1955 Ford F100 Fiberglass Hood

Someone put a fiberglass hood on this truck a long time ago and never painted it or cut it correctly.
I looked around the internet for pictures of how this should be done and this is what I ended up doing.

The fender has to be cut so that the lower section can be bolted to the step and cab.
I cut it with a Dremel with a diamond blade.

I have a bad feeling that getting these to all line up when I'm done with all the paint and body work will be a problem.  They already don't fit up well as you can see from the gap above the tape.

This is the part I cut off and then I had to re-connect two pieces with fiberglass to make one part since the truck had part of it already cut off so they could close the hood.

1955 Ford F100 Firewall Updates and Electronic Ignition

I cleaned up the firewall on the truck, replaced some rusted out electronics and put in electronic ignition. 
If something could get screwed up, I screwed it up.  Here is how I fixed everything without having it towed to a repair shop.

My 55 Ford has a 302 out of a 68' Mustang.  It also has a Top Loader 3 on the tree manual transmission.

Painted some stuff and got the heater ready to be installed with a new motor.  The old motor was rotted out and was still 6 volt.  My new heater is 6 volt too, so I added a resistor that will bring the 12v down to 6v.

Painted this black with some shaker can Rustoleum

Some before and after pictures Had to move horn relay to make room for heater (that was not installed when I got the truck)  I can't seem to find replacement heaters anywhere.  I guess no one makes reproductions?

While installing heater hoses (remember I said it came with no heater) I pulled out the distributor without marking it!  Stupid!  Took me 4 hours to get it back into the right place.

Then the fitting leaked and I had to pull it out again a week later and this time the rod fell into the oil pan, but i could still reach it!  I took a plastic straw from a sports bottle and heated it up with boiling water and then used a screw driver that was the same diameter to stretch the straw to be the same size as the rod.  Then I taped that to a long screw driver and lowered it over the rod and had to push hard to slide the rod into the straw, then I was able to pull it up and put it back in the right place.  Then I pushed a long skinny screw driver down the straw to release the distributor rod where I needed it to be.

Now if you have screwed up the timing and its in the wrong spot (will not start or back fires) you can use a combination of a flashlight to look into spark plug hole number 1 while turning the crank to see when top dead center comes up. They should be close to your timing mark too.  Be carefull that you don't mix up top dead center before spark and the exhaust stroke.  You don't want the exhaust stroke.

The truck has a fiberglass hood.  I painted the inside with the left over bedliner paint.

1955 Ford F100 Bed Liner Paint

Hind site is 20/20
I should have just done one of two things to deal with this hammered truck bed:
1.  Scrap it and buy a new bed
2.  Paid LineX to spray the bed liner on for me.

What I did was sand it a little and then rolled on the bed liner myself.  It looks like shit.  I think POR15 would have looked better.
Whatever.. I'll live with it until I'm ready to replace the entire thing.  I'm out of money for a new bed anyway.  They are around $2K plus freight and you still need to put the wood floor in and paint it.

I started with removing the rear fenders (That part was not bad)

I took it off with the help of my son and then flipped it over (not too heavy) to sand and paint the lower parts on the inside

I Masked the outside before coating the inside and top rail with bedliner paint

The tailgate was also hammered and rusted on the inside (opposite of the picture) so it got covered.  What you see will get painted red later.

Hmm.. I don't have a picture of it after the bed liner.  I'll have to get that later.

Then I pulled it into the garage to remove the old paint and prime the outside with Epoxy primer
Then it went in the backyard while I worked on the hood and cab 

Disassemble the bed and rear fenders of my 1955 Ford F100

The Bed was the worst part of the truck, so I couldn't wait to tear into it. 
I had to dissemble this all to get the bed off anyway.  You can't paint the cab or bed with it attached to the frame.
The bolts go into the metal trim, then the wood and then into the frame in many places in the bed.  May of those places along the edges had enough rust that the bolts would just spin.  I had a hell of a time getting about 1/2 the bolts out while most of the ones in the middle or not attached to the frame were fine.

The air chisel worked great if you are cutting the heads off and are 90% of the way there.  I tore up some of the edges with the air chisel pushing the bolts into the rust and making the hole into slots, so watch out for that.

After trying EVERYTHING, the best method for dealing with spinning bolts was to take my grinder and make a deep slot that I could get my biggest strait slot screw driver into.  Then my son hit it with an impact wrench from under the bed.  Hit everything with penetrating oil a day before you start. It's worth the 24hr wait.  This hit it again before you start.

If I could start over, I would scrap the bed and get a new one.  Instead I decided to just cover all the damage with roll on bed liner. See the next post.

New Flowmaster Dual Exhaust!  That was about $300

Buying a 1955 Ford F100 Project Truck

I have restored cars before, but when I decided to buy a 1955 Ford F100 I seem to have forgotten how much work it is.

On June ‎20, ‎2017 I purchased a 1955 Ford F100 from my neighbor Rock Hornbuckle.  He had this truck for about 15 years and lucky for me had done some work on the brakes and steering right before I got it.  Two less things to restore.

I'll talk about what I did and also some tips for the guys like me who want to do it all themselves and need some tips and more than anything, pictures!

Here is the truck the day I got it.  Other than the mismatched paint, totally drive-able and running great. 
See my other posts to see the restoration progress!

 

.