Rembrant

I'll have a look and try that. Good idea. The other issue, which I'm not too concerned with at the moment is the fairly nasty positive camber currently. There's not much left to install on the front end...core support, radiator, battery tray and battery, hood, and coolant. I hope that squats the front a little more. I guess the bed will add to the overall weight as well...so while it looks like an issue currently, it might not be so bat later on once all of the truck is on the frame.

Oh...wait...did you mean stick a pry bar up through the suction of the pump? I never thought of that...

I can't jam the impeller as the pump is still on the engine. I don't think you can reach the bolts with the pulley in the way. There's not much room between the pulley on the front of the pump, and the fan on the back of the clutch. Just a big nut (36mm wrench fits well, so 1 1/2" or so). I guess I'll try to make a U-shaped plate that fits a couple of the bolt holes in the water pump pulley. I've read where guy use an air chisel on the edges of the big hex nut. Might try that. I guess worse case scenario I'll cut it off with a recip, but I was hoping to salvage the clutch as it feels OK. Oh...I was actually planning to remove that slider...lol. I like the classic look of it, but it's pretty grungy. I saved the newer one out of the 1995 donor truck that I swapped the chassis out of and was planning to use it. It needs a deep cleaning as well, but it is 15 years newer. I'll have a better loook at the old aluminum one after I finish the thousand other things higher on the priority list haha.

Looks good to me. I love it when they're all still intact in original condition like this, at least you have a good baseline as a starting point, no matter what direction you take. SOO many of these trucks are all butchered and chopped up by now it makes it very difficult to troubleshoot what all of the previous owners have done. The very early build date of 09/84 explains why the truck is carbureted. A few months later, all of the 302's were changed over to EFI (I believe in January or Feb of 1985). Heater core must have been leaking? I assume that is why it was bypassed. They're cheap of course, but a little bit of a pain to change on a Non-AC truck.

Dave, I was actually able to get the tires installed yesterday. Ever try to install a set of tire/wheels without lifting them?>..ha. It took a little screwing around with the jack, but it worked. Anyway, I know that 31's on 10" rims is probably not the preferred set-up, but I was wanting this arrangement, and for all intents and purposes, this truck (if I can ever finish it) will not get driven very much or very far. The tires would rot before I'd ever wear them out. It really IS just a project for something to do, and something to play around with when done. Anyway, I ran into a bit of a snag yesterday. I'm trying to finish up some engine bay work before I install the core support. I need to do fuel pump, oil filter, steering box, wiring, etc...just a bunch of stuff that will be easier without the core support in place. I wasn't planning on changing the water pump right away, but when I pulled the short little stub of hose off it yesterday I found the hose barb was rusted out, so I guess I need to add a water pump to the list. Problem is...how to remove that darn clutch fan on the 300 when it's well rusted in place?? I have a wrench that fits it, and according to my searches it is reverse thread (right to loosen), but how in the bloody heck do you hold the water pump from turning? I guess I'll have to make some kind of plate that bolts on to 2 or 4 of the pulley bolt holes on the water pump? And then...pray (with a hammer) that I can break that clutch fan loose? Any tips or tricks from a 300 inline 6 guy?

He might be able to come up with a solution for the 1980-1984 Rosewood center bezels as I believe the Rosewood printed areas are flat. The 1985-1986 Burlwood center bezels are going to be really difficult to decal over as the DIN style radio opening protrudes from the flat face of the panel. This causes some compound corners to cover which is not going to be very easy for the common guy like me. I guess a guy could paint over the protruded part with satin black or something...that would probably look fine. I'm totally into it, but from what I see, his product won't work for me.

I thought that the Bronco's and 4x2 F150's used the same rear swaybar end links, no? I know that the 4x4 and 4x2 F150's are different, but I thought for some reason that because of the Bronco's short wheelbase, they utilized the same end links as the 4x2 trucks. Maybe the holes are in different locations? There was a guy on FTE not too long ago removed a rear swaybar assembly from a Bronco and installed it on a 4x2 F150. It looked like it was hanging lower, but I couldn't really tell tbh.

Greg, Is it a Canadian built truck, or US? We've seen the odd '86 with late build dates. I've seen a couple with October build dates, and I've heard reports of November'86 build dates, but have not personally seen those ones. I'd imagine that with the model changeover some of the plants were later than others in switching over. I'm rebuilding a 1980 that has a very early build date (Sept '79) so our trucks are about as far apart in age as a pair of Bullnoses can get. I went to a car show in Lethbridge one time back when I was living in Calgary 25 years ago. I don't remember much about it...we were just in and right back out in the same afternoon.

That looks great man, as good as anything factory in appearance.

I think I'm done. They don't appear to either understand or care. And I don't see a way on eBay to flag that it is improperly advertised. What I'd like to do is to tell them I'm going to flag it because it is false advertising. Maybe I could get their attention. But I can't figure out how to flag it. Does anyone know? Other suggestions? Gary I was just commenting for the heck of it. I wouldn’t bother doing anything.

It has to be, because the only other connection is at the water pump.

The issue I have with this kit are the radio bezel decals. I guess technically they do fit...but for the purposes of refinishing a bezel set, they wouldn't really work. See below. Here is my little collection of Bullnose center bezels. A 1983 on the left, my 1984 delete bezel, and then a couple 1986 wood grains. And a closer pic of the 1983 and 1984 (delete) bezels: So decals #4 and #5 clearly fit around the knobs on the 1980-1984 style radio bezels. Decal #7 fits the upper blank area if there is no text there like "XL", "XLT", "Custom", etc, etc. I'm not sure where decal #6 fits, unless it fits the middle of a delete bezel?? So the issue is...the decals for the instrument bezel cover the actual woodgrain patterns from 1980-1986, but the center bezel decals would NOT cover the wood grain patterns at all. I guess they could be neat to add...but they wouldn't really give you a matched set...not in the sense that I'd want a matched set. Unless one of you can see something that I'm missing here.

Interesting, Bruce. I've never heard of this tubing. I'll have to check it out.

Destroying them is the only way to remove them here...lol, but then again a lot of things don't "unscrew" here after a few years, and certainly not after 35-40 years.

You might have to pry on the fenders a little bit, but the core support should tilt forward. The holes in the core support where the bolts pass through are huge to allow for body alignment.

That was 1977 and earlier, I believe. Starting in 1978 they look like my picture above, with the flat tops.

Gary, That was my plan. Pick up a couple feet of tubing and get a couple pieces of 16ga bent up and run some tests at various speeds and temps. Nobody makes these bed sides unfortunately. They are about the only bed sides that are not being made today. I'm sure it's because the Ford side panels, I believe starting in 1978 and running all the way through to 1987 have the fender tubs stamped into the sides...which is not easy to replicate. All of the other "step side" trucks just had flat side panels...which are easy to replicate by comparison.

I'm not too worried about it Jim...16 gauge is pretty heavy...nothing like regular body sheet metal which is what, 20 or 22 gauge? Worse case scenario I can weld in a couple gussets on the underside where they can't be seen. Even if it took me a few days to weld the whole length, I don't really care.

I think I'll simply MIG number 3. I'll make some blocks that are same thickness as the tubing OD, and that way I can clamp it all in plate. I'll stitch it all along, and then fill it in afterwards. In the off chance that it leaves an unsightly mark, I'll put bedliner on it. Done.

Examples...any other ideas?

Ha! Thanks Jim. There is some luck, yes. Do you know how difficult it is to find decent used 15" anything these days? How long has it been now since 15" wheels were the standard? 20+ years, I guess. On top of me searching for this stuff, there are many other guys searching for the same stuff so when it does pop up for sale it disappears fast. The only reason I was even able to buy the tires was that the guy posted them for sale early in the morning around 5am, and I saw the ad 20-30 minutes later and told him I'd take them without even seeing them...lol. Anyway,...I'm having some fun with this stuff. I'm trying to assemble this truck on a budget, which takes a lot of used parts and my free labor...lol. I'll probably sell it in the end, depending on what I could get for it, but what I'd really like is a nice southern truck to work on. Hoping for some decent progress on this truck over the X-mas holidays. Our work shuts down on Christmas eve and doesn't open back up until January 5th, so I'll have a good stretch of days with the workshop to myself. OK fabricators...need to pick your brains. Something I will be working on soon is to build new steel bed sides for this old 1980 Flareside. Replicating the sides is not really a big deal...lots of people have done it before, but I'm a bit fussy in how I want them to look. I've checked with the three biggest sheet metal shops around here and bending the 16ga sides is not a problem, but the one thing none of them can do is the curl at the top of the bed sides: Now, I can buy 1.5" OD round tubing with 0.065" wall thickness which is an almost perfect match for the factory curls, but what I'm wondering is what is the best way to attach them on to flat 16ga sheet metal? The obvious answer is to weld them, which is no problem...but I'm wondering what would provide the most seamless solution? I think ideally I'd have a small section of the round tubing machined out so that I could but-weld the flat sheet to the tubing wall. I don't think that will happen. If I just lay the sheet on top of the tube and weld, there will be a lump there. I guess I can but the flat sheet up against the tubing so that they are sitting flush on top, but with a very slight valley between them...does that make sense? Maybe I should draw some pictures...

I'll be removing one of the old style SRW's from my 1980 in the coming months and replacing it with the factory slider I pulled out of my 1995 chassis donor truck. If I think of it, I'll take it apart and see what the gaskets and seals arrangement looks like. I don't think it will be worth anything to sell.

Subscribed. I don't think I knew what a Gin Pole was for, but I've seen them before.

So what do we want to ask? Something like this? Help me word it, guys! Just what you have there Gary is great.

Cool. That option doesn't work for me, so I assume it is turned off for international customers. It also shows no shipping to Canada. Pretty common, I'm used to that lol.