1961 Short Bed UniBody build

[Fiveoh108]

This is my first Post and my first truck build. I have built several other Fords including a 64 Falcon, Hillborn injected, 4 speed that I race, a 65 Mercury Cylcone, 70 Mach1, 64 Fairlane and several other mid 60's Fords. I am really excited about this truck though and can hardly wait to work on it on all my free time. Right now it's a 223 with granny gear 4 Speed and Dana rear. It has rusty doors, passenger side floor board/ cab mount area and some bed rust. It has a broken rear window and several other parts in need of repair. The guy I bought it from gave me a Ford 9" out of a 62 unibody that is a bolt in with a drive shaft modification, an extra set of rust/sent free later model doors, newer speedo cluster, NOS steering wheel, new back window, radio dash cut out of a donor truck to patch the large radio cut out and other odds/ends. I feel like I have a good start.

The Plan:
A 390FE, a 5 speed TKO, two tone blue white with a thunderbolt tear drop hood, lined bed liner, stock style interior and a tow bar to tow my Falcon Racecar. All I need is a pile of money! Hope you enjoy the build.

The day I bought it off "the farm"

[Fiveoh108]

A couple cans of white primer to clean it up to drive

[Fiveoh108]

Grinding some rust out of the bed
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[Fiveoh108]

Floor, rocker and cab mount rust repair

[unibody madness]

great start. and welcome
Let me know if you find a source for your tranny cover hold down clips, I have been looking for some for my project.

[64f100sixcylinder]

I notice your bed floor has some dips in it, probably from hauling heavy objects. Mine was far worse, I used a floor jack and a 2x4 (placed vertical on the floor jack) to jack up the bed floor and work them out, some hammering was required, but it worked very well.

[Fiveoh108]

great start. and welcome
Let me know if you find a source for your tranny cover hold down clips, I have been looking for some for my project.

I have the AMK master catalog, the company that supplies clips/ nuts/bolts to all the parts houses. I'm sure I can find them in there

I notice your bed floor has some dips in it, probably from hauling heavy objects. Mine was far worse, I used a floor jack and a 2x4 (placed vertical on the floor jack) to jack up the bed floor and work them out, some hammering was required, but it worked very well.

I was wondering how I was going to do that, thank you for the tip

[unibody madness]

I had the ford part numbers for both screws anc captive nuts at one point. I will post them if I can find them.

[Fiveoh108]

Im thinking of Viking blue and Corinthian white. Haven't seen this combo a lot

[ThinLizzy13]

Lookin good so far. I like the color combo you're thinking of.

[64f100sixcylinder]

Before I worked out the dips in the bed floor

After, not perfect, but much better. I will be using my F100 as a truck ocassionally

[unibody madness]

That bed looks great. I will have to try that on mine.
The numbers I got from Green sales for the trans cover hold down are
34942S for the nut holder,
353829S for the philips head screw.
If you can find them, please let me know where.
John

[Fiveoh108]

That bed looks great!, John I will check on the clips and screws

[JOSHF100]

Welcome to the site!
I've followed your other builds on the HAMB and they look great..
Looking forward to this one.

Randall

[Fiveoh108]

That bed looks great. I will have to try that on mine.
The numbers I got from Green sales for the trans cover hold down are
34942S for the nut holder,
353829S for the philips head screw.
If you can find them, please let me know where.
John

For the nut holder something from page 56 looks very similar and I'll bet will work
http://www.amkproducts.com/Catalog_PDF/56-73.pdf
And the screw, something from page 125 looks to be very similar
http://www.amkproducts.com/Catalog_PDF/109-127.pdf

If they are not exact, I bet they are so close you would not be able to tell

[Fiveoh108]

Getting close on the floor pans

[unibody madness]

Looks great, you are making great time as well.
Thanks for the heads up on the hardware I will measure mine to find what I need
John

[Fiveoh108]

Unibody madness, custom making patch panels and grinding down welds IS very time consuming, especially since this is my first go around at it. I've had a welder for 3 years now, it's about time I put it to use. It is very satisfying doing the work yourself, just labor intensive.

[MadMaxetc]

I know what you are going through. A long road...but very rewarding!

[myoldman460]

You guys are my hero. I thought my floors were bad, but the lengths that some of the guys I've seen here is a really big motivator to get mine done.