You cant push it up too high or when you pull it out it is now too low. It would not be bad if your eye would not really see it like the roof and mine has it's own "rolling hills" but the hood is not the place that works. I have to dig the hood out that came on the truck and look it over but I think that's the way I will be going. On the rear / locker you had to be on your A game! In the dry because the rear was locked, when under normal power turning corners the tires would squeal. You had to watch for police for "improper start" tickets so in the glove box with the reg & insur papers I had the paper for the locker that said would make noise on corners. If you went real easy it would hardly make noise. If you were rolling (off the power) around corners the locker would make clicking noise that everyone could hear. Yep even people on the corner would turn and look it was that loud. Once you knew what the car would do in the rain it was fun but I would not use the car if I knew it was going to rain just to be safe. Dave ----

Gary, I would "like n share" but I am not a member of either FB or IG and no plans to become a member of them. When talking to people I do bring up this site, my way to "like n share". Dave ---- ps: thanks for all the work you do Gary for this site.

That's more bouncing than jumping in my book! I can see a lot of broken parts in his future! I wonder how well the TTB will work in that type of racing as most I am sure use a straight front axle front & rear. I guess that front brake steering may work in that case as I/we never did that type of racing. If they have classes he needs to see what he can and can not do before he gets into building this truck. If he has just 1 thing it could put him in a higher class and not be competitive. That's what happened to me with my auto cross / road race car. It was the grille that put me in the unlimited class (full on race cars with slicks) with a modify (suspension with street tires) stock motor car. Dave ----

I removed the skin from the frame, big mistake, to fix the dent as I could not pull in out the way I wanted. When I put it back together I did glue the skin to the frame again, don't remember what I used at this time, but it is where the frame is not is where you cant press to sand. So between the areas the frame is and is not makes for high & low spots when sanding. If I get out to the garage today I will rethink this hood deal as there had to be a better way. I have a Lock Right Locker in my factory v8 Gremlin, 96 in wheel base car. That was fun in the rain around corners, short wheel base would come right around with no warning! Dave ----

As said it will be a big project. On the steering brakes, no I did not read about it but had a buggy on our off road race team. On the buggy they go on the rear wheels as the front is so light it would do nothing even with normal steering, so the steering brake works like a bulldozer and pivots at the rear wheels. Now on a 4x4 I don't know why 1- you would need steering brakes, 2- if they would even work right front or rear. On a 4x4 if you can you set up the gear ratios so the front is pulling the rear like 4.10 front / 4.11 rear, it will pull the front around the corners. Most of the time we ran what the 4x4 cam with and never had any issues even in 100 yard sand drags. That same weekend we may also have a timed race thru the woods and still did not need steering brakes. Now don't go saying you are not doing sand drags or racing thru the woods. We had to use the same trucks on Moto-X tracks with 10 other trucks for 10 laps and never needed steering brakes. You drove the track like a road race track setting up the turns, brake before them and gas out. And yes we also had jumps and tight U-turns that normal Moto-X tracks had. With a locker in the rear you could steer with the gas pedal. Brake before the turn, cut the wheel a little and gas it and the rear comes right around. I can also tell you your hands / arms will be busy. Between steering wheel and shifting when will you have time to use the steering brake? How are the rest of the trucks set up in the class you will be running in? Do they use steering brakes? Is what you are planning even allowed in the class? What you plan may put you in a real high class and you may be out classed for the money invested. It is always best to start in the lowest class and work up as just to add the needed safety equipment to pass tech is a lot of work. I know as I have done it not only for off road racing but for road racing/auto cross & drag racing. I am not putting you down for what you want to do just letting you know what we went thru on our trucks. BTW we had 4 Jeeps 2-cj5, cj7, commando, 2-Toytoa L/C and a bar frame buggy on the "Nuts Race Team". Dave ----

Well yesterday it was 98* in the garage and I had both 9' wide doors, a side walk thru door open and 2 box fans going with an outside temp of 91* Today it was 92* outside, the garage has been closed up so had to be hotter inside the garage. I will see what I can do of heating it up to help it along. Dave ----

Excellent suggestion David! I was appalled at the amount of build up in both my trucks. This time, I also removed the resister pack which opened a window to the evaporator coil, so I could actually see the "stuff" resting on the bottom. It is not necessary, but I am glad I did. That is a really good idea, especially since the resistor coils like to catch leaves. It a perfect tinder box. If you find more than just a little bit in the condenser housing, it’s fairly easy to remove the driver side half of the HVAC box. There is one bolt/nut under the dash in the passenger foot area, little screws around the box seam, and one square clip. That’s it, and you can get to both sides of the condenser. You can vacuum/wipe out a lot from there. I forgot to update back on 7/4: I tighten up the ALT belt and it is charging and no belt noise. Picked up a radiator cap and installed it but before I did I saw there was some white crust build up in the radiator that I want to see if I can "treat it" before I put the truck into service. I tried to add more threads to the ebrake add on adjuster and it failed so I cut a short section of tubing to take up more on the cable. Nope ebrake still dose not hold so I really have to look deeper into this now. I sanded down the body filler on the hood. Do you know what its like to sand filler on a paper sheet that keeps flexing? It still has some low spots, will have to put another skim coat of filler on it. Today 7/15: I pulled the radiator to "treat" the crust. What I am trying is a mild acid .... vinegar. Got it laying flat in the bed of the truck and used almost a full gallon to put the tubes under liquid. I will let it sit till maybe next weekend or longer. If that does not work I will look into something stronger. Then it was on to mixing body filler for the hood and the rear panel of the bed under the tail gate as it had a little dent. That rear panel was the easy part and is ready for primer. Now that hood is a different story. Remember the sanding filler on paper, still the same deal, flexing and hard to sand flat. It may still have low spots and after spending hours on it I am not happy with it and think once paint is on it will look like crap! The whole time I am thinking of looking over the hood that came on my truck again. It had some rust thru by 1 of the hinges and why I went with bent one. Being depressed about the hood out come and being 98* in the garage I called it a day. Dave ----

I also went with Gary's but not so much because of the original name but who knows our year / body style truck as a Bull Nose? I did not till I was on the other site and I have been around them when they were factory new. I also think there has been some talk of the same on the other site, why are they called Bull Nose? So take someone that knows vary little of fixing cars/trucks and you call it a Bull Nose how would they find the site? I think when I was looking for information on mine I Google the year & model but was almost 3 years ago now. Ford pick up's 80 - 86, aka Bull Nose @ Gary's Garagemahal.com Dave ----