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

[grump]

Looks good, I really like it. All those hours of hard work really paid off. Congrats

[Husker]

I am impressed!

[MeZapU]

Due to a demanding schedule this weekend, I didn't manage to get any huge amounts done to he truck.

I had some serious drama with the paint shop on Friday. My regular guy no longer sells Sherwin Williams paint couldn't help me with any touch up since his new paint line was incompatible. He gave me a super deal on the gallon I used during the paint process but I used 100% of it up. I needed a little more to perform some touch ups and to paint some small items like my steering wheel, tailgate latch, etc. I needed to go to another place in town that could match it. (my town is not very big). I took my ash tray off the truck so they could use the scanner to match the color. It was just an easy to remove item. While the shop assistant was outside in the sunlight trying to get a better look at the paint chips, the klutz dropped the ash tray scratching the hell out of it. All the drama aside, I at least managed to get the 1/2 pint of paint I was after for free for trouble of the assistant messing up my part.

With an airbrush I performed some touch up paint work on Friday after work. Then shot the clear with the airbrush as well.

Saturday I did some color sanding and buffing of the retouched areas. Everything turned out very nice and I was pleased.

Last night I tackled a few items on the interior. I messed up something with the wiring because as soon as I would turn the ignition key the turn signal flasher would start clicking and no turn signals were on or flashing. Fixed that wiring, fixed the dome light, and refitted the steering wheel. I attempted to install a black steering wheel wrap to hide the cracked and generally poor condition of the outside of the wheel. These wraps are not sized very well to the old 17" diameter steering wheels. While attempting to stretch the wrap it broke and I was out just over $5. I went to a different parts store today and purchased another wrap but I lucked out and found a light beige one. When I tried fitting it I found out it was even smaller than the previous black one. As not to recreate the earlier failure I next heated up the vinyl with my heat gun to make it more pliable. That trick worked great and I was able to get it over the wheel without it breaking. It looks way better than the black would have. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out.



I still need to get the tailgate latch fitted and keep working on my air cleaner. Converting it from the restrictive oil bath style to a traditional paper element filter. Grill is still up in the air what to do with it.

I also received and installed my new stainless steel trim rings for the wheels. No visual difference. Now I wont need to scrub the rust off them once a month with a SOS pad.

[Husker]

You have one fine ride Zap!

[MeZapU]

Been trying to get the truck complete so I can drive it on Friday. I tried ordering my new grill on Monday from NPD. They are only a few hours away and usually have everything in stock. Shipping is fast as well. Well I scraped up the $500 bones I needed for the grill itself. I was going to worry about the $85ea headlight rings later. I called them up and was placing my order, then the sales person tells me that the grill will need to be shipped truck freight and will cost $120. Yikes! Talk about a buzzkill. I just couldn't bring myself to pay the shipping right now. I could have put it on the credit card but I have restraint. If I didn't, I couldn't complain to the wife when she puts money on it.

So I've been doing my best to clean up the old grill for the time being. I smoothed it out as much as I could and painted it with some chrome bumper paint. It doesn't look half bad actually but it is definitely not going to last very long. Even fingerprints make the finish go dull and gray. It will do for now.



I also finished up getting the taillights in and the tailgate lettering on. NPD kinda irked me again when the first decal I ordered wasn't quite right. They have two but if course I got the wrong one 1st. $18 for the decal set but $11 to ship it. It was totally ridiculous as the size of the box was a million times bigger than it had to be. All that was in the box was a ton of old Christmas paper and this decal. They could have cut the letters up individually and mailed them into a $0.55 envelope.

[rickairmedic]

The grill looks pretty danged good from here . I wonder if adding a clear coat wouldnt make it a little more stable and fingerprint proof .


Rick

[MeZapU]

The grill looks pretty danged good from here . I wonder if adding a clear coat wouldnt make it a little more stable and fingerprint proof .


Rick

I already tried. Automotive type clear coat. It went completely gray. This paint is over top of the clear.

[MeZapU]

Got it outside for some pictures. Changed the drivers side valve cover gasket and performed some final tuning tweaks. The shakedown run was pretty successful. Things like tires, bearings, engine and trans took a few miles before things started settling down. Its been approx 20 months since I last drove it other than moving it around the yard/garage so it needed to stretch its legs. Took the wife and 5y/o with. I can carry on a civilized conversation now and even listen to the radio at a reasonable volume. Got a lot of looks, especially from older folks.

Tomorrow I take it to Line-X for the color matched bed liner. Maybe Saturday I'll get to go to a car show with it. Weather in FL is about perfect right now for a cruise.

[390fastback]

Dam!! thats a nice truck! and your garage is similar to mine with the slick and the Mach. Mines a 71, going to be grabber lime though. I need to tell you though, I have a white line-x bed liner in my truck, and it does not wear well. scratches are a 'nice' yellow color, and the dam thing is always dirty. I finnaly put a rubber mat on the floor.

[HiBoy63]

Thats one nice little ride.

[thenephilm]

Looks great sir, you did a helluva job.

[MeZapU]

Had some good and bad things happen this past week with regards to the truck. Mostly growing pains.

I did have fun driving the truck a week ago Saturday. When it started raining the passengers side of the windshield would not unfog with the defroster. Turns out I installed the vent backwards and it wasn't even blowing on the windshield. Truck was running funny the whole time though. Would shudder getting up to speed then settle out after 2500rpms or so. Used a ton of gas going to Pensacola and back. Almost a full tank. When I got back I had a nose around trying to figure it out. Figured its been sitting so long during the resto something just got gummed up. Cleaned the carb and distributor, set the timing, set idle mix. That didn't work. Busted out my infrared heat gun and found the #4 header tube was 300deg cooler than the rest. Ended up being a bad spark plug. Swapped em all out with the NGK's I got with an old 390 motor and its running better than ever. I've always had luck with Autolite plugs but not with the 45's for these FE motors for some reason.

The LineX bed liner turned out great.







I had a setback with the truck on Friday. I filled up the gas tank on the way into work. Throughout the morning the temps rose and the gas started leaking out the filler cap. It ran down the paint and messed it up pretty bad. So unfortunately I had to perform some more touch-up this weekend. My neck pain has me incapacitated a bit as well. Not been my weekend. The wife had me doing all sorts of Easter things this weekend that I'd rather not be doing. It's twice as bad when you are not feeling well. Its all fixed now but need to wait a few weeks until the clear hardens enough to blend it together properly.



Finally I've been wanting to install a tachometer but didn't want to pony up the money to get something that is not too ricer and not too expensive either. I had an old 2 1/5" Sun tach that had no mounting hardware. I decided to open up the 2 1/16" hole in the dash cluster that the old AMP gauge was in(was not going to use it anyways) and made a press fit for the tach install. I removed the bezel trim and painted it chrome. I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. Subtle yet functional. I still have the ALT idiot light as a backup so I'm not bothered about not installing a $50 voltage gauge I was leaning towards at first. The best thing of all is it was free 99.

[Thomas1190]

Man I love this truck!! I really like the RPM gauge where its at, very functional and not in the way. I like it a lot more than one put on the steering column or up on the dash somewhere.

[BiffWilley]

I completely agree with Thomas! This is such a nice truck and done just right. I'll definitely be using this truck as an inspiration for my truck. My hope is to get mine, just as pretty as yours! Thanks for taking us on this journey and sharing all your progress!

Cheers,
Biff

[MeZapU]

Not much updates in the past few months. Been having fun driving it. I fized the paint issue by the filler neck. Had to stop driving it because of multiple brake problems. Leaking brake light/pressure switch. Leaking wheel cyl's and a leaking axle seal.

I have been planning on upgrading the front brakes from drums to discs. With all the brake issues I figured it was best to stop driving it until I could perform the upgrades. I bought an entire front subframe and suspension off of a 77 F-100 for $200 from a salvage yard. I restored the I-beams and spindles. Then ordered new bushings, brake rotors, calipers, hoses, bearings, pads, etc to make it all like new. It took me two weekends of tinkering to do the conversion. The I-beams and lower parts were installed in about 3-4 hours. I added a new power brake booster, proportioning valve and bracket. The hardest parts were fitting the brake pedal to the booster linkage, and bending all new hard brake lines for the front end.

I can tell you that it stops really well now. The amazing thing is that after all the parts swapping on the front end, to include the steering linkage. The alignment is still spot on! Now I have more confidence driving around as well as when I tow.

It turned out nice.

[MeZapU]

I also have been amassing the parts to perform a automatic to manual transmission conversion. I sourced a clutch pedal box, all the linkages and z-bar, bellhousing, block plate, flywheel, speedometer cable, starter snout, etc. I rebuilt this Tremec 3550 over a year ago and I recently installed the mid-shift kit. I will need to fabricate a good shifter handle once its installed. I still need to get the short input shaft parts, a clutch kit, then order a custom driveshaft once its installed. Money is always the driving factor. I already have 85% of the parts. Hope to have it installed by mid summer.

[olliesshop]

Very nice and great progress

[MeZapU]

I have been planning this 5-speed swap for a while. The original Cruise-o-matic transmission worked fine, but left a lot to be desired in regards to performance and efficiency. This is the Tremec 3550 that I rebuilt a while ago and have been holding onto. I needed to install a mid-shift kit in order to have the shifter in a decent position on the floor and not poke up right in front of the bench seat. I also found 95% of the manual transmission swap parts off of another 66-F-100 in a u-pull-it junk yard. Bellhousing, clutch fork, block plate, inspection cover, flywheel, clutch pedal and all the linkage, speedometer cable, starter end bell, and all the bolts and hardware for $48.

Progress has been extremely slow on this swap. Primarily because there is no information at all that I can find on the web of anyone ever performing such a swap. The main issue being it is a FE big block. If it was a SBF it would be a no bainer. A few cars I've found have done the swap but the car bellhousing is shallower by 1/2 compared to the truck FE bellhousing. Lots of Cobra kit cars have done it but they are a breed all their own. Found mention of one F-100 having done the swap but no mention at all of how he did it. Most likely a cubic dollar infusion by a hot rod shop, so the guy most likely couldn't even answer questions about what was done.

I rebuilt the junkyard parts by welding up wollared out clutch linkage holes and machining them back to size. All new bushings. Cleaned and painted parts. I even flipped the flywheel ring gear to utilize the fresh side of the teeth. New pedal pads, clutch fork dust boot, etc.

First I needed to get a SBF pilot bearing machined down to fit into the end of the crank. Then I needed to grind 1/2" off of the front of the input shaft bearing retainer as it was actually hitting the clutch disc hub. Once the trans mated flush with the bellhousing I had to shim up the transmission mount as well as the crossmember to keep the engine and trans as level as stock as possible. I then cut the hole in the floor for the shifter. I need to research a shifter boot that will fit and not look out of place, make a tall truck style shifter handle, then finally I need to measure and have a driveshaft made.

The progress is slow but it should be worth it in the end.

[MeZapU]

I picked up the driveshaft yesterday. I sourced a donor from a Crown Victoria police car. They are aluminum and 3.5" in diameter. Basically a 55' version of a FRPP fox driveshaft and a different yoke. I had the driveshaft shortened one inch. The shop also installed a new fox style slip yoke, new u-joints, then finally polished and balanced the shaft all for $185.



Today I bought a length of 1/2" steel rod at Lowes to craft the shifter handle. Measured, cut, welded, bent, threaded and painted. It was tough to find a shifter boot and bezel big enough to work and wouldn't look rubbery or out of place.. This one fits barely but gets the job done. I cut the extension off of the shifter ball and rethreaded it to work.







Next is a little tuning. Truck will need a traction lock diff and some traction bars. Probably going to get some Cal-Tracs for it. I can already feel some wheel hop. Truck has never really seen the high side of 4000 rpm's with the old automatic. Going to take it easy for a while. Will also need to pull the steering column to replace the automatic components with parts that I sourced from the column of a 66 mustang. Should smooth it out and look like it was made for a 4-speed. May also modify/shorten the column and install power steering. I have the pump, lines and box in the shed from the 77 donor truck that I got the disc brakes off of. Just need the power steering pump brackets for a FE motor.

Before 3000 rpm's was 65mph. Now 2000 rpm's is 70mph with the overdrive. Truck feels totally diferent.

[1965fordf100]

Good work! Let us know how you are liking it after a couple weeks!