83 F100 Upgrade

[Bisquik1959]

I was walking by the truck today and noticed a screw sticking out of the grill. In true me fashion, I had to investigate. That led to painting the faded gray headlight bezels and ordering a new chrome grill. After seeing the background color on the grill, I will probably just order matching bezels to make the whole front uniform.

[Gary Lewis]

That's me exactly.  Oh, I need to fix "this".  But wait, fixing that I have this other thing off, so why not fix it?  Pretty soon you have a new truck.  

[FuzzFace2]

Bisquik1959 wrote

I was walking by the truck today and noticed a screw sticking out of the grill. In true me fashion, I had to investigate. That led to painting the faded gray headlight bezels and ordering a new chrome grill. After seeing the background color on the grill, I will probably just order matching bezels to make the whole front uniform.

I was WAY OVER budget so I took the best head light doors and grille that needed less fixing and painted all parts an argent silver.
The hardest part was tapping up the doors for painting.

Gary Lewis wrote

That's me exactly.  Oh, I need to fix "this".  But wait, fixing that I have this other thing off, so why not fix it?  Pretty soon you have a new truck.  

That is kind of how my whole truck started
If it needs floors & rockers and ..........  I might as well pull the whole thing apart and fix it.
Other than the used carpet that I did not have at the time the truck was put on the road and did not know of the bad T18, everything was done before it hit the road.

Well did forget about getting the AC working
Dave ----

[Bisquik1959]

The truck was missing pretty bad the other day. Found the contact to the rotor was broken and one plug was arcing outside. Tune up fixed her up nicely.

My chrome grill showed up and looks nice with the painted bezels. Just waiting on a new emblem thats on order.

[Gary Lewis]

Glad you found those issues and got them fixed.  Man, that can really cause it to run badly.

And I do like that grille.  

[ArdWrknTrk]

X2!!!

The truck is looking good!

[Bisquik1959]

I finally found a set of bumper guards and got them installed. What a royal pita it was to remove the old bumper bolts. Ended up drilling them out.

Now I am not sure if I like them or not. I was going for that 80's look which this definitely does. But they are bulkier than I thought. Next is a hunt for the 96 Alcoa style wheels. I really need to hit the only yard around here and see what they have.

[ArdWrknTrk]

I think they look classy.  

[Gary Lewis]

Yes, they add to the truck.  Dress it up if you will.

[Bisquik1959]

Still working away on getting her prettied up. Found a set of my favorite Ford wheels over the weekend. They were rougher that I had hoped and had some damage from the clearcoat failing. I got them cleaned and stripped. Looks like I will have to sand and polish before installing them.

[Gary Lewis]

Those are my favorite wheels as well.  They look great!  

[ArdWrknTrk]

Nice score, and good job!
They look fantastic now, I can't wait to see them mounted.  

[Bisquik1959]

Little sanding and polishing to do first. They are a bit rougher than they look. This will be my first set, so wish me luck.

[kramttocs]

Well done. Those look great on these trucks!

[ArdWrknTrk]

I wish you patience.
You already have the talent, "luck" is not part of the equation.  

[Bisquik1959]

Slowly getting there. Took me the better part of the day to get the front two cleaned up and mounted. Hopefully I can get the rears done this week.

[grumpin]

Nice! I’m a little jealous!

[Gary Lewis]

Those wheels look wonderful!  Well done!  

[kramttocs]

Look very nice!
What all did you use? I'd like to clean up the Alcoa's I have so will be good to know what worked for you.

[Bisquik1959]

First I used spray on paint stripper to get the clear coat off. After that, there was damage to the wheels from the clear coat failing and moisture getting underneath. I used a scotchbrite pad/rubbing compound on a die grinder and attacked the damaged areas and smoothed them out. Then used 2000 grit paper on a drill with Mothers metal polish to smooth it all out.
Wd40 on any of the sanding discs also works when getting the initial defects out.