My 66 F-100 Shortbed resto. Taking a while.

[Thomas1190]

Man that truck is looking sweet!!

[MeZapU]

Looks great! What size of tire are you running?

235/60 on the front, 255/60 on the rear.

[MeZapU]

Wrangled the bed out from behind the house. Had it stored under my carport. Washed it off. Even had a nest of some sort in the drivers side taillight housing.

Installed the hood latches and actually took it for a spin around the block. Rear wheels keep locking up as there is no weight on the back end. Kinda funny doing it and looking through the back window and seeing it all happen. Wish other things were as easy to diagnose.

[MeZapU]

Today was pretty gloomy. I started welding closed the zillions of holes in the bed floor. Who knows how many bed boxes and various other items have been bolted to this bed over the years? I even had to straighten/square up the bed rails and reinforce the drivers side by the tailgate as it had cracked metal all around it. I welded as much as I could as I only had 400lbs pressure left in my 20cu/ft bottle. Got 95% done before I was down to just 6 psi. Then ground down all the welds and slathered on some white POR-15 before the weather rolled in.

[Max]

Nice work! One clean bed there.

[thenephilm]

damn must be nice to have such a good platform to work from lol.

[MeZapU]

Yes it is rust free, but I have used up a whole small spool of welding wire so far on just the bed. Still not done. There was the 32ish holes in the tops of the bed tails I welded up about two years ago as well. This thing was definitely aged south-west swiss cheese. Have not even started on the dents yet, and the two holes at the front corner of the bed rails are buggered pretty bad. Wondering if I should cut donors from a yard to repair them or just fill-fill-fill with weld.

The drivers side panel looks to have been replaced in the past. You can see brazing and the stitch work along the left seam of the bed past the wheel well.

[MeZapU]

Lots and lots of dents in this bed. I plan on getting a color matched Line-X bed liner sprayed in and I don't want to look at the dents I didn't fix for the rest of my life. Been three weeks of weekends on this bed and it seems like it's never going to end. I've barely touched the sides of the bed, just the insides.

Today I lifted the bed and sprayed the bottom with some white POR-15 knock off coating. I wasn't about to power lift the bed again just to get a pic. Its all white under there. I plan on shooting some undercoating once its done and back on the frame.

[MeZapU]

Put in a bunch more hours on the truck bed this weekend. I did not manage to get all the dents taken care of but I didn't want to work evenings and get to a stopping point. So I shot the bed in high build primer so when I ran out of dents to fix I could start blocking the rest of the truck. I wouldn't be able to spray paint during the week so it just made sense to allow me to keep moving forward.

In theory anyways. Just need to get up the motivation after 11 hour work days this week.

[MeZapU]

More work this weekend. Guide coat, block sand, fill, sand, guide coat, block sand, fill, sand...

[MeZapU]

Had the day off Friday and used the time to finish up the body work on the bed. Of course it took way longer than I planned. Managed to get done and finish up with a coat of high build primer. I let it cure overnight.

Saturday I spent all day blocking. Found a few areas that still needed attention. Fixed them and sprayed on some sealer just before dark and it started to get really cold as son as the sun disappeared. Got down to 29-30deg last night. I didn't spray sealer everywhere. Just the areas that would get paint. The inner portion of the bed is going to get a color matched Line-X spray in bed liner, so anything used there would ultimately be a waste of materials.





This morning I set up the garage for paint. Set up the posts and taped up the plastic, fans and filters. The usual little bits of dust but no major flaws that cant be corrected. Had a bit of a panic when I ran out of clear coat. Needed to get some more from a friend since the stores were closed today. This project has used about 2x more materials than my SVO repaint. Just so much more surface area to be covered. Ultimately I'm very pleased with how it turned out.

[1965fordf100]

Looks sweet! I'm jealous...I need to get some painting done

[bird55]

Nice work, love the color, Wimbledon white? Bet your arms are sore

[brownie62]

Really looks nice, you do good work! Is that your yellow mach 1 in the background? I have a 73 Mach 1 I bought new when I was 17, looks like we have the same kind of taste in vehicles.

[MeZapU]

Really looks nice, you do good work! Is that your yellow mach 1 in the background? I have a 73 Mach 1 I bought new when I was 17, looks like we have the same kind of taste in vehicles.

Thanks for the compliments. Yes, it's my Mach 1. Owned it for 18 years last month. My first real car I bought when I was 20 after joining the Air Force.

[MadMaxetc]

Damn dude....looks great! Your hard work is paying off. I can only hope mine turns out this good!

[HawaiiKid]

What a gorgeous truck-you are doing an amazing job on her, can't wait to see it all together. I am really impressed with how thorough you are being with your repairs.

[MeZapU]

Just got home from a 2.5 week trip to the middle of nowhere. Clovis, NM. Glad to be home. Saturday I picked up some new buffing supplies and started color sanding the truck bed. Turned out pretty awesome. I finally stepped up and purchased 3M buffing pads and compounds. I think the course step is what I've been missing. Before I'd sand down to 3000 grit and buffing would still take hours. Now it takes just minutes. Too bad I learned this lesson towards the end of the project.



Today was the big day. Called a few friends over to help me lift the bed onto the chassis. Turned out looking awesome. No problems lining everything up. The tailgate will need some more adjustment but I can do that later. Bolted on my new rear bumper. A reality check hit when I noticed the license plate registration ran out Oct 2011.

I have new stainless wheel trim rings on the way as these chrome ones keep rusting. Also ordered new tail lights and stainless trim for them, tailgate bumpers, window washer bag and tailgate letters. The big ticket item is the grill. $680 with headlight trim rings. I could put the original back in but it would just not be the right thing to do. I need to take up a collection.

Hopefully next week I'll get the truck on the trailer and go to the Line-X shop to get the bed liner sprayed in. I already have the funds set aside for it from my taxes.

[ken462]

Well, from the south of the Middle of nowhere here in New Mexico, the Truck looks great. Very good job.

[HiBoy63]

Looking good nice work. That color looks very sharp on that swb slick. I like the wheel and tire treatment too.