Rembrant

Beautiful evening for our weekly local cruise in last night. There was a huge gathering, and lots of new stuff. I love going to this every week. 75% of the cars are the same, but every week there's something new to see. Last night I had another Bullnose parked beside me for a while, and not just another Bullnose, but a 1984 the same as mine, in the same 3P Medium Blue Metallic color, built on the same assembly line a month after mine. That was kinda cool. I actually knew the truck as I had seen it for sale locally a couple times over the years, and I had driven by the previous owners house many times. The previous owner had it for 15 or so years and had only used it for yard clean up work and dump runs. It has the very typical 300/6 and NP435.

I used to see that truck A LOT on FB or IG, or both. Haven't seen it much the last while. That grill is not my cup of tea personally, but I think it's fairly well done and seems to fit well. Speaking of custom "Ford" grills, I see this truck below posted a fair amount on FB.

Where are you located?

Well, I read some comments from guys that restore cars, and they claimed that the issue is that the rubber is sticky...or "grabby" and doesn't want to "flow"? into the compressed position easily until it breaks in. I guess the powder is supposed to help it flatten out better. I haven't tried it personally, but it was on my to-do list.

It sure did. Excellent results. Well done.

I'd say that overall Autoline reman parts are generally pretty decent, but I have zero experience with their carbs. However, I do see Autoline tags on old truck carbs all the time, so I know that they're busy if nothing else. My one experience with them was a SBF distributor that I bought. It was certainly a usable part, but it looked really bad...the aluminum casting should have been scrapped, but had obviously be sand blasted and re-used. The screws that mount the vac advance canister on were stripped in the aluminum housing. I opted to not use it since I was building a "pretty" engine, so I scavenged some parts out of it and used them in my original distributor that I cleaned up. One other comment is that I called them about the amount of advance in the distributor, and the response I got was that a DSII distributor is a DSII distributor, and I have a feeling that you might get some different calibrations with the same Autoline part number, for example. I didn't really consider it a bad experience....but I wasn't overly happy with the part I received. Somebody else could install that distributor in an old pickup and run it without issue for a decade, ya know? One can only imagine that garbage that gets sent back to them for cores. On the flip side, I do know of lots of guys that are running Autoline reman carbs with great results.

I installed new door seals a few months ago and the doors were extremely difficult to close afterwards. I didn't adjust anything, I just slammed the doors. If you open one of the windows a little bit the doors will close easier. Now, my driver's door has gotten much better. I wouldn't say that it closes easily, but it did improve greatly since the install of the new seal. My passenger door is still really difficult to close and needs to be slammed, windows open or not. I think the new seals need to have some "miles" put on them...I dunno. Some people say that putting baby powder or something similar on the new seals helps.

These covers used to be pretty common up here Gary, and I still see them on the 18-wheelers all the time in the winter. It would mainly be for the diesels out here on the east coast, but out west where it gets truly cold you'd see these covers on just about anything, gas or diesel. I'm not familiar with the Bullnose era diesels at all, but I've been running diesel Volkswagens for years, and they are truly difficult to get warmed up in the winter time, and left at idle...they will never warm up (not like a gas engine will). You have to drive them and work them to make heat.

What did you end up doing with this? I thought there was a different thread, but I can't find it atm.

This thing popped up for sale locally for $20 bucks. I have no use for it, but I thought it was an interesting Bullnose era accessory. Good for a diesel in the winter I'd imagine. https://www.kijiji.ca/v-view-details.html?adId=1518577234

Nice truck! As much as I love my factory mounted (external) tail lights and tailgate chains, this one looks pretty clean without both. I assume he has custom latches mounted inside the gate...that's a pretty common mod. I assume it was originally a Styleside truck?

Nobody ever removes that part...lol. Too much work, especially if the truck is rusty. The crossmember looks to be in great condition though. Hard to fine one of those around here that isn't bent.

No, but Princess Auto is barely a mile away from my shop at work, so I know where it is when I need it. I'll be another couple weeks before I need it anyway. This truck turned into a bit more of a battle in disassembly than I'm used to. They keep bumping the border closure a month at a time. They just kicked it to Sept 21st again a couple days ago. Heck we're not even fully open between provinces in Canada really. However, we're still pretty much virus free here in NS. There's a case that pops up every couple of weeks from a traveler, but we're clear otherwise. If it wasn't for the masks, things would be pretty normal around here.

There's also these spacer pictured below. This is the one off the 300/6 I removed from the 1980 Flareside (Although I believe the engine is a 1985-1986). The number in the casting appears to be D9TE-9A5S9-HA. I'm not sure if these were only on Canadian trucks or not? I don't believe we ever got the feedback systems up here....if we did, I've never seen one, ever. I have however seen 300/6 trucks with EGR and without like this one. I'm not sure how they were divided up, but every one of the trucks I have found with this spacer were later 1985-1986 models.

Project update. Looks like I won't be doing a "Full Dave". I put quite a few hours into disassembling the 1995 F150 this weekend, and it was enough a battle it just about drained every bit of enthusiasm right out of me...lol. The bed is trash, all of it. Once I got the bed liner out of it and the box cleaned out, I found enough rot in the bed it was beyond repair. I had to cut all six bed bolts out...and if that wasn't frustrating enough, I also dented the back of the cab pretty badly when I was removing the bed with the forklift. A point came where I was too hot, too tired, and just stopped being gentle...lol. This stupid truck is a major rust bucket. I mean every nut, bolt and screw has to be drilled or cut. Stupid stuff like the plastic shifter bezels...they have sockets in the plastic where the screws go. The salt sits in there and destroys the screw heads so you can't use a screw driver on them. So then they have to be drilled out...carefully of course because I'm trying to salvage these parts...arrrgh. All four cab mount bolts had to be cut and drilled, as did the core support bolts. Most of these bolts are really hateful to access too...can't be reached with a cut off wheel or sawzall. ANYWAY....enough whining and crying....I AM used to rust... After all that, the frame looks pretty good. It has a layer of rust on it, but no holes, no cracks, no soft spots (so far). Crossmembers look good mostly. I'm surely going to need a frame saver kit, but I'm OK with that. That stuff is pretty typical, even on a frame rusted far less than this one. So plan B is now to forget the Bullnose front clip swap and go straight to the full Bullnose body swap. That's fine anyway. I'm still not 100% sure if the 5.0 is staying or not, but the EFI is going for sure. For simplicity sake, I might just drop the 300/6 in there. Anxiously awaiting Jonathan's review on that carb...because I wouldn't need much more than that to get the 300 in service. Anyway, that's all for now. Another update next weekend after I get the rest of the Aeronose body off that 1995 frame/chassis.

I like the crew here as well. It feels like home. Forums are natural for me since that is how I started with all of this back with our first real computer in about 1999, but this forum in particular and the people on it are unique. I do follow the Bullnose groups on Facebook, but they can be brutal, in every sense. Incorrect answers are pretty common on there, as well as opinions that weren't asked for...lol, but there's also the people that answer questions that weren't asked...lol, and the people that ask questions that have been asked thousands of times, starting before the internet even existed...lol. I get it though...the first Bullnoses are now pushing 41 years old, and many of their owner's are barely half of that. And now, in the time of Covid-19, hanging out with your "friends" on a forum seems more natural than ever.

I drove my old 1980 Bullnose several hundred miles with a pair of Vise-Grips clamped on a front brake flex line...lol. True story.

Ha. I like the "Caretaker" part...lol. How true. Welcome aboard. It's very nice to see an old truck brought back to life.

Subscribed. I might stick the 300 back into my current project truck, and it needs a carb, so I'd really like to know how this one works Jon. Thanks.

First thing tomorrow morning I'm starting to disassemble a 1995 F150 swb 4x4. I'm swapping a 1980 Bullnose body onto the 1995 frame and running gear. Well, at least that is the plan anyway...we'll see how it works once I start chopping stuff up. I have the 1995 cab and front clip already sold, so hopefully I'll get it off the frame this weekend. After the body is off the frame, there's going to be A LOT of grinding going on...lol. Lots of rust to deal with here. Oh well, what else would I be doing?...lol. End result will be a 4x4 Flareside with a 5spd and either a 302 or a 300...

I'm surprised at how quickly these radio delete panels sell. I wonder if people buy them with the sole purpose of cutting them out for a radio install? Oddly...since the stock radio bezels don't really fit any modern DIN dimensions, a delete bezel cut to fit a radio sure does make for a clean looking install.

Ha! I was just going to say that in 2020 New England, cab "upgrades" to a 1987 are often to install a new floor!! Lookin' good Jim! So, what steering shaft is this? And from where?...

Post has been deleted. Must have sold.

Yes a lot done mostly the hard part, pulling the wire under the truck. I still need to mount the controller but 2 screws and think 4 wires and done and the breaker for the power wire should be easy also. Yea I first went but the female plug then looked at the paper that came with the adaptor and was I think the file I had in my box was when I wired a truck based on the trailer wiring that was wrong but at the time I only pulled my trailer nothing else and no one pulled my trailer so it was ok. If it was not so hot I would have pinged out the Durango plug and may still do that, so I know the PU is wired right. Think I have time as I have not towed anything since I moved down here. I had to rent a U-Haul to pull my trailer to pick up the trucks, Durango was at dealer for heads and why the PU is a back up now. Dave ---- Dave, I just went through all of the pictures of when you built the metal floored bed, and I must say that was some impressive work. By the way...this project thread just isn't the same without you doing these massive sheet metal builds/rebuilds...haha, just kidding. Are the bed floors the same height above the frame between the Stylesides and Flaresides? What did you do for bed floor crossmembers between the floor and the frame?

Yes sir, rare indeed...going up in price with the rarity too.