nmchuck Posted August 2, 2022 Share Posted August 2, 2022 Just picked up this 1981 flareside, going to be a long road but I believe it this rig is worth the effort. It has the 351M, previous owner told me the water just dumped out. Of course the first thing I did was to stick a hose in the radiator to see... sure enough it just ran out. Luckily my BIL is pretty savvy and he helped me figure out two freeze plugs were out. Unfortunately, they were the two under the motor mounts (which are bad too). Once we got the motor mounts out, the freeze plugs were laying on top of them, installed two new ones and hoped for the best. Long story short, we fired it up after swapping the nastiest carb I have encountered with another. No leaks and the block seems to be ok! Runs ok, tranny shifts and the world is a better place. The truck has what I'm guessing to be a 4" lift, had two broken leafs on the rear. Swapped in a pair of springs from the boneyard, and now it's sitting level again. The lift, with the 33" tire make this a pretty tall rig, not sure if I am going to keep it. Also found a front clip to replace the wrecked fenders and core support, that will be the next heavy lift. Best I can tell from decoding the VIN is this started out as a brown styleside truck. Somewhere along the way a PO must have found a deal on original flareside bed, doors, and fenders. Theystill have the pinstriping Ford put on some of these trucks back in the day. I'll try to keep this updated as we go, and you can bet I'll be asking for advice along the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted August 2, 2022 Share Posted August 2, 2022 Subscribed. Glad you got the engine going and that you are finding good body parts. They are hard to come by so you are doing well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzFace2 Posted August 3, 2022 Share Posted August 3, 2022 Subscribed. Glad you got the engine going and that you are finding good body parts. They are hard to come by so you are doing well. Welcome to F.O.G (Flare side Owners Group) may name is Dave and I have a problem I wonder if the cab has been swapped onto a different frame? On the top of the right frame rail some where between where the ALT is and the firewall meets the frame should be a VIN and that should match the door post sticker & front glass VIN's Good luck with the project I will be following Dave ---- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmchuck Posted August 4, 2022 Author Share Posted August 4, 2022 Welcome to F.O.G (Flare side Owners Group) may name is Dave and I have a problem I wonder if the cab has been swapped onto a different frame? On the top of the right frame rail some where between where the ALT is and the firewall meets the frame should be a VIN and that should match the door post sticker & front glass VIN's Good luck with the project I will be following Dave ---- Good to know I fit into the FOG! I think the cab is original, but like you suggest, until I can get the VIN off the frame to compare it's hard to know for sure. I did clean up the edelbrock carb it came with and put a kit in it today, seems to be running ok although I really haven't driven it much since I have not gotten down to register it yet. The gas and carb were green, never seen anything like it. The built-up green goo was everywhere and very tough to get off. Not sure if gas can grow algae, but I swear it looked just like it. Wish I had taken a picture, looked like something out of an old sci-fi movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmchuck Posted August 22, 2022 Author Share Posted August 22, 2022 Finally had some time today to get back to work on the rig. Started off by draining out all of the old fuel, pretty simple since the truck has an electric fuel pump. The old fuel was pretty bad, was honey colored and smelled awful. Added five gallons of fresh gas and test ran it around the yard. Still runs a bit rough but is actually not running too bad. Moved on and pulled the front clip off with some help. Discovered that both ends of the frame horns were bent much worse than I thought. We had a forklift available where the truck is at and got them back into position without too much trouble. The clip I found at the local wrecking yard is from an 86 model, there were slight differences with the radiator mount, but overall, we were able to get it lined up and on pretty well. The original hood was not lining up well, so we tried another hood they had on hand which seems to work better. Was odd as we could not see any apparent damage to the original hood. Pretty happy with the results, will have to work on the gaps and alignment a bit more, but I think it work out well. I have a straight bumper and headlight bezel I plan to get put on this week, should start to look a little more presentable once I get them installed. I also am starting to think about the axle ratios. The truck has 3.00 gears and with the 33" tires on it now seems to be a bit sluggish. Will have to drive it more after getting it titled to see how it does on the road. I also thinking about removing some or all of the lift and going to a smaller tire. This truck sits very high and I'm not sure jumping in and out of this thing will be much fun. I do admit that it looks good though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted August 22, 2022 Share Posted August 22, 2022 Finally had some time today to get back to work on the rig. Started off by draining out all of the old fuel, pretty simple since the truck has an electric fuel pump. The old fuel was pretty bad, was honey colored and smelled awful. Added five gallons of fresh gas and test ran it around the yard. Still runs a bit rough but is actually not running too bad. Moved on and pulled the front clip off with some help. Discovered that both ends of the frame horns were bent much worse than I thought. We had a forklift available where the truck is at and got them back into position without too much trouble. The clip I found at the local wrecking yard is from an 86 model, there were slight differences with the radiator mount, but overall, we were able to get it lined up and on pretty well. The original hood was not lining up well, so we tried another hood they had on hand which seems to work better. Was odd as we could not see any apparent damage to the original hood. Pretty happy with the results, will have to work on the gaps and alignment a bit more, but I think it work out well. I have a straight bumper and headlight bezel I plan to get put on this week, should start to look a little more presentable once I get them installed. I also am starting to think about the axle ratios. The truck has 3.00 gears and with the 33" tires on it now seems to be a bit sluggish. Will have to drive it more after getting it titled to see how it does on the road. I also thinking about removing some or all of the lift and going to a smaller tire. This truck sits very high and I'm not sure jumping in and out of this thing will be much fun. I do admit that it looks good though! Yes, it is starting to look like a truck, and a nice one at that. Good job on the frame horns. They apparently bend fairly easily as I had to bend one of mine as well. On the ratios, you can use the calculator at Documentation/Driveline/Calculator to see what your RPMs will be at any given speed, gear ratio, and tire size. But I'd say that 3.00's and 33" tires would be a bad combo with any engine. So if you want to stay with the 33's I'd consider 3.50's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmchuck Posted August 24, 2022 Author Share Posted August 24, 2022 Little more progress to report out, got the passenger side headlight bezel and a new to me grill in place today. Really starting to look better! Funny part is that it has the brown cab, blue and tan front fenders, and beat up white hood, black doors and black patina'd bed! Since the front fenders and original cab have the XLT trim, trying to decide if it will look goofy keeping them since there was no trim on a flareside bed. Please share your thoughts, I saw a black flareside project on here that started off the same, didn't look too bad to me, just different. Truck now has a miss on one cylinder, hoping it is a simple ignition issue... more to come. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted August 24, 2022 Share Posted August 24, 2022 Little more progress to report out, got the passenger side headlight bezel and a new to me grill in place today. Really starting to look better! Funny part is that it has the brown cab, blue and tan front fenders, and beat up white hood, black doors and black patina'd bed! Since the front fenders and original cab have the XLT trim, trying to decide if it will look goofy keeping them since there was no trim on a flareside bed. Please share your thoughts, I saw a black flareside project on here that started off the same, didn't look too bad to me, just different. Truck now has a miss on one cylinder, hoping it is a simple ignition issue... more to come. Chuck - It really is coming together! And your pics are great as well. As for the trim, if the fenders and doors have it then it might be ok. But it seems odd to me not to have it on the bed - even though there's no place for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzFace2 Posted August 27, 2022 Share Posted August 27, 2022 Chuck - It really is coming together! And your pics are great as well. As for the trim, if the fenders and doors have it then it might be ok. But it seems odd to me not to have it on the bed - even though there's no place for it. Only people that know flare sides know they did not come with moldings but it is your truck and if you like the look with the moldings who are we to say other wise It's your truck build it YOUR WAY Dave ---- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mat in tn Posted August 27, 2022 Share Posted August 27, 2022 Only people that know flare sides know they did not come with moldings but it is your truck and if you like the look with the moldings who are we to say other wise It's your truck build it YOUR WAY Dave ---- i would like to see the process of completing the trim all the way around on a flareside . this might be interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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