1980 F150 4x4 Flareside Project

[ArdWrknTrk]

I have the high flat cover on my Zf.
The older style TC shifter fits fine in there.

It's more and more a truck every weekend Cory!  

[ArdWrknTrk]

I like 95/5, but resort to FC if I have to work in the breeze, or need more penetration.
I think the flux keeps more heat in the work.
That, and I don't have the option for 0.035 in my MIG, only .023 and .029/30

[Rembrant]

Didn't get as much done to the old 80/95 this weekend as I had planned. I spent the day yesterday working on my daily (Tacoma 4x4) and that wiped all of my energy for Saturday. Today I started working on the old 1980 core support. I suppose you southern guys won't be used to this, but a VERY common issue in the rust belt is that the bottoms of the core supports rot out (and eventually collapse), and if that doesn't happen, the core support mounts fall through the core support brackets on the frame...lol.

Anyway, I fashioned up some new "saddles" from from 16ga steel I had on hand. The other side was rotted out much worse, but I don't have much work left to get these things fastened in there and then the core support mounted in the truck.




Did the same thing on the other side, but extended my new panel out to the end.





Not exactly pretty, but they will be painted black and then sprayed with black Fluid film. Nobody will ever see them.

I have a couple other little rust holes to patch for esthetic reasons, but otherwise it will be ready to re-install.

Supposed to finally be going for my surgery at 7am on Tuesday. It has been cancelled on me twice in the past couple weeks. If they keep the schedule this time, there won't be much action on the other truck for a while.

Still, it's more a budget build up, and not a restoration.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Your little 'saddles' are a great compliment to Framesavers Cory!  

Now that I've been playing with SS wire in my little flux core I can see making some that will likely not rot out in my lifetime.

But my core support is "newer" and while not rotten I did find dozens of spot welds blown out and corners torn.
I don't know if that was due to my cab mounts being shot, the Taiwanese replacement being sub-par, or both.  

I like your approach and wish you the best with your surgery.  

[Rembrant]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Your little 'saddles' are a great compliment to Framesavers Cory!  

Well, I'm trying to build this truck as cheaply as possible...lol, so one has to get creative. When I fixed up my '84, I found at that time that I could not buy a new core support in Canada. LMC has them for something like $169, and shipping within the US is cheap at like $29 bucks. However, shipping across the border the shipping was like $269 usd, and the whole works would end up being a $500-$600 bill for me, and I am for sure not spending that kind of coin on a truck like this one.

In all likelihood, this truck will not ever be driven in the winter again, so with some paint and rustproofing spray, I'd like to think these saddles will allow the core support to last another 40 years...lol. Time will tell, and I'll be almost 90 by then.

The ones I made for my '84 are 16ga stainless, so they're not going anywhere.

Anyway, I'm just trying to be crafty and get this old thing back on the road as cheaply as possible. However, it's taking a lot of mig wire...lol.

It's all good. I'm having fun with it.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Again and again I'm astounded at shipping costs between our NAFTA neighbours.  

With the Covid upsurge who knows when regular cross-border traffic will resume.

That, and it would probably be just as easy for a container from China to end up in Vancouver as Bellingham or Seattle.
But maybe with 1/10 the people it's just not cost effective to sell unusual products like this up there?

You're doing it right (solid and functional) that's what counts.
You can be proud you've accomplished that.  

[kramttocs]

Very well done!

A couple years ago I shipped a diesel one to a guy in PA. He said he'd looked everywhere locally and couldn't find a solid one so was willing to pay freight which wasn't cheap. I like your solution.

[Rembrant]

ArdWrknTrk wrote

Again and again I'm astounded at shipping costs between our NAFTA neighbours.  

With the Covid upsurge who knows when regular cross-border traffic will resume.

That, and it would probably be just as easy for a container from China to end up in Vancouver as Bellingham or Seattle.
But maybe with 1/10 the people it's just not cost effective to sell unusual products like this up there?

Ya, like I always joke that there are more people in the state of California than in all of Canada...we simply have no buying power! It's complicated...there are brokerage fees, duties, freight charges, and of course tax. It all adds up pretty quick. I'm used to it though. Covid threw a bit of a wrench into things for me though. The past few years I had really taken advantage of a broker in Calais Maine, right on the border. I could ship stuff there, often times for free, and then when I was in the area with my work I would just zip across the border to grab my stuff and came back. Their warehouse was literally about 400 feet behind the border station.

We have a different market here too though, ya know. With the southern US, there are a lot of older vehicles still on the road that you just would not find up here anymore (likely the same in New England too eh?). Some companies make it easy for us though...both Ebay and Amazon offer seamless buying/shipping from the US. LMC is usually pretty good too, but many others are not.

Somebody is buying those 1980-1986 core supports though. When I called LMC that time, they had 162 of them in-stock.

[Rembrant]

kramttocs wrote

Very well done!

A couple years ago I shipped a diesel one to a guy in PA. He said he'd looked everywhere locally and couldn't find a solid one so was willing to pay freight which wasn't cheap. I like your solution.

Oh ya, the diesel ones are really rare, aren't they? And yes...common rust point in the north. The bends and crimps, and folded sheet metal in the core supports are traps for the salt.

[salans7]

I like what you've done with the core support! I was lucky and found a relatively rust free gas version just laying next to a truck in the junkyard, and it only cost me $40. It has a very small chunk missing from where the fender liner mounts at the bottom, but that is easily fixed with a patch like yours. I'll probably also end up converting it to run the 85+ style radiator.

Here in the south they don't rust out from the elements, but what does rust them out is battery acid. My old radiator support was eaten away on that side for that reason, and it got into the frame a little bit as well but a frame saver patch wasn't necessary since it was only just starting to corrode.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Rembrant wrote

 I always joke that there are more people in the state of California than in all of Canada...we simply have no buying power! It's complicated...there are brokerage fees, duties, freight charges, and of course tax. It all adds up pretty quick.....
We have a different market here too though, ya know. With the southern US, there are a lot of older vehicles still on the road that you just would not find up here anymore (likely the same in New England too eh?)

Yes, here in New England and farther west in the rust belt everything is all eaten up from winter salt.
I just had to patch what was left of my door back together because I can't find a good pair.

But I thought the whole point of a "North American Free Trade Agreement" was to minimize fees, duties and other impediments to "Free Trade"?  

I understand that your taxes might be higher, and I get it that neighbouring States like New Hampshire have NO sales tax.
The EU was formed to overcome obstacles like this, and provide a more cohesive bigger trading bloc.
I can understand that Canada wouldn't want her currency tied to that of the U.S.
Without getting political, that 400' seems a mighty big gulf to cross.

Jonathan,
How different is a diesel support (other than having a bigger chin)?
If it is just that, I'm surprised there isn't a market for someone with a press and a plasma table.

[ArdWrknTrk]

Seems a piece of Pigmat saturated in baking soda and set in the tray could go a long way toward preventing battery acid problems

[Rembrant]

salans7 wrote

Here in the south they don't rust out from the elements, but what does rust them out is battery acid. My old radiator support was eaten away on that side for that reason, and it got into the frame a little bit as well but a frame saver patch wasn't necessary since it was only just starting to corrode.

The Bullnose battery tray has got to be one of the biggest engineering failures in these trucks. It's installed UNDER the fender liner/apron....just sitting there in front of the wheel capturing water, salt, and dirt between it and the fender liner. I have never found one still intact in a Bullnose up here...never, not even close. Usually it is entirely gone except for the short little vertical tab bolted to the inside of the fender.

[Gary Lewis]

I'm really glad I don't have to put up with all the salt and the rust.  Having said that, the core support that Jonathan got me from Arizona still had some issues I had to deal with.  It had a whole bunch of stress cracks that had started to rust, so I had to clean it up, weld it up, and then have it painted.

Anyway, Cory I like what you are doing!  Well done.  

[Gary Lewis]

Rembrant wrote

The Bullnose battery tray has got to be one of the biggest engineering failures in these trucks. It's installed UNDER the fender liner/apron....just sitting there in front of the wheel capturing water, salt, and dirt between it and the fender liner. I have never found one still intact in a Bullnose up here...never, not even close. Usually it is entirely gone except for the short little vertical tab bolted to the inside of the fender.

Yep!  A really good reason to move to a Bricknose battery tray.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I keep forgetting (trying to forget?) those Bullnose trays never see the battery.  

I do like the wedge base retention of the later trays over the hold-downs and J-hooks.

[nlongo33]

Looks good! funny Cam and I were doing the same thing this weekend with his truck....we were replacing body mounts and fixing at same time....I have a lead on a bezel for you i will know later in the week

[Rembrant]

nlongo33 wrote

Looks good! funny Cam and I were doing the same thing this weekend with his truck....we were replacing body mounts and fixing at same time....I have a lead on a bezel for you i will know later in the week

Thanks Nick!

Let me know on the bezels, sure. I have been looking for a black weave set...and a fairly specific set at that, but I'm open to all options in black. For the instrument bezel, I'd like to find a 1980 as the indicators are in different locations, and for the radio bezel I'd like to find one with CUSTOM on it, and even better if it has the clock cut-outs. Anyway...as noted, I'm also kinda cheap and trying to build this junker on a fairly tight budget. But...I did learn something interesting last night. A guy here in Canada has a couple sets of bezels for sale, one of which was black. It turns out he painted a 1984 Rosewood set, and man it looks really good.



So seeing this has me thinking. I have a fairly decent set of 1986 bezels in Burlwood, and maybe I'll simply paint them black. Not sure if I can make them as nice as the one above, but I thought it looked pretty darn good. The guy does some air brush work, so he probably has a little more skill than a knuckle skinner like me...lol.

[Machspeed]

Great project thread, Cory. I've learned a lot just reading through it, thank you. Didn't know the core support was so susceptible to rust. Based off some issues that I had to deal with, guess I'll be looking at that too.  

[grumpin]

I like that bezel!

Knuckle skinner, ha! I feel more like a knuckle dragger sometimes!