Rembrant

I am still confused about the 5 sets of blocks versus 4 sets thing. And, maybe it's because my truck is the first model year of the 7th Generation. But, I only have 4 sets of blocks (and, actually started out with three). If you count the sills/x-members from front-to-back (cab to tailgate), there are five. In my truck, #1 sill has them inside the sill and they're used more like crush protection, the bed does not actually sit on them. For Sills #2 & #3, the blocks are partially captured by the sill and are positioned between the sill and the frame (wood contacts metal, above [sill] and below [frame]). Sill #5 (below tailgate) has the blocks sit between the sill and the frame (unlike sill #1? My #5 sill has had a tough life and may no longer be 'whole'). Sill #4 does not have 5/8" holes drilled for the bolt to go thru the bed floor, thru the sill and thru the frame (there is no 3/4" hole in the frame, at this location, either). It is also longer than sills #2 & #3 so it can span the full width of the bed floor. If you scroll up to the top of the page, I posted pictures of the bed with the floor removed. You can see sills #2 & #3 sitting on their respective wood blocks. Sill #4 is sitting on the frame. So.......what? I have an odd ball truck? Or, First Model Year of a new Generation always has quirks? Hmm... Here's a pic of the sill Mar-K manufactures: I cannot tell if it's built like sill #1 (encapsulates the blocks) or sills #2 & #3, sits on the blocks I made some new ones from pressure treated 4x4 lumber. As I mentioned, I already cut blocks to fit inside sill #1. I made blocks for sills #2 & #3 and then realized I didn't have enough 4x4 for the two blocks for sill #5. I'll have to go digging in the shed/wood scrap bin. I also realized that the blocks with two holes are only to simplify assembly; they're "ambidextrous", they can be used on either frame rail. So, the person assembling the bed didn't have to think about which blocks they were grabbing from the bin. Since I know which is which, I only drilled one hole in each (thus making them 'dextrous'...). And, yes, I took comprehensive measurements and made an elevation drawing of each block (my high school mechanical drawing teacher would be so proud). This continues to blow my mind. The only thing I could think of is that they knew they were phasing these beds out. So, it didn't make any sense to come up with new tooling to make the bed floors out of metal. Here's a picture of my 1984 when I was assembling it. My 1980 (and the 1980 before that one) was the same. You can only see the front sill and 3 crossmembers here, but there's also two wood blocks in the rear sill, encapsulated in metal brackets, the same as the front sill. If yours are missing, they may have broken off...they do that. They crack from vibration, and eventually break off. I had to weld one new one in place on my 1980 F150 as it was completely missing. I can post a picture of what they look like later when I get home. The wood blocks that go in the metal on the rear sill have a step in them.

Ya, the front and rear sills have the wood blocks encapsulated in the metal...so technically you can set the whole bed on there without wood blocks at all, and then slide them in later. Mine were always a tight fit so I shaved them until they could be tapped lightly into place. There would have been 5 sets of blocks originally. The front and rear sills, and then three crossmembers in between. I don't remember what the original blocks in my '84 were made from. For my 1980, I made a new set out of some hardwood that was laying around...but I forget what it was. Hard to believe, that as recently as the late 1980's they were still using wood parts to build these trucks haha.

That frame looks great man, well done. And good job on the wood blocks too. Funny, I've never heard those bits called paddle bits before...I call 'em spade bits! If I remember right, the holes are 5/8's and the bolts 1/2"? By the way, the wood blocks are kinda odd in that all five rows are different, but they are pretty straight forward to make. Guys always stress over them and are looking for dimensions, etc... When the Flareside bed is assembled, even with no floor, you can set the whole thing on the frame and it will sit at normal stock height without the wood blocks because the front and rear sills have the metal mounts with wood inside them. On the last bed that I build, the wood blocks for the three middle rows were the last items I made. The sizes were easy to measure with the bed installed. In any case, good job. It's looking great.

Congrats, and nice truck! If I had a 4x4, I'd want it to sit just like that;).

I'm here! Sorry, I'm not as involved in the forum as I once was. Sadly my Bullnoses are gone and I'm now rocking a much less interesting Mustang GT for my personal Ford content;) I installed a 1996 4R70W trans in my 1952 pickup. I used a B&M 80775 universal floor shifter for it, and I ended up modifying the factory 4R70W shifter arm to work with the 80775 shifter kit. I modified a B&M mounting bracket, and for the transmission shifter I basically modified it to match a B&M arm. I didn't take many pictures of this project, so not much to share here other than memories at this point. I don't see what it wouldn't work with a bell crank system, with some modified linkages. Might take a bit to get the geometry correct. For the transmission crossmember gussets in my 1984 F150 with the 5spd swap, I extended the tops of them with some scrap angle iron I had laying around. I think I had to move them back by 1.25" or so. Anyway, here's a picture showing the extension and the two new upper mounting holes. This still provided plenty of support for the upper crossmember (where the rear cab mounts sit). I drilled new holes in the lower lip of the frame for the ends of the crossmember. Hope this makes sense...

Reminds me of the old Toyota pickup and 4Runner factory step bumpers with the black plastic caps on the ends. There were so many companies making aftermarket bumpers back them...some of them were difficult to find 20 years ago let alone today. Good luck!

No special fab skills really...just a home mechanic with a welder! The Trans Am was at the body shop that painted the bedsides for me. It was a long term project of the guy that worked there. I can weld, but I don't do body work...that part I farmed out;). Dave on the other hand does it all! I have my limitations;). I enjoy following along with anything Flareside related. They're very cool trucks;). Keep it up.

I will look into this but I think I'd rather fix what I have as opposed to using something new. I have no idea how I would manage to match the (faded) paint. The rear 'panel' has a double set of braces whereas the front only has one. But, yes, you're right. If you look closely at this image, you can see one of the bracket holes just above the band clamp on the fuel filler hose. So, yes, the step bracket is bolted the front of the bed and there's also a support bracket that's bolted to the under side the bed floor (which is fastened to the middle bolt of the three that hold the step to the flare). I think it's pretty cool that you used a metal bed, from a style side, in your flare side. I do think the wood floor is kinda cool though. Since I won't be using my truck like you do, using wood will be just fine. My steps are sun burned paint and I won't have any issue putting my dirty boots on them. That said, they'll probably see little use. Your truck is nice and I'd be leery of using those steps, too! Anyone have any suggestions on bed flooring suppliers (I do not need hardware, just wood)? I'm considering something other than Pine or Red Oak as long as it's affordable. I will not be selecting Pine unless it's old-growth Southern Pine (which has been sitting for the last 50 years). That stuff is like rock unlike the current stuff, which is like foam-board. Ash, Maple, Poplar or Cypress would be my other considerations. TIA. On the last one I did, my 1980 F150 4x4, I believe it was red oak that I used. It was the cheapest oak I could buy locally, and it worked just fine. I had the shop cut them to the correct length, and then I cut the slots in them with a table saw. I stained them with Minwax Provincial, and then put three coats are marine spar varnish or whatever it's called, sanding in between coats (except for the last coat). The wood cost me about $300 (Canadian) locally, so it should be even less in the US. You'll notice that my bedsides do not have the inner fender tubs. I made these sides from scratch, and installing tubs was going to be way too much work on top of something I already had way too much work in lol. I had so many hours into that bad you have no idea...lol. AS for the rear sill, the one I used in this bed was a used one from down south, and while it was relatively rust free, it was cracked in several places just like yours, and somebody had drilled about 20 holes in it screwing down new bed wood. I betcha I had a week of evenings just welding up that rear sill. You can buy new ones from Mar-K in Oklahoma and the fit and finish is A1, really. When I built my 1984 F150 Flareside, I used all new steel in the bed, except for the tailgate and the steps. I had to fab and weld new stake pockets on to the new steel side panels, but all the crossmembers and sills, head board, etc were all new.

HA! Touche Mr. Lewis! I always wondered about some of the old motorhome RV's with 351's in them. I bet they were screaming with a C6 trying to move a house down the road! Everybody wanted an "RV Cam" back in the day...is that still a thing???

I'm here to tell you that you will remain confused about what the "stake pocket" is for. It has been discussed and talked about many times over the years. It IS a factory piece, installed when the truck was built. As for what it's purpose is? I don't think anybody has ever confirmed. I always assumed it was a registration jig for the assembly line...but some people are adamant that's there to protect the fuel filler neck from getting pinched up against the side of the bed in the even of a side impact. I think some people said it was a leftover part from the previous generation(s) of Flaresides that was somehow part of a side mount for a spare tire, back when they still did that. In any case, all anybody can do is guess...unless one of us happens to find somebody that worked on the assembly line back then;). I'm as confused about it's purpose as I was years ago. In any case, everybody usually throws that part away and just puts new bolts in the empty holes. That's what I did, as did many others. Good luck! PS: Be careful with the fuel filler neck and the vent line inside it...neither are available in the aftermarket. I cleaned them up and re-used them on the Falresides I rebuilt. That bed looks like it's in nice condition! Congrats. I'll be following along.

I figured the one you're looking at must be a big one if it has a 460. Most of the 80's ones I looked at had 351's in them. My old 31 ft '93 had definitely been used to tow. Here's a pic from the previous owner below. I removed the brake controller and sold it separately, but I left the hitch on it. I was never going to tow with it, so it was a non-issue for me. If you're a mechanic and home renovator combined, an old RV is a cake walk lol. When we were finished with the interior of ours, it was really nice. Tip of the hat to my wife for being the decorator she is! I'm just the laborer!;).

We bought an RV in the hard depths of Covid in the early spring of 2020. It was a BEAST...a 1993 31ft E350 with an EFI 460, and E4OD trans. It was a fun project, and quite welcome at the time. I think we paid $13,500 CAN for it, and it had several things wrong with it. Generator didn't work, every single outdoor compartment didn't open lol, black water tank had been damaged and removed, big front camper window was broken (The one above the cab). I tuned it up, we fixed everything that didn't work, and my wife and I did a nice reno of the inside. We sold it that fall for almost $20k. I don't think we made any money on it, and if we did it wasn't much. By the time the Covid summer was over and gas prices started rising again, we ended up selling it. It got 8.5mpg pretty consistently, which was actually better than I thought it would get. It was fun while it lasted, and we toured around with it visiting friends and "mooch-docking" in their yards haha. I think we had more fun rehabbing it than actually camping in it. Gas is $1.87 per liter here right now ($7.15 per gallon) so keeping a 460 for ANY reason was out of the question for us lol. I looked at a few 80's RV's prior to buying this 1993, and they were all too rough around here...soft floors, or bad leaks, or both. They were also significantly cheaper though, so there is that. If it's solid, and you wanted to try one (and it's a decent deal), I'd recommend it!

Yes sir, that is the factory original Flareside license plate bracket. Long obsolete and very hard to find. Yours looks to be in quite nice condition. The part numbers for the Grote lights was 52802 and 52812. You may still find them in stock in a warehouse or with an aftermarket supplier somewhere, but Grote stopped making them about 2 years ago. They're almost identical to the originals. Only thing I had to do was cut off the plugs and extend the harness a little bit. Otherwise, they're basically the same thing. Good luck finding them though...I'm not sure on the availability. You could also look around the Grote website...they may have some similar lights still available.

The lack of a ground wire has caused a lot of confusion for Flareside owners over the years. The topic comes up occasionally because I think we all (by default) assume there's a ground wire. Truth is, there never was one. The Flareside beds may have been an OK grounding point when they were new, but add in some rust and the taillights got wonky pretty quickly. Grote used to sell new lights that were almost identical to the factory originals, but they obsoleted them about two years ago. I bought and installed two sets of them.

That's the original factory lamp for the Flareside license plate bracket. They're long obsolete and fairly hard to find. They do show up on Ebay from time to time as they were used on a couple other Ford vehicles.

Here's a snip from the 1985 EVTM. You can see below that the Flaresides and Chassis Cabs had no ground wires...they were only grounded by the three mounting studs.

The Flareside taillights did not have a ground wire at all...at least the earlier ones didn't. I have heard reports that Ford added a ground wire to the tailights later on, like in 1985 or 1986, but I've never seen one, and there's no documentation of one ever having existed. There were only three wires going to each of the rear tailights...one for brake, one for turn signal, and one for reverse light. The tallight housing was grounded through the three mounting studs to the mounting bracket, which was grounded to the bed. The only ground wire in the back of the Flaresides was for the small 194 bulb that illuminated the license plate. It was a short wire and was grounded to the frame on the left rear corner, just a few inches from the light itself. When I installed new rear taillights on the Flaresides I built, I ran a dedicated ground wire from one of the mounting studs directly to the frame. They will work much better this way. The Flareside beds were terrible grounds lol.

Gary, 5 Star vote from me. I have purchased several stereos and speakers from Crutchfield over the years, and they have always been great to deal with. Good prices, good selection, good documentation and support, and the website allows for convenient comparisons.

Oh cool, the price took a big jump from when I looked last. Nice that it's over 20k. I hope he gets his reserve price for it.

Good point. I don't know that mine had that hard a life.but it is definitely in a harsher environment than my PowerHorse. Ya, unfortunately for me my RV had had some winter miles on her. The underslung generator position I'm sure is perfectly fine in better climates. The replacement circuit board I bought had some upgrades over the original, one of which was a complete gel coat or similar clear coating that protected it.

Good day folks, I just got back from a vacation in Florida...mostly to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary, but it just so happened that the first day of Barrett Jackson Palm Beach was our last day in Florida, so I was able to attend. First things first...what an awesome event for a car guy/gear head. There was a ton of stuff to see, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. Ford was doing "Hot Laps" in 2024 Mustang GT Dark Horse editions (500+ HP?) and I got to go for one of these hot laps. Luckily for me, I got to go in a manual trans car...which was very very cool. This thing was a beast, and I laughed like a kid the whole time I was in it. Anyway... I did happen to see one Bullnose in the tents awaiting it's turn on the auction block. It was a lovely little dark blue short bed 2wd truck. I absolutely LOVED the color...I have a thing for blue...lol. The truck was in very nice condition, but it had a 1987-1996 bed on it...which would have been a deal breaker for me. I wasn't buying, so it doesn't matter...lol, but I'd prefer it with a proper Bullnose bed on it. The truck sold for almost $20K!!! https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1985-FORD-F-150-CUSTOM-PICKUP-277693 I'm a bit surprised to be honest. I wouldn't have pegged this truck as being worth that kind of money. Congrats to the seller obviously...we always want to get the highest price possible. I personally wouldn't have paid that much for it...but my opinion doesn't matter;). I did see another Ford pickup queued up for the auction block while I was there, and I would have assumed it to sell for more than the Bullnose....but it didn't... https://www.barrett-jackson.com/Events/Event/Details/1989-FORD-F-250-PICKUP-273803 It's almost like the prices were reversed...but whatever. That 1989 was a nice truck! Anyway, that's all...just some observations! I must go find that thread where Rick was looking for a value on his truck...seeing this blue '85 sell, I'd have to say that Rick's truck would sell for well into the 20's.

I have some Onan experience...posted on her a couple years ago. https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/Any-Ford-RV-Motorhome-experts-on-here-tp23069p63915.html I bought a 31ft 1993 E350 Motorhome with a non-working Onan underslung generator. There turned out to be several problems with it that I figured out one at a time. After that, the thing purred like a kitten and worked like a champ! The main issue with the thing was that the RV had had some winter miles on it, and the road salt and grime had gotten to the main circuit board in the generator and fried it. I found a new upgraded circuit board online, and she fired right up. I did a full tune up and replaced the main bearing in the end housing and she was golden. One interesting thing to note...and it took me a while to figure this out...but I had terrible problems with the thing randomly not starting. It would turn over just fine, but would not fire up. If we were driving the RV down the road and pulled over for a bit it would start right up, no problem. If it had been sitting for a bit, it absolutely would not start. I later figured out that the new circuit board needed a specific minimum voltage in order for the ignition to work. I don't know what that exact number was, but I assumed it was around 12.5v, or even higher. So the big battery in the motorhome, even at 12.5v would spin the Onan starter over like a whirlwind, but it would not allow spark. If the voltage was above about 13v, it started every single time. I have seen the exact same situation with some older Kawasaki motorcycles...specifically a couple different ZRX1200R's. They were carbed, but had electronic ignition modules. If the battery had 11.9v, the starter would crank the engine over all day, but the ignition modules needed (I think) 12v or higher to provide spark. It was weird, because with a boost they'd start no problem, same as that Onan generator. Anyway, just a rambling story with my morning coffee. Good luck with the Onan! They're fun to work on.

Yes, you can use the Bullnose clutch master cylinder, but I'd buy a new one anyway...they're cheap. Buy a hydraulic line for a 1988-1991 F150 5spd, and a new clutch slave cylinder for the same years. The slave is internal and a major pain to change, so I installed new ones when I did it. The 1988-1991 clutch master cylinder is technically the same, but it has a different bolt pattern, so just stick with the Bullnose MC. I bought all my parts on RockAuto.

Was it a diesel at one time that was converted to gas? I'd like to see the certification label:nabble_smiley_whistling: Looks like it has a diesel instrument cluster and instrument cluster bezel. They could have been swapped in too though.

The 80's Flareside beds had 8 mounting bolts. The 1992-1996 Flareside had 6 bolts (I think?). Here's what the factory bed crossmembers look like. The front two bolts go through the front sill to the frame, and the rear two sets of bolts go through the rear sill into the frame. The two sets in the center go through two of the three middle crossmembers. There are 5 pairs of wooden blocks, and all 5 pairs are different. Here's what it looks like with the washers in place, before I put the bolts in: I used all new crossmembers and sills on the bed from Mar-K in Oklahoma. After this truck, I built a second Flareside bed, but this one almost complete from scratch. For the three middle crossmembers, I used 1/8" channel steel...2" wide, with 1" sides, cut to fit. I then cut the wood blocks at home, and sized them all to fit. I drilled 5/8" holes through them with a spade bit so that the 1/2" bed to frame bolts would fit with clearance. For this bed, I used stainless 1/2" carriage bolts. I can answer most questions about these beds...and I have lots of pics, but not every single detail unfortunately.