Projects '60 F100 Daily Driver Project.

You have made it into a really cool truck, well done.

 

OahuEli beat me to it, but it absolutely looks like it should have been there from the factory!

 

Thanks you guys!

Made a little more progress on the vent windows.

Got a pile of parts from a place locally. Could have gotten them straight from Dennis Carpenter, but I believe, now more than ever, we should support local businesses.

I don't believe they have a storefront, but they're right down the road, just outside of San Diego. Their shipping is lightning fast!

Anyway, I threw the parts at these vent window skeletons...



and the rubber parts fit like they were genuine Ford parts. Zero issues! No trimming, no "making things fit", they just went together. It was rather serene, kinda like fly fishing.



I'm growing quite attached to these little rivets. Had to grind down one of my pin punches to roll the backside of the rivet, because dumbass here didn't think to order the right tool BEFORE he started the job. But, it worked out.



The replacement latch functions perfectly and is indistinguishable from the actual Ford part. This is the stuff I absolutely love doing. This fiddly little stuff. Tearing it apart to see how it was made, fixing what's broke, then trying to duplicate the way it looked and functioned from the factory. Sometimes I pull it off, but other times... not so much.

Now, we're just waiting on the glass.



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Let's talk about "armrests".

Picked up some new red ones (the color is off a bit, but "live-withable")
I'm glad I looked because I was about to mount these thing the wrong way.

It seems the armrests in a 1960 F-100 Custom Cab were mounted reverse from every other 60's ford I've seen.







Not too bad. Mounted like this, they do clear the edge of the seatback better, when the door is shut, so... WAY TO GO, Ford Engineers!

Now, I have to take it all back apart because the vinyl is delaminating from the tops of the door panels. I must have been light with the glue, easy fix.

Also... this is going to be happening in the next few days.



Never, in my half century of excruciating existence, have I replaced a set of kingpins.

This ought to be interesting. Gonna need a reamer, I suppose.

Okay. That's all I've got for today. Remember, if you can't be good, be good at it.

 

My 60 only had a arm rest on the drivers side.
It seems they are the same as the early Falcons, so I purchased a Falcon pair and mounted new arm rests on both sides.

 

Very nice! What was the name of the local business you got the parts from?

 

It's called "Rubber The Right Way".

Which, incidentally, is what I have to do occasionally when she finds my car parts receipts.

 

Thanks for the info!

 

The shifter bugs me. it's too far away from the wheel. The PO reused the old 3 on the tree shifter and "adapted" it to work with the automatic. (I had to fix the hell out of that cluster fu...)



Twelve bucks you say? Don't mind if I do. One "buy it now" transaction later and a rough '59 ford automatic shifter stalk shows up at the door.



Oh see? That's gonna be much better.





A little rattle can magic.



Side by side.



There, I don't have to lean forward to shift into gear anymore.





I really feel like all of that chrome around the instruments needs to be broken up. Gonna sit and figure on it for a bit and try to come up with something subtle. Maybe mimic the horn button and make it a nice light argent with the chrome around the edge, around the gauges, and highlighting those two stars on either side of the gauges.

Posting this in between "honey-dos". I really don't want another beating, so I'd better run.

 

I have seen some guys use guitar pick guard material to create a 'backing' of sorts to cover up some of the chrome. It looked good and there are hundreds of options for colors if you don't want to paint the chrome.

 

DUDE!!! I would have never thought of that! I just found a place online called Warmoth Custom Guitar and Bass Parts that will send you, free of charge, up to three pickguard samples of your choice. I ordered a few. Thanks for the heads up!

I can think of several other uses for this stuff!!! You ARE the man!!!

 

Great job on all of the interior work. Really like the steering wheel and shifter conversion.

Sent from dumb operator on a smart phone

 

Thanks!

Okay, let's take a little poll.

This thing is kinda evolving on its own. You know? A little change here calls for another little change there, and so on...

I know I've alluded to it before but one more time ain't gonna kill any babies. What if, hypothetically, I was to go with a more mild custom look as opposed to the slots? I know, I know... "Keep the slots!". But, like I was telling a buddy earlier, the more parts I throw at this thing the more it cries for a change in direction.

Let's hear from the crew. Here's a few down and dirty photoshops (Don't mind the lake pipes. And I don't think I got the scale quite right on the Fiestas). Also, bear in mind, I'll also be dropping this thing just a little bit.

I know where I'm leaning -IF- I do this but am looking for input. What's the least of all of these evils?

1:

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2:

​

3:

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4:

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5:

​

6:

​

 

Six looks the best to me...

 

I vote for 1, 2, 4 or 6!

 

Keep the slots! But if you don't, the chrome oem wheels in #6 would be the other way to go.

My 2 cents

 

Same as above ^^^^^^^^

 

Okay, enough of that wheel change mumbo-jumbo. Lemmie get back on track.

Vent window glass is here and installed. Good, heavy glass, slopped itself right in the hole.







Although, I will say, that glass sealing tape is a little tricky to get stuffed into the tight bends but not too bad if you're patient... which I am not.

Got the window lift channels in the mail also.



Ordered the window glass, more sealing tape, felts and anti-rattlers. I should have it all in a few days.

Also, I posted another thread about the "anti-theft" device the PO had installed, so I'm not going to go into any detail other than it's all been removed and the truck starts and runs just fine.

While I was in there I found the hot wire on the coil hanging by a few threads and a few other little issues here and there, so I just rewired the whole damned thing. So, we're back up and running.

Still waiting on upholstery.

 

How about this?

 

63-64 Galaxy? Nice.

Sent from my SM-G965U using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Caps, IMHO I like pic 5 or 6.

 

The whiskers in the front window runners don't look replaceable and I can't find parts or anything other than new runners online. And since I have to spread the money on this project around, I'm not going to replace them with new runners. We throw away too much stuff already. Don't need me adding to the pile.

Anyway, I mic'd the glass to see how much space in the track we had to work with and looked online for something, anything I could use to repair these things.

With not much to lose, I settled on this inch wide polyester felt, adhesive backed, tape. .99mm thick.



Set up my runners on the bench, cleaned and scotch-brite'd the hell out of them and wiped down with acetone. Here it is pre cleanup.



Now. I dunno what kind of glue these felt people put on the back of their product, but they ARE NOT screwin' around. That stuff is as sticky as 3M trim tape. I ruined two whole pieces of this stuff trying to figure out a way to keep it centered and get it to stick back in the corners without grabbing the side on the way in.

But, I got it figured out. Looks good, and measures correctly so I shouldn't have any binding or dragging issues.


It's polyester so the weather shouldn't mess with it too much. So... fingers crossed.

 

That chrome dash cluster is fine and dandy as long as you're not headed west in the morning, or east in the evening.

I've been blinded by that thing more than once. SO, a paint job is in order. I figured a nice creamy white would go well with the new headliner.

Got the face of the thing off and started taping. The plan was to paint the face white but leave the stars., the gauge openings, and the outside edge chrome.



Masked it up.



Scuffed it up...



Less blindy already. I used Rustoleum Canvas White, covered in Rustoleum Satin Clear.



I still have some cleanup work to do, especially around the gauge openings, but all-in-all, it looks decent.



Now I have to sign off and go grill burgers.

Later

 

Damn, that's a nice job! Congrats!

Was running down through your area on a SD and back trip yesterday. Down and back in about 4 hours.

 

It just keeps getting better and better! I’m interested by the window whisker alternative and love the white dash!

 

Came out GREAT. Looks so much better than all chrome.

 

I really like where you've taken this truck, and your attention to detail. Any of the hubcaps you showed could look good, but I would wait on the kingpins until you have the drop axle you "need" in front to put it at the right stance.

Devin

 

Yes...and whitewalls...
My old truck...God I miss it...

 

Thanks, guys!!!

Well heck, fauj. Had I known, we could have met up for a cold beverage or something.
4 hours?!? You must have hit the 15 at just the right time going down and back. Hell, sometimes it takes 4 hours just to get as far as Lake Elsinore.

Damn, now THAT is sharp!!!

Guys, I am really digging all the input I'm getting back from you guys on the wheel issue. Keep 'em comin! Hell, offer up other ideas. Changing them out (if I even do) is still a ways down the road though, so there's plenty of time to consider all alternatives.

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Okay, so. Another thing that always bugged me was the fact that there were just naked LEDs behind the cutouts for the indicator lights. And, since I have the thing apart...

The original green film or lenses have long since crossed into the Grey Havens. So, I set about trying to come up with a fix, and because it's me, I searched for something I could make rather than buy. You know, because I'm cheap.

My wife says I'm so tight assed when it comes to money that, if I backed up to a wall, I could, and I quote, "suck out a brick".

Joke's on her though. She hasn't seen this build thread, which clearly shows the amount of bricks that have fallen out of my ass for the more important stuff. If she does, let me save the police a lot of time and trouble... my wife did it!

Started brainstorming to figure out how to make something durable. There were plenty of test trials ran until I settled on something.

First step was trying to settle on a color. I can remember that the lenses on the indicator arrows in my '64 Fairlane were this kinda medium green with a frosted texture. Color tests were done with archival, alcohol based, permanent ink (my wife is an illustrator, so there is all kinds of cool stuff at my disposal.).



Was going to color tissue or tracing paper then laminate it but the paper pulp showed through once it was laminated. Decided that my best course was to just color the inside of the lamination film then run it through the machine. Ran a few color tests using this method as well.



I know it don't look like much right now, but bear with.

Gave the ink enough time for the alcohol to completely evaporate, then ran it through the laminator. This is what came out.



I hit it with some satin clear, cut it into pieces large enough to cover the hole on all sides, then used aluminum tape on the backside of the cluster to hold it in place. The following pic is a crop of a zoomed in image, so the clarity is shit, but you get the gist.



Lit it up with a small LED flashlight just to see. Backlight makes the magic happen.



I'm gonna give the white paint a couple of more days to cure before I reinstall it.

Door glass should be here tomorrow, so maybe the rest of the week will be spent installing the vent windows and everything.

Later

 

It's been a couple of days and the paint has cured enough to reinstall the dash panel. I am much happier with this!

 

Damn, that really pops! Great work!