1966 F100 Short Bed Styleside Metal/Body/Paint Work

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by Russell Ashley

All I can say is WOW!. Just caught up after being off of the forum for a while and you never fail to impress me. You notice imperfections that I would never notice. I'm amazed that you have time to document the work and still get it done.

Thanks Russell!



Haven't taken the time to update the build thread in awhile. I got sick with Covid about a week ago and I'm not quite back to 100% yet so I figured this would be a good time to start catching up on pics.


Hood welded together 100%. I'm pretty happy with how all of the folds/overlaps came out. Not perfect but they'll be really nice after bodwork and seam sealer.












With the braces in I was able to finish bodyworking the inner braces. On the front I used a long flexible spreader to pre-shape the filler and minimize how much sanding was needed.




All of the smaller areas skimmed, blocked, and blended together.




Rear brace bodywork roughed in and shot with epoxy.








With the hood welded together I could bolt it back on for final test fitting, except the hinges weren't quite cooperating. Taking all of the play out of all of the joints meant that the angle of the hood mounting pad had to be exactly the same angle as the mounting point on the hood brace when the hood is closed and the hinges are adjusted to the correct height. There is no way to adjust this angle, except by altering the center to center length of the link that connects the two main arms and keeps them in sync. Apparently the hinges were sloppy enough from the factory that this wasn't an issue.

I noticed that aftermarket billet hinges for other cars had an adjustable link, but there is no room for that on F100 hinges, so I had to come up with another option. The pins that hold the link were fixed in place, so I knocked the pins out and machined new pins with an eccentric end and a slotted head so I could adjust the eccentric with a small screwdriver, then lock it down with a lock nut.




I forgot to take pics of the whole process, but I turned down 3/4" rod on one side to 1/4-28" and made a matching threaded aluminum sleeve that would fit in my boring head for the mill (I bought a new lathe and don't have it up and running yet). With the aluminum end clamped in the boring head, I could offset the head and turn the end down to make the offset locating pin for the link.












Range of adjustment-

[SCOTI]

^^ Clever! ^^

[theastronaut]

Originally Posted by SCOTI

^^ Clever! ^^

Its ridiculous the amount of time I have in these hinges now


Vid of the hinges before fixing the mis-match angle when closed. Notice that the hinge stops traveling before the hood is 100% closed, then any further attempt to push the hood closed only flexes the rear brace. Using the eccentric to angle the front of the mounting pad down fixed that issue.

F100 Hood Hinge - YouTube