Fuse box preparation

 

Time to prep the old radio box so that is will take good care of all the electrical wiring that needs to enter and exit thru it.

I had been looking around for an appropriate rubber grommet that could deal with the elongated hole, but came up empty handed and decided to make it myself out of 2 smaller ones. The larger ones became to thick and bulky.

Parking light base

Further down you can see what I started of with

Position light

Turn indicator light

Mounting Kick down Switch

Voltage regulator

I might just need to do something on the color.......because that is not a color "DOT" I want under the hood.

 

Mounting Grill

The mounting surfaces on the grill wasn't that flat, as I wanted it. The stock grill looked the same. So I decided to add some "Padding" to absorb the difference

Kick down switch HEX nuts

Cowl vent seal modifications

Ok lets start this post by making sure that the above picture is NOT with an original aftermarket rubber seal. I got one from Dennis Carpenter and its been mounted and under pressure for a few months and STILL it didn´t came close to letting the vent align with the cab. It was almost 1/4 of an inch above the cab, in the front of the vent. So I decided to take it into my own hands and modify the seal itself.

Above is the seal seen from above. I took a carpet knife and only extended the knife blade enough to penetrate one of the rubber walls, as the seal is hollow. Then I cut it on the inner most ridges, all the way around. Opening up the seal as seen below.

Cab heater hoses

 

Inspection plates, Cab front corners

Some Butyl sealer to make sure its water tight.

Preparing steering column with turn indicator switch

 This day the phone was obviously not the most important tool and I only got 1 picture of the process.

Gauge cluster modification

 

Earlier I have mentioned that I found a set of NOS Oil Pressure Gauge and Battery charge gauge on Ebay. My plan was to replace the F100:s stock oil pressure warning light and charge warning light. However I realized that no matter how good it is to have a pressure gauge instead of a warning light. A sudden loss in Oil preassure for some reason, it would be really easy to miss that the oil pressure gauge falls down to zero. So I decided to mount some red led:s that illuminates the oil pressure gauge thru the old oil pressure light warning switch. So if I get a sudden oil pressure drop the oil pressure gauge will illuminate all red.

New tires arrived

 

New tires arrived as a late Christmas gift. Firestone Black wall 7,10x15 up front and on spare, 8,20x15 up back. This will be existing to mount on the steel rims.

New steering wheel

 

New steering wheel from Dennis Carpenter. I have had it for quite a while, but when test fitting it with the turn indicator mechanism i noticed that they had tried to replicate the canceling clip on the backside of the steering wheel. BUT the one who have done it have absolutely NO IDEA on what it is and how it works. In the picture below you notice a paint scratch between the 2 spot welds. That is the canceling "hook" on the turn indicator assembly that is trying to grab the ends of the canceling clip. BUT THERE IS A SPOT WELD IN ITS WAY.  So the spot weld work as a cam lobe and just guides the canceling hook up onto the canceling clip. Rendering it completely useless. Big Sigh. Good intentions but it turned out so bad. 

So decided to hack the aftermarket canceling clip away and mount the old one. I noticed the new one is of a soft sheet metal (thats why they had to weld it in place) the old one is out of spring steel and is abit of a paint to get in place, But once in place it wont budge. 

Battery Splash shield

 

In between the can floor and the battery splash shield there should be a small rubber seal to prevent wheels spray to spray over the battery. Got it in quite nice (stock) if I might say it myself.

New Horns, High and Low

OK !!! This time I need to admit that I had a major brain fart deluxe. The history goes like this. My truck came with 1 pcs of High horn. I wanted to spice it up with High and Low horn. Kpt my eye open on ebay and eventually found a pair. Go them shipped over the pond to find out they where bad. I have tried everything. Well well shit happens. Eventually Midfifty started to supply re-popped High and Low horns. Ordered a set with all the hardware to mount them to the old brackets. Time came and I was eager to get them mounted. Started taking the old brackets apart drilling out the rivets and mounted the new dampers to the old brackets, with new rivets and everything. JUST TO REALISE that I could have reused the whole bracket from the old horns.......WELLLLLL just have to admit that the elevator does not always reach the penthouse. Especially when on is in a hurry.

Air filter Purolator A30057

 

For future reference.
Redesign old Oil Bath filter is fitted with a Puroltor A30057 paper filter.

Kickdown switch

My kickdown switch was missing when I bought the truck. So ordered a reproduction unit, but it came without the locking nuts. 9/16 Unf-18 low profile brass nuts. I can tell you that they don't grown on trees in Sweden. Been searching everywhere. So now I have them on order at a local machine shop. They will machine them for me, from a 22mm Hex brass billet.

 

Transmission cleaning and painting

The transmission was overhauled the year before I started the big restoration. So it only needs some outside cleaning and paint. Cleaned it with some brake clean and a brush. About 3 cans of brake clean later it was as clean as it gets.

Just picked up the re-designed air cleaner. Now it fits a 4 barrel carb and a paper filter. I decided to hand out this sheet metal work, as this was out of my league. It was apparently a pain in the as to weld as the sheet metal was VERY thin is some places.

Tried to fix some dents and dings that wasn´t accessible during the rebuild bu tthe sheet metal was so thin that it would create a bigger problem trying to fix them. So decided to use bondo instead.

Starter solenoid and cables in place