Learn me something . . .

[PetesPonies]

I do restoration work full time now. Mainly Mustangs, but I will do others things as well. So . . when I get something new, I'm looking for metal work that needs to be done. My "new" 1982 is not going to be a play truck, Saturday night cruiser . I'm going to drive it. I have other vehicles that fit play toy that description. I have a Bullnose Bronco I'm modifying for fun, but this is my first Bullnose PU. I see the back of my cab looking like a 10 year old pop riveted a piece of metal at the rear cab corner. I crawl under, see no rust and even see a nicely trimmed radius, looks OEM, behind the added metal. I'm scratching my head and then find a pic of a Bullnose cab with the same garbage piece of metal on the cab rear. Hmmm .  so this piece of garbage is factory? Was it added to the Flareside cabs for some reason? To cover an opening that wouldn't be seen with a styleside bed? If so .  couldn't Ford have done better with this? Yuk!!. Or is it just chance someone had the same 10 year old work on their cab? ( this pictured cab is something I found online, not my truck )

[Gary Lewis]

I've had several of these trucks apart and haven't seen that patch on any of them.  But, all of the ones I've taken apart were Stylesides.  So, maybe it was on Flaresides?

Dave/Fuzzface2?  Have you seen that?

There should be at least one Flareside at the show on Saturday, Cash's Carlos, so I'll check it out.

[PetesPonies]

I'll take a pic of mine tomorrow, looks the same.

[Ford F834]

You nailed it. That is a flareside cab extension to cover the hole in front of the step. It is factory. I pulled a flareside bed at the junkyard and grabbed those plates to go with it. They may be a janky solution but the cab looks really odd without them.

[PetesPonies]

They're worse than janky  :(  Damn , the bean counter at Ford must have had something on someone to get that passed. Its horrid. I work all day to not have a body look like that ( well maybe not all day  :) If I ever pull the bed, they will get welded  :)