Page 16
Wood you make more work?
Well thanks to a guy called Craig Dixon who lives not to far from me, I got some
real Oak tongue and Groove for my Bed floor (free). It was a little warped but
after some gentle persuasion slotted neatly into place and slowly formed a Cool
F100 pick-up bed floor. The first photo, shows the base of the wood and the
front panel in place so I could accurately mark the fixing holes. The 2nd photos
shows the front panel fitted Hoorah progress ;o)
It was pretty straight forward to fit and mark the side panels once it was
squared and a couple of holes were drilled, it sure do make a solid bed when it
is all bolted up. The rusty end section (read angle iron) will be polished alley
or maybe stainless... depends what I can find that isn't to expensive. The wood
is several shades of Oak but it looks Ok and I may try and stain it one colour
;o) I need to now try and find some bed strips, I did find some half round ally
strip at a Vintage show the other week, that would of done and was reasonably
priced, but the guy didn't keep his promise and it never materialised... so it
is back to the drawing board. I also need to make a lift out section for the
upper diff bolts, in case I ever need to remove the axle. But the basics are
done.
I have a new tailgate now but ffun100's
didn't send me any hinges arrghhhhh But they are
on the way apparently..
The lower crossmembers that the bed wood bolts to, I had originally welded to
the chassis, but ended up in the wrong position with the thickness of wood I
had.
Well I was feeling fairly chuffed with the days work, the next
day I managed to get some work done on the Truck was a totally different affair
though....
I have no idea what came over me, and I still find it hard to grasp why I did
it?? But I had some minor damage to repair on the bonnet (hood). So while I was
stood back contemplating my next move.. I had an overwhelming urge to remove the
peak from the bonnet, Yeah I thought nose the barstard.. it can't be that hard
can it?
I mean it looked logical to me, even though I have never seen it done to any other F100. The whole vehicle is made up of round bulbous panels yet they stick an out of
flow peak on the top of the hood... why?... so I bit the bullet and started the
task.. that has nearly broke me mentally *again* ;o) Above shows
the start of my first cut and the damage that started the whole job off.
I cut it and sliced it, with the intention of just welding up the slits after dollying them flat. I managed to make myself comfortable, armed with my trusty welder, a thin
cutting disc or three and a handy bucket of water and a rag (Update useing a Rag and water to cool is a no no used and air-line instead) I set about it. Now
I guess why nobody has ever done this before is that they would know that the
metal is stretched to make the peak and as such it is soooo much thinner here..
whaa whaaa.. mistake one, it was an absolute twat to weld. It holed as soon as
the welder was put anywhere near it. I was tacking damping
with a wet rag, tapping with a body hammer and dolly and so went the whole day.
I did put up a message on my e-mail group saying I was doing this mod, and was told in no uncertain terms " DO NOT DO IT, IT WILL LOOK WEIRD".. whoops to late I had done it.
I don't know what you all think, but to me it looks
superb, makes the hood look lower and neater to my eye.. all I had to
do now was make it good, as a good job it definitely was not! And man are
them F100 hoods thin and bendy... a few swift kicks were needed to get some of
the original shape back after this first lot of welding ;o)
This bit annoys and worries me, seems like some time in the trucks life, someone
had hammered over the lower lip into a safety edge so not sure if I can sort
that I may just leave it as is..
Next job was to bare metal the rest of the hood ready for some serious filling.
This was one nasty job with dust everywhere, my garage has a dust film over
everything now and I have only done the hood... oh boy! I will look into having
the rest professionally done I think.
In the end I decided to add this strengthening strip to the back of the hood
where the peak was removed. The front after some grinding and some hammering
flat holed everywhere. So now I have a solid
base to weld hammer and make good the top before I set about the filling job...
You can see here I did liddle diddy tacks going from one end to the other to
minimise heat distortion.. Loads of work left some self made like this but it is
taking shape... just wish I knew what I was doing and how to go about the job
properly... Hey ho!
Update August 20th
Well it was now time to stop pissing around and get the hood flattened ready for priming before it gets rusty.. The bonnet/hood had oil canned, I love that term oil canned, the yanks have some great ways of describing things, this is where the metal stretches and if you push into shape it just boings back to original shape.. I had two the size of saucers either side of the removed hood peak. But I knew what to do didn't I ;o)
I know you heat it up and quench
with a wet rag to shrink it (again used an air-line not a wet rag) so it will retake its original form ha ha.. ha... Ok
sure!! Well after the saucer size oil can became a dinner plate size I thought
best pack up before I jump all over the fuking thing and wreck it, how come it
works ok for ever fukker else Grrrrrrrrr So plan B was use filler and be done,
thing is though I don't know how to use filler either ;o) So hours and hours
later of filling and sanding and feeling "whoooo missis" I am getting there. One
thing I do know though is if it ain't 100% flat it will stick out like a sore
thumb once in shiny paint! I ordered one of them Flexi Sanders http://www.flexiblesanders.co.uk/
to hopefully make the job easier and better. So while I waited for that to
arrive I got on with some other jobs.
The bonnet on the F100 or at least mine anyway is so damn flimsy it is like
working with Rolf Harris's' bloody wobble board. There is a gap under the ribbed
bonnet strengthener so I guess that original had something in it to hold the
outer skin tight.. Mine had nothing in there. I remembered back to my Banger
days and how some ;o) added stuff up their chassis legs for strength and hid it
with expanding foam... So I filled it with expanding foam, WoW the
difference is amazing and really has stiffened the whole bonnet up, what with
that and the centre strip I welded in it is a totally different animal than I
first started with. I have since trimmed the foam down and started filling it as
that will be painted to.
Something that I have been wanting to see if it would work for a while, was to
see if I could fit all 6 of my gauges in the original F100 instrument pod. It
looked like it was going to be tight, I did think of trying to remove the bezels
and glass so they would definitely fit, though I would prefer not to in case I
messed them up.
I marked out a template in card first then transferred that to a piece of Ally I
had laying about. I thought now how can I mark a proper circle that the
gauge mounts in and not just the size of the gauge? So I traced round the
hole from the packaging the gauges came in and folder it in half and voila ;o)
that gave me the centres to.
Well thankfully they fit a treat just gotta find a way to fix the Ally to the
gauge shroud now.. And also get the glass to fit as it fits in a part of the old
instrument face which ain't there anymore *hum?*
Well here they is mounted,I intend to paint the Ally etc in the body colour and it should look neat
and groovy eh!
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