Rembrant

Yes they do. Direct swap. I installed one in my '84 Flareside. I believe John just installed one recently as well.

I knew about the "Wrongbed" Ford trucks. It's an interesting story, and I honestly don't mind the mismatched look of them. I think it's because they were so common they've been imprinted in my mind that they were supposed to be that way. That unibody design ended up being a really bad idea lol. I really like these auto oddities from the past, like one year wonders and stuff like that.

Yes, perfectly fine. No, not at all. I actually prefer the wider wheel/tire look, even with the smaller size tires. Makes the tire look nice in my opinion.

Neat. Cool old truck too.

The arms are the same overall length though. it's the shoulder that moved and changed the available length of the stud. The only part of the bushing that changed is that the front half of the bushing got shorter. The plastic ring and rubber bushing on the back of the frame bracket are the same from 1980-1996.

The radius arms should be the same length.

I don't have an answer for you, but I know how annoying it is when they're sticky. I hate that.

I don't know for certain, but it's gotta be 2" or smaller, probably 1 7/8" or something like that. Can you slide under there with a Vernier caliper and measure the OD? I just did some exhaust work on my 5.0 with 2.25" pipe, and I know the stock pipes are smaller than that....or at least they are in my memory lol. YMMV.

My memory isn't what it used to be Gary lol. I had to Google some things that I used to rhyme off without even thinking haha. The old '84 Flareside is still alive and well. A friend of mine sees it going all the time. (It's new home is 70 miles away).

I've had a few 5.0's, and have spent a bunch of money building them up...the second last one I had dyno-tuned and all. It worked really nicely in my little 1984 F150 Flareside. I can say that the 5.0 is one of my favorite engines for sure...and they sound great when built, even mildly. Most of the big power gains in a 5.0 are in the 3000+ RPM range, which is fine if that's where you're planning to operate it. I just finished building a 5.0 for my 1952 pickup, and I decided to do a budget build...but not really for budget purposes if that makes any sense. This truck is just going to be a cruiser, and will never be above 3000 RPM, and rarely even above 2500 RPM, so there was no sense in me building it up for higher RPM HP that I'd never use. I have the engine installed with an AODE-W transmission (4R70W), so it will cruise highway speeds with ease. I specifically went with a 5.0 out of a 1996 F150 because I wanted the 1994-up F4TZ roller cam. In 1994 the 5.0 got the F4TZ cam with the H.O. firing order (351w), and it was probably the best stock cam to get low end power out of the 5.0. Other than that, it's a stock '96 5.0 roller block bored 0.030 over, with rebuilt stock E7 heads. I installed a cheap aluminum 4bbl intake from a 1984 Mustang 5.0 GT, and a Summit 500CFM 4bbl carb with annular boosters. I also went with a new DSII distributor from a roller block Mustang GT. I'll probably have it custom curved later on. I went with a set of cheap Ebay block hugger headers for fitment purposes. It's about as budget as a 5.0 can get. It will probably be a 180-200HP engine, but I don't really care about that. I just wanted a nice little 5.0 cruiser with the AODE that sounds good and runs along nicely on the highway when I want to travel with it. I went with black this time for a change.

Right. The radius arms changed in 1987 on the 2wd trucks, and the bushings got shorter. I assume they did this to improve braking and to just tighten the front end up in general. I swapped in a a new set of the later radius arms on my 1984 F150. They work perfectly fine, but you must also use the later design bushings with them. If you're anywhere near the rust belt, radius arms are bad for rusting at the ends, inside the bushings. I did a bunch of measuring on these parts a few years ago.

That's my old '84 2wd F150 Flareside not long after I bought it in 2017. 100% stock original suspension in that photo. Truck only had about 35,000 original miles on it when I picked it up. Tires are Cooper Cobra 275/60-15 on Cragar Soft-8 15"x8" Wheels. All four the same size. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/crr-3975855 Later on after I finished the body and paint on the truck I swapped on a set of U.S. Wheel Blades. Series 26, also in 15"x8". Same 275/60-15 Cooper Cobras. I lowered the truck 2" in the rear with a DJM shackle kit. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/usw-26-5855 I know lowered and bagged trucks are all the rage today, but I still prefer them in their original 80's and 90's stance, with the rear a little higher than the front the way they used to be. That will forever be my favorite truck look.

Great pics and information Big Brother! Thanks for sharing. I know of Anticosti Island, but I have never been there. I've visited the Magdalen Islands once back in 2011, and have been around the Gaspe several times. I have been to Port Cartier with work, and I've flown in and out of Sept Iles many times on my way to and from Labrador, so I've flown over Anticosti several times. Beautiful country up there...lots of wildlife, whales, seals, and massive mosquitos haha. For those that like seafood, coastal Quebec is a great place to travel. I particularly like pizza aux fruits de mer (Seafood Pizza) and if you're lucky enough a lobster clubhouse sandwich!

Right. Out here on the east coast we had our own regional DSO number, and it would be rare to find a Bullnose truck out here with AC or HD cooling. On the flip side, the HO Heaters were relatively common, as were factory block heaters. Imagine back in those days, the radiator was also specific to the transmission. The standard 21" radiator in my '84 did not have provisions for an automatic transmission. It's funny though, I've seen people comment online before that they'd never seen a Bullnose without AC! I don't know about the US, but I am sure it is the same as here in Canada that they do offer different option packages for different areas. I bought a new Silverado company truck in 2013, and it had to be silver. The dealer found one in New Brunswick (next province west of us), but it had raised white letter AT tires and a limited slip differential. He told me that all the new trucks in NB came that way. I assume that was dealer driven, but it was a regional thing regardless. I also had a bunch of diesel Volkswagens over the years, and I know specifically with those cars that AC was an option in Canada, while it the US it was standard and could not be opted out of. These days everything is pretty standard I would imagine, but Gary did confirm the other day that DRL's still are not required in the US and they've been mandatory up here for a couple decades at least.

Isn't that the whole internet summed up in a single statement?

I've only put a couple thousand miles on it since I got it, but so far it has been hitting 18-19 MPG. That's with a mix of city and hwy. With a full tank on the hwy it'll probably do 20 if I balloon foot it. I believe the truck has the MDS, or multi-displacement-system that deactivates 4 of the 8 cylinders under low load for saving fuel. Otherwise, I thought the Hemi's were PIG'S on fuel, but this one seems to be OK. It's a 2018 with about 40k miles on it. As for the kick me sign...hahaha...well, I'm not overly brand loyal to anything, but I have never owned or particularly liked Dodge trucks. I like the old tin grilled Power Wagons of the 1970's, but the newer ones not so much. It's a nice truck to drive and all, but coming from a Toyota Tacoma it feels a bit loose and clunky to me. I had a 2006 F150 company truck for quite a few years, and it was a decent rig. I'd prefer an F150 over a Dodge, but beggars can't be choosers as they say. If the company is buying I'll take what they're offering lol. As for the '52 Merc mileage, I guess we will see. Will it be more or less aerodynamic than my Bullnose trucks? It's about the same weight as my '84 Flareside was. I have high hopes for the 500CFM Summit carb on the basically stock 5.0 with the later F4 cam. The 4R70W has a taller OD than the M5OD, but this truck has 3.55 gears compared to my old Bullnose with the 3.08's. In any case, I'd be happy with mid to high teens MPG, and absolutely ecstatic if it hit 20 MPG, but I'm not crossing my fingers on that one.

Ya, so about $6.70 CAN for me. Not quite seven bucks, but close enough. I just got a company vehicle again....a Dodge Ram that I really dislike, but it came with a company gas card too, so I'm OK with it. I sold my Tacoma (which wasn't great on fuel) and my wife works at home, so our gas bills are relatively low these days. Still, they're worth complaining about. A big part of the reason for installing a trans with OD in my old '52 project truck is so that I can drive it (a lot), and potentially take it on trips. If it gets anywhere near what this Hemi ram gets for MPG, I'll be happy, but I'm not optimistic about it.

Great thread Gary, I need to buy new 7" round headlights for my '52 pickup so I'll give this a read. I simply want the best bang for the buck, so not necessarily the brightest lights, but the brightest for the least amount of money . By the way, are daytime running lights a thing in the US yet, or no? I have imported a few trucks from the US and always had to add the little aftermarket DRL kits to make them compliant up here;).

It seems to work...sort of. I guess I was just spoiled with Autotempest.com I don't know if Craigslist kicked them all off or what, but what motivation is there in not allowing a nation wide search? Facebook Marketplace is the same way and I find it really annoying. You have to go city by city all across the country. Kijiji was always the Canadian version of Craigslist, and it allows a national search, but it doesn't allow you to pick any kind of a range. For example if you wanted to search for a Bullnose, you'd have to search for each individual year. In any case, Facebook Marketplace seems to have made Kijiji almost obsolete now...mostly just older and non-FB people using it. The amount of stuff on it is wayyy down these days. I'm a Facebook user, but I'd be totally fine if it died off and went extinct.

They're not even flared...they seal with a washer. https://www.summitracing.com/parts/hly-26-24 I shouldn't say that the items themselves were stupid expensive, but two of them were $31 and then another $31 to ship them, times 1.4 FX and tax, they cost me about $90 delivered LOL. Well, $1.763 per liter this week, whatever that works out to. I had it as $7 bucks in my head, but maybe not quite that bad currently.

This poor old project has been on the back burner for weeks now. Busy at work, and working when I'm home, so there's been no time for the truck lately. Anyway, today I installed the TPS on my carb to test it out. I tried it previously but the hard piped tube was in the way, so I had to order some very expensive Holley fittings so I can run rubber fuel hose. They took a few weeks to arrive, and today I finally had time to try it out. Original setup... Barbed inlets instead of hard pipe: TPS installed: It's a Holley TPS kit on a Summit carb...but the Summit carb was previously a Holley 4010, which was previously an Autolite 4100, I think? Anyway, it fits OK but still needs some tweaking, and I found out that my choke cap is broken. The little brass base that the spring is attached to has broken loose from one of the rivets holding it to the plastic cap. So is life. I'm going to have to bend or modify the linkage a bit as it rubs on the back of the choke housing, and the adjustment screw doesn't sit evenly on the red plastic choke linkage. It fits on the engine fine and clears the valve cover with some extra room. So now I need to get a new choke cap and play with this thing a bit to get it working nice and smooth. For anybody that doesn't know, the whole purpose of the TPS on the carb is so that my throttle communicates with the Quick4 controller for my electronic 4R70W transmission. These days an auto trans is a requirement for me, as is overdrive. With gas at 7 bucks a gallon here, I'm not driving anything without OD. That's all from the busted knuckle garage today. Back to your regular Bullnose entertainment;).

G'day Folks, Is there a way to search Craigslist nationwide, or are you basically limited to individual cities? I used to use Searchtempest or Autotempest, but it looks like they don't work with Craigslist anymore.

Welcome aboard! Love the 85pig name, and Oologah too lol. Neat. Lots of 300-six fans and experts on here.

There was a new guy posted just the other day with a 5.0 and factory manual steering...couple pictures in his thread: https://forum.garysgaragemahal.com/1984-F-150-Short-Bed-First-Project-Car-and-First-Bullnose-tp125974.html See if he'll swap with ya;), you never know. Welcome aboard by the way. I've been to Minnesota a few times over the years. My first experience ever of driving on a lake was there, outside of Mankato somewhere. It's a weird feeling when you've never done it before lol. We passed right through the state on I-90 while on vacation back in 2011, and I'll never forget my wife saying "wow, I've never seen so much corn" LOL.

Well, this 8-lug stuff is all unknown to me, so I knew nothing on the topic until I looked, but I was curious. Interesting...I just checked my 1984 FSM, and it shows the 1985-up style lower mounting bracket.