Rembrant

I might have missed it somewhere along the way, but what is the cost to modify an original AM/FM radio so that it can be Bluetooth capable? I don't have a radio (yet), but I'm on the hunt for some replacement bezels, and radio options might determine what bezel(s) I buy.

Gary, I was looking through the interior of this old 1980 this evening, and I don't believe that I've ever seen a Bullnose with a black center/radio bezel with a clock before. I've seen lots of clocks, but always in the woodgrain bezels. Maybe I'm just not used to the earlier black bezels. Too bad it has been all chopped up. I have a nice black one from an '83, but it's not a Custom and has no cutout for the clock. I wonder how difficult it will be to find a replacement that is the same... Also, something else I noticed that was new to me...the instrument bezel. I know the 1980 ones are different because of the turn signal indicator locations, but I noticed that there was no 4x4 indicator on the far right, and nothing in the far left indicator slot either. Was this a 1980 only thing? This is also new to me.

Is this one of the refrigerated dryers? I am so jealous right now! I have a tube style dessicant dryer, and it works good enough, but having a proper dryer is the cat's ass, as they say. We have no dryer at all at work, and you can see the water spraying out of the air chuck nozzle...lol.

Thanks Scott. That is the shop at my work. Since I manage the shop the owner is kind enough to let me use it for my rusty junk projects lol. It’s a wonderful perk of my employment there. I can make a big mess there lol, and the lifting equipment is very handy. Business is a little quiet at the moment, but if something comes up and we get busy or take on a project, I’ll have to get my stuff out of the way ASAP.

Thanks Jim! This old rust bucket has been keeping me plenty busy. I bought the big 10lb? roll of Mig wire a few years ago thinking it would last me a lifetime...lol. With this truck, I don't know about that...lol. Still, I'm having some fun with it. I was in the mood to build and fabricate...well, I'm getting my fill with this thing. Well that’s it for another weekend early shift. Did some work to the bottom of the cab and then set it on the frame. I feel like I accomplished a lot but I still have so much work to do ugh lol. Tried this from iPhone earlier and had trouble so I’m taking another stab at it now...

Thanks Jim! This old rust bucket has been keeping me plenty busy. I bought the big 10lb? roll of Mig wire a few years ago thinking it would last me a lifetime...lol. With this truck, I don't know about that...lol. Still, I'm having some fun with it. I was in the mood to build and fabricate...well, I'm getting my fill with this thing.

Is that a friend deal somewhere, or is that a standard price?

Ya, that started in 1992 as a crumple zone. The frames are the same from the core supports back, but the front ends are boxed and crumpled.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but by 1988, 99% of these 8.8 rear ends had 3.08 or 3.55's in them. 5+ could possibly have been added at some point, but it wouldn't come from the factory tagged like that, not on an F150. 5.03's would put the inline 300 into it's redline on the highway.

Thanks Gary. It's a bit ugly looking, but once it's all welded up and painted, it will look fine. Besides, nobody will see it anyway.

So, I finally tackled the Bullnose frame horn swap this morning! Others have done this very thing before, but little info is available, and it seems like everybody does it differently. Anyway, here are some pictures to show my what little peach pit brain decided to do. Don't mind all the rust...I'm still in the process of cleaning that up, I just need to finish some other tasks first. I cut these Bullnose bumper horns off an '86 at the local junkyard before it got hauled off for scrap. I added a plate in the back of the horn to give me something to weld to and attach it to the boxed 1995 frame. I then notched out my back plate so that the boxed end of the frame was still open. I want to be able to spray rustproofing / undercoating in there, plus it allows me to weld inside. Everything is currently just tacked in place, but strong enough to hold it well. The bumper fit on just great, and all of my measurements check out OK. My welder gas was on the verge of running out, so I left it as is for now. Once I get my bottle filled up, I'll weld everything in place permanently, and blend things in a little better. That was it for today. A lot of measuring and test fitting, but I think it will be fine. Everything seems to measure out OK, and there's enough slop in those elongated holes I can always shim the bumper around a little bit if necessary. Hoping to sit the cab on the frame tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Did somebody put those gears in the 8.8? It wouldn't have come from Ford with those. Is it an off-road truck?

I get it. I ordered a gallon and it is currently sitting in my office. I plan to only use it on the frame, axles, etc. Maybe the underside of the cab. For anywhere in the body panels, I’ll continue to use the traditional clear products.

I like it. I'd drive it just like it is.

Gary, Wouldn't it be cool to talk to a Ford insider from back in the Bullnose era? I'd love to know more about the manufacturing and production numbers.

Well, the truck was scheduled to be built on August 9th, 1979 and wasn't built until Sept 20th, 1979. I know this is only guessing, but I assume that it has something to do with the tooling changeover delays, as I've seen other Marti reports where the actual build date is indicated as being within a couple days +/- of the scheduled build date. On the production numbers, I remembered that a guy parked beside me this summer at one of the Thursday night cruise-ins, and I took a picture of his certification label. His truck was also a 1984, built one month after mine, also in the Ontario plant. Our sequential serial numbers were 11,594 apart. Only issue is that we don't know if that was 10 days apart, or 60. If I divide by 50, I get 231 units per day. Only way to know for sure would be to order Marti reports for both, which I won't be doing...lol. I will be ordering one for my '84 at some point though, so I'll know then if it was built early in the month or late. I guess what I'm getting at is that it looks like they were probably pumping out at least a couple hundred trucks per day.

Well, I would assume that the switch between the 1979 models and the 1980 models wouldn't be nearly as smooth as say, 1980-1981, etc. Not that it matters much in this case...but it would have surely taken some time to change over. One of the vintage videos, I believe posted on here somewhere, shows the trucks rolling off the assembly line at the Virginia plant (I believe, in 1981) and I thought they said they were building 200 trucks a day. Would the Canadian plant be similar? Who knows...maybe they were only building 50 trucks a day. It says that the truck was built 42 days late, but it still made it out in September. I suppose the long delay had something to do with the tooling change over? Who knows. Still, these Marti reports are kinda neat to "geek out" on.

With little to no history on this truck, and no Certification label, the curiosity got the best of me and I decided to spring for a Marti report. It's an extravagant purchase for a truck in this condition, but I was curious nonetheless. Ordered in June of '79, and built in September '79, it's a fairly early build for the Canadian plant. No idea how many F-series they were building per day...be curious to know that. I'm sure Marti could tell me, for a cost.

I've actually seen them like this before. The door will be closed, but the bottom rear corner of the door will be sticking out a little bit. However, I thought that some of them did actually fit. I've seen a lot of Bullnoses with the newer style mirrors and newer interior door panels, and always assumed that the whole door had been swapped... I'm going to check my 1980 cab tomorrow. It has what I thought were Bricknose doors on it...it has the wider vertical bar beside the vent window. I didn't look to closely at them yet, but just assumed that the doors were swapped complete at some point.

Front fender marker lights? I have a set from LMC in my truck. Edit: I just looked, and when on LMC site, you have to go to the Park Light section...if you click on Marker Light, it does not work. Odd. They are there though.

LOve it.

Some of the bezels are going to be getting harder to find these days...especially the earlier ones. My 1980 project has a black Custom radio bezel, but it was cut up years ago. Oddly, it also has a factory clock in it...I assume somebody stuck that in there? I don't believe I've ever seen a factory clock in a black weave bezel...

As for missing options, the lack of a sliding rear window always catches my eye. However, if you read the dealer sheet, it was ordered with front limited slip diff, and you don't see that very often. Nice truck though, and mostly* loaded;).

Ha, I'm sure it is. This one is an extreme example, but it's not that uncommon to see them like this. This one may have been used at a commercial fish or lobster plant and had salt water on it all the time, or maybe it had salt spreader on it, but either way, it's pretty bad lol.

I was on the road all day with work so I decided to drop by the junkyard on the way home to go for a walk and stretch my legs. I happened to walk by this Dodge pickup and had to take a picture of the condition lol. I’ve seen newer trucks than this one in there. Any wonder I can’t find any Bullnose parts around here...lol.