Rembrant

Gary, I will do just that, thank you.

I quite like the speakers. They sound fine for what I'm doing. I mostly listen to Podcasts via my iPhone/Bluetooth rather than music. The brighter woofer cone is somewhat visible yes. I hadn't considered this previously and probably would have ordered a set of darker colored speakers had I thought of it. I'm sure you could put some cloth of some kind in there to hide them if need be. I did not use the speaker grills, no. There does seem to be lots of clearance between the speaker and the door panel, but because the speaker itself fits into a recessed area in the door, I don't think the grills would work anyway.

Well, if they are still installed in the instrument cluster, installing LED's instead of the original bulbs won't improve things much. I don't have pictures of them myself, but somebody on here might.

We buy them here as "Markets" or "Canners". Description below: Lobster is sold as either canners or markets, in accordance with the size. Canners weigh between 1/2 and 3/4 pounds (250-375 g) while markets weigh over 3/4 pound (375 g) We always bought Canners, and would eat between 4-6 each, along with maybe some cold potato salad. My wife doesn't eat ANY seafood, and while I do like lobster, I don't like it enough to go through all the trouble of actually eating it these days;). I do eat seafood chowder on occasion, if it is known to be good and not full of fillers like potatoes...lol. Prices are rock bottom right now though. A lot of our lobster had been going directly to China, and that market all but dried up, at least temporarily.

Lobster season varies based on location, but some parts of NS are open now. Some areas it doesn't start until the fall. On the north shore where my parents live, lobster season is typically May and June, and they will often eat lobster almost every weekend during the season. I ate a lot of it growing up, but as an adult not so much. I like lobster, but I'm not crazy about it. I'm mostly into white fish like Haddock or Cod, but my real drug is scallops....I get weak in the knees for scallops if they're done right. We used to get a few pounds of scallops for parties and stuff, and my old man would keep a few sizzilin' in the pan for half the evenings, and you could just graze, and grab one or two every now and then;).

Any seafood fans on here? I just noticed this add on Facebook this morning. $3 a pound for fresh lobster (That's about $2 USD). Cheaper than beef.

Yes the speakers fit the hole in door just fine, but I did have to drill new screw holes. I added a set of baffles as well, and just trimmed the excess from the flange once the speakers were installed. https://www.crutchfield.com/S-CrCReliVFnX/p_237XT65/XTC-6-1-2-Speaker-Baffles-3-1-4-depth.html I installed these speakers below. https://www.crutchfield.com/p_1131666S/Kenwood-KFC-1666S.html

Hey Vaughn, Stupid question, but when you installed the LED lights, did you remove the little blue-ish colored lenses that were in there as well? I have the "Ice Blue" LED's in my dash.

Yes sir. My '84 had the same bagged insulation over the exhaust. I threw it away as it was kind of rotten. I have the same vinyl floor as well, although mine does not extend down the sides of the seat like yours. I plan to put the full carpet in mine is well, more for sound deadening than anything else. Man your dash looks great! I will have to get myself some Dark Harbor Blue later on. Well done.

If you have carpet now, can you please let us know what ACC sample matches up the best? My truck is an '84 with the Dark Harbor Blue interior, but NO carpet, so I'd also love to know what color to order. PS: How did you like using the Preval kit? I honestly hadn't heard of this until a couple weeks ago when I was talking to the SEM paint guy up here. Your pictures make it obvious for me that I really need to order the Harbor Blue paint. Nothing else matches it. Thanks for sharing.

Nice Bulls Flint! Welcome aboard!

Oh I'm happy with the steering wheel! I meant that I don't always like the look of the aftermarket steering wheels. I find sometimes they fit and look OK, and other times they do not and look out of place. The factory padded wheel is perfect though, and I'm happy with it.

The Dark Harbor Blue looks great! My interior is the same color, so I hope to try that color of SEM at some point and time. Sorry, can't help with the carpet, but I'll be following along as I'd like to order some carpet myself, and I need to know which color to order.

I like it when they get straight to the point, and keep it on point. Some of the people doing homegrown videos like to pontificate for the first half of each of their videos, and that turns me off instantly. If you're doing something technical, just go ahead and do it...lol.

Ha! That's pretty good Jim. I hadn't heard of this guy. Pretty cool how anybody can create "content" these days. Some of them I quite like, but some of them should leave the video production to others...lol.

The steering wheel is something I've been struggling with! I see pics of trucks with various aftermarket Grant wheels installed, and sometimes they look really good, and sometimes they look seriously out of place. I kinda like the wood wheels with the wood grain interior, I think they look pretty cool. I wanted something a little more sporty than the original skinny wheel, but something that still looked like it belonged, ya know? To me it's like the factory tach install. Ford guys will know that a plain truck never did come with a factory tach, but most people that look inside will never know the difference.

Probably true. It is kind of a weird blue. This truck was kept in a barn or a lean to on the barn, so the dash has stayed in really nice condition compared to some. The door panels faded bad along the tops, but I think they all did that with even a minimal amount of sun. I'll try the Dark Harbor Blue once the border opens back up. I'll grab a piece of plastic at the junkyard and run some sample tests and see how close it is before ripping the truck apart again;).

No sir, I have not seen that one but I will check it out. I do like simple stuff.

Ya, due to the new VOC regulations enacted last year, everything is going to water based paints. The SEM rep told me that they can no longer bring in the bulk paints for mixing unless it is the water based version of SEM (SureCoat). So I can buy mixed Sure Coat, but apparently SEM did not offer the 3042 code in the water based version. They said they were not able to transfer the shade (which I assume means there was not enough demand for it, I dunno?). My truck was painted with the water based paint. They roll the thing into an oven after it is sprayed, and the guy tells me that when it rolls outside, the paint is as hard as it is ever going to be. Unlike the older paints that took some time to cure.

Shaun, there is a upside to having a single color base model truck: They're easier and cheaper to restore/refinish! Chris and I were talking about it not too long ago. Finding all of the Lariat/XLT trim and interior pieces is a real chore around here. A truck with no headliner has it's benefits. The other thing is the trip down memory lane...lol. This was supposed to be a throwback truck, so keeping it simple is part of that. Back in the 80's and 90's there were a lot of these trucks around up here, and young guys like me with no money would buy old plain Jane work trucks, and they'd get sporty rims and tires, a new stereo, and a louder muffler, and that was usually it!

Thanks Ray! Well, ideally I'd like to find a truck just like yours. My preference would be for an '84-'86, but it doesn't really matter. I've been looking casually, but not finding much in the price ranges I'm willing to pay. I have no intention of selling my Bullnose currently, but I have a bad habit of doing just that. Once they're done, I end up getting bored with them. I'm trying to keep this one, and possibly find another one to tinker with to keep my other urges satisfied.

Well, it's not that I can't get a better match, it's that right now I don't want to pay what that match would cost. The *correct SEM color is the Dark Harbor Blue 3042, which is not available in Canada. I can order it out of the US, but with the current border shut down, it means I'd have to use a customs broker, and a $15 can of paint would end up costing me a good $50, and right now I'm just not paying that. So, next best thing was to try the available off-the-shelf blues and see how it looked. The two that I tried were both good matches for other year Bullnoses, but 83-84 were specifically the 3042 code. In any case, I'm not unhappy with it. Once the border opens back up I'll get my hands on the correct stuff and see how it matches up. The door cards are not a big deal to remove. As for Tim Hortons, I am like many Canucks a frequent customer! They made a big push into some of the northern US states years ago. I remember stopping at one in NY about 15 years ago...somewhere along I-90 in NY, I think Canandaigua. They later closed down about 75% of their US stores, so there are probably just a few of them left now. We have Starbucks here now as well, but I don't care for it. When I ask for a coffee, I don't want somebody asking me back what kind of coffee...lol. Just coffee.

Man do I hear you on that one. I was able to take my truck to the company 60th birthday party that they had a car / truck / bike show back in November then nothing. But I do have to say the state has lifted a little more of the stay at home Friday. I was told of a cruise in not far from the house today put together for a car guy's birthday but he is in the hospital (not looking good) so they video taped it and took pictures and going to send them to him to hope cheer him up so off we went. The wife and I did wear our N95 masks the whole time, stayed 6 feet apart and being high 80's sweated my butt off. It was held at a burger joint so grabbed some burgers, fries and shakes and took them home to eat in cool AC. I was the only Ford pick up of any year, 1 - 50's and 3 mid 60's Chevy pick ups. Dave ---- Dave, The demographic of the car shows are car nights is most definitely an older one, at least around here. At 48 years old, I'm often one of the youngest guys around...lol. I have three good friends my age that all had old cars and all of them sold them because unfortunately their kids had no interest in them. Two of them had these cars since the late 80's...one an early 80's Corvette, and the other a mid-70's Trans Am, and it's pretty hard to get the young fellas interested in that stuff these days. More interior progress today! I am pleased to say that after 36 years without, the old Blue Mule now has a radio/stereo. I installed Kenwood 6.5 speakers in the doors and a Kenwood media player head unit. It sounds and works great. Now that the door panels are fixed up and installed with new sound insulation, and new door seals, the cab is noticeably quieter inside now. Also installed a new to me factory fat padded steering wheel (Thanks Chris!), and I installed a new (used) instrument cluster lens that is in much better condition than my original. And to top it all off and make it all pretty together, I re-painted all of the silver edging on the bezels! And tonight before shutting down the garage, I painted the steel part of the accelerator pedal, and E-bracke release bracket, and the handle for the bench seat slide. I still have a long list of little tasks that need to be done, but it's starting to feel complete!

Excellent!

Man do I hear you on that one. I was able to take my truck to the company 60th birthday party that they had a car / truck / bike show back in November then nothing. But I do have to say the state has lifted a little more of the stay at home Friday. I was told of a cruise in not far from the house today put together for a car guy's birthday but he is in the hospital (not looking good) so they video taped it and took pictures and going to send them to him to hope cheer him up so off we went. The wife and I did wear our N95 masks the whole time, stayed 6 feet apart and being high 80's sweated my butt off. It was held at a burger joint so grabbed some burgers, fries and shakes and took them home to eat in cool AC. I was the only Ford pick up of any year, 1 - 50's and 3 mid 60's Chevy pick ups. Dave ---- Dave, The demographic of the car shows are car nights is most definitely an older one, at least around here. At 48 years old, I'm often one of the youngest guys around...lol. I have three good friends my age that all had old cars and all of them sold them because unfortunately their kids had no interest in them. Two of them had these cars since the late 80's...one an early 80's Corvette, and the other a mid-70's Trans Am, and it's pretty hard to get the young fellas interested in that stuff these days.