Rembrant Posted July 19, 2020 Posted July 19, 2020 Hi Folks, I've been wanting to ask some questions about this old truck, and with its future more or less unknown, I was reluctant to start a project thread about it. In any case, I decided to and if I determine that the old thing is not worth fixing then I'll keep all of the good parts and let this thread die off. Anyway... I bought this old 1980 F150 4x4 Flareside (locally) that has been sitting in the weeds in this guy's backyard for a number of years (exact amount of years unknown, but at least 5, maybe more). I'm picking it up this week coming and plan to start disassembling it the following week. The good: It's Blue...lol. The guy disassembled what was left of the Flareside bed and put it all in the house, so that was good news. He had also purchased almost a complete second bed (in parts) so it came with two tailgates, two sets of fender, two sets of steps, etc. It's a 300/6... The bad: Rust, like usual...the frame may be too rough to fix...not sure until I get a better look next week. For whatever reason, the guy pulled the D44 and 9" 3rd members and also put them inside...so the open 9" diff has been outdoors and exposed to the elements all these years. Maybe it is ruined? Don't know. The truck has no transmission or transfer case, and no driveshafts. The certification label is missing. According to the VIN it was originally a 302 truck. It currently has a manual column and linkages in it, but also has a hole in the rubber floor where a 4spd shifter once was (as well as a patch on the tunnel cover hole). Any words of wisdom or advice on how to check a 300/6 that has been sitting for a long time? I was thinking I'd pull the plugs and spray a little oil into the cylinders and then see if I can rotate the crank manually...
Rembrant Posted July 19, 2020 Author Posted July 19, 2020 I grabbed all of the loose parts last week. Came with a spare SRW too...
Rembrant Posted July 19, 2020 Author Posted July 19, 2020 Oh, and I forgot about this... Right now, it's going to need a bunch of welding, which is cheap, but time consuming. I'm OK with that. Covid-19 has really thrown a wrench into my life and I now how a little more time on my hands, but at the same time quite a bit less money too. The main plan is to have something to do this winter...
Rembrant Posted July 19, 2020 Author Posted July 19, 2020 Oh, and I forgot about this... Right now, it's going to need a bunch of welding, which is cheap, but time consuming. I'm OK with that. Covid-19 has really thrown a wrench into my life and I now how a little more time on my hands, but at the same time quite a bit less money too. The main plan is to have something to do this winter... One final thing to note... The truck has 3.00:1 gears in it. I think 13/39 in the 9" and 15/45 in the D44. Does that shed any light as to what transmission might have been in this thing (Knowing it was originally a 302 truck). Just curious.
Gary Lewis Posted July 19, 2020 Posted July 19, 2020 Treasure trove of Flareside parts, Cory. Shame that some parts have been exposed to the weather, but still a lot of good parts. On checking the 300, I'd spray it with penetrating oil and wait a day before trying to turn it. If it turns easily then great. If not, spray it again and wait for that to penetrate. If that won't get it to turn then you might put air pressure in a cylinder if you have one that has the valves closed. What about the interior? Does it have slide locks? I see it has clear turn signal lenses.
Rembrant Posted July 19, 2020 Author Posted July 19, 2020 Treasure trove of Flareside parts, Cory. Shame that some parts have been exposed to the weather, but still a lot of good parts. On checking the 300, I'd spray it with penetrating oil and wait a day before trying to turn it. If it turns easily then great. If not, spray it again and wait for that to penetrate. If that won't get it to turn then you might put air pressure in a cylinder if you have one that has the valves closed. What about the interior? Does it have slide locks? I see it has clear turn signal lenses. Noted on the penetrating oil Gary, thanks. Yes it has sliding locks. They stuck out to me. The interior is not terrible...it's like anything else around here that has been sitting for years. Full of junk, of course. The truck was undercoated for part of its life sometime early on, so that is good.
Gary Lewis Posted July 19, 2020 Posted July 19, 2020 One final thing to note... The truck has 3.00:1 gears in it. I think 13/39 in the 9" and 15/45 in the D44. Does that shed any light as to what transmission might have been in this thing (Knowing it was originally a 302 truck). Just curious. Don't know about the tranny as I haven't found a way to figure that out from the applications listings. They don't seem to cross-reference axle ratios and transmissions - unless I'm missing something. What welding is needed? On the frame? Or body? Or?
Rembrant Posted July 19, 2020 Author Posted July 19, 2020 Don't know about the tranny as I haven't found a way to figure that out from the applications listings. They don't seem to cross-reference axle ratios and transmissions - unless I'm missing something. Ya, I figured as much. The earlier Bullnoses are a bit foreign to me, so I need to get up to speed on all of the earlier options. What welding is needed? On the frame? Or body? Or? Both. Cab floor will need some work for sure, and the frame might have a couple spots that need to be repaired. At a glance, everything looked fixable, but I won't know for sure until I get a real good look at it underneath. I didn't see anything that scared me...not yet at least. My good buddy Chris has running gear parts, so once I get a real good look at everything here and start taking it apart I'll be making a journey to his place to scavenge a transmission and some other parts.
FuzzFace2 Posted July 19, 2020 Posted July 19, 2020 Don't know about the tranny as I haven't found a way to figure that out from the applications listings. They don't seem to cross-reference axle ratios and transmissions - unless I'm missing something. Ya, I figured as much. The earlier Bullnoses are a bit foreign to me, so I need to get up to speed on all of the earlier options. What welding is needed? On the frame? Or body? Or? Both. Cab floor will need some work for sure, and the frame might have a couple spots that need to be repaired. At a glance, everything looked fixable, but I won't know for sure until I get a real good look at it underneath. I didn't see anything that scared me...not yet at least. My good buddy Chris has running gear parts, so once I get a real good look at everything here and start taking it apart I'll be making a journey to his place to scavenge a transmission and some other parts. Dose the motor have a bell housing, any clutch linkage mainly the motor side cross bar mount that screws into the block? To move the , if motor runs, don't you have a 3 speed you could pop in there till you find something better and a transfer case. What is that report you can get on trucks? Marty or something? I bet that would tell you how it left the factory. Dave ----
Rembrant Posted July 20, 2020 Author Posted July 20, 2020 Another thing to note about this truck. I think it was David that mentioned in another thread that the front bumper looked different or odd with the bumper guards and no black plastic strips/moldings. I was looking at pictures of 1980 pickups and happened to notice one (from Ford literature) with this same style bumper. The only place I see this bumper configuration showing up is on the 1980-1981 Freewheeling optioned trucks. Not that this pile of junk I just bought is a Freewheeler...but I suppose it might have been many years ago with the two tone paint, the bumper, and black? (now faded) grill.
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