1966 F100 Camper Special, short bed and 4x4 conversion

[04sd]

Great work Bill.
I did a very similar mod to my '61 f100 unibody.

I tried to upload some photos but i got an error saying the board attachment quota has been reached.

Thanks. Would love to see pictures of your truck. You need post the pictures to a photo site and add the links to your post. Mine are on postimages.org.

[04sd]

Some photos from last fall....

[624WD]

How is this project proceeding? Interested in the progress. -tom

[04sd]

How is this project proceeding? Interested in the progress. -tom

The chassis looks the same. I've got the engine and trans about ready to bolt in, still need to clean up the 205 transfer case. Spent time over the winter making some repairs on the cab, cab corners, a few areas in the floor, and center braces. Need to weld up the holes in the doors from the original mirrors and drill holes for the Western Jr mirrors then I'm ready to start blasting and priming sheetmetal. Making progress but nothing really out of the ordinary and I haven't taken any pictures. Hopefully by summer I'll get some pictures and post some stuff again. I can really only work on it on the weekends and right now I'm putting a new AC system in the house before it gets hot outside but I'll get back on it soon.

[Another66]

Bill, check your PM's.

[04sd]

I's been a while but I have been working on the truck from time to time. No real order but a few pictures of some progress.
Cab in epoxy primer

[04sd]

Cut out the trans cover. High hump trans cover from the '78 4x4 for the t-case shifter.

[04sd]

Engine, trans, t-case mounted.

[04sd]

I had back surgery last summer so afterwards when I couldn't really do much I did polish up the Western Jr Swing Lock mirrors and installed new stainless hardware. Never understood why ford used plated hardware on stainless mirrors.



Still a long way to go but slowly making progress

[04sd]

Gas tank modification for the return line from the surge tank. Also added a vent line. 5/16" metal lines, no rubber hose inside the cab.

[04sd]

Engine, EFI 302 w/ AOD.
Power brakes and power steering, from 1978 F150.





Cab coming off for the last time (I think) until it gets painted.





I also sandblasted the doors and hood today and sprayed a coat of epoxy primer on them. Forgot to take pictures.

[04sd]

Just shot the cab in epoxy primer again today. I had really hoped to have the cab painted in color this week but screwed up my primer. The cab was painted in epoxy after I sandblasted it. Did minor bodywork and added another coat of epoxy over those areas. Wet sanded the entire cab by hand in prep for 2K Urethane to fill minor imperfections, scratches, etc. Then I sprayed the Urethane, problem is I never added the activator to the Urethane. So began the days long process of removing the Urethane. On the big flat areas I sanded off a lot of it with a DA sander trying not to remove the epoxy base. Then wiped off all of the remaining with reducer soaked rags. Sanded and scuffed the epoxy and by now I had a lot of areas through to bare metal, so shot another layer of epoxy. Hopefully tomorrow I will shoot the 2K Urethane again, this time with activator. Lesson learned.

[grump]

Nice work. Are you using the old wiring harness, I noticed you still had the rectangular holes in the firewall that the wiring harness blocks go thru. Keep up the great work.

[04sd]

Not sure on wiring yet. Given I need the computer and a bank of relays for fuel pumps, etc., I need more than just the stock harness. I'll cut holes in the firewall if needed. Would have been nice to do before paint but I'm building a truck I'm going to use not a show truck so not to concerned about cutting after the paint.
I did get the urethane sprayed today, with activator this time. Hopefully sand one more time and spray color so I can get the cab installed on the frame. Winter project is to get it wired up and running then.

[04sd]

I got the Wimbledon white painted for the two tone. Hopefully tomorrow I can paint the blue. I don't mind doing the metal work but final bodywork and finish painting are far beyond my abilities to do a true professional level job. My aim is a nice truck that I'm going to drive and use, I don't need it perfect, but hopefully in the end the paint looks pretty good.

[shipwrecked]

Moving along.

[04sd]

Once again I'm reminded why I don't do auto body and paint for a living. But the cab is finally painted and no runs in the blue at least.
Fixed the pictures and brought it back to my shop today.

[My wife's nightmare]

WOW!!! That is sexy! I was really bummed when I couldn't see the blue pictures so thank you for fixing that. I've been watching all of your work and it is fantastic so far. That is going to be such a neat ride.
Congratulations again on passing the no run test, runs have become my trademark I believe!

[04sd]

I think painting the cab was probably the worst piece. I'm painting everything thing in pieces so hopefully it all matches and looks OK in the end. I have a brother who was a professional painter for years, in a body shop, production line, and painting on the side; moved on to a different career now but for years he painted almost all of my projects. So for this truck I'm doing 100% of the work, I bought a fairly cheap HVLP spray gun, used it for primer but at least for me it was certainly a learning curve going from a conventional gun. So for the white paint I borrowed one of his old Binks guns, painted really nice, a lot more overspray, and I laid it on kind of heavy. Ran the paint, mostly across the back of the cab where it will get covered by the bed so no big deal. Decided I'd go back to HVLP for the blue, was going to use one of his Sata guns but in the end used my cheap gun, the Sata just didn't feel right in my hand, guess I grew accustomed to my gun. The cab was just tough to paint, inside, outside, jams, rain gutters, standing on ladders and boxes to reach across the roof. In the end though I can live with the results.

[04sd]

Just wanted to let anyone who is following along on this build know that I started a build thread on FTE. I think this was a great site years ago but for some reason has sort of died out. I will continue to watch the builds that are still going on here since there are some great trucks and guys working on them. Pictures are much easier to deal with on FTE so that is where updates will be.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1644 ... build.html