JMURACN

1995 F-150 XL, 4.9L Inline 6, 3 Pedal 5 Speed, Long Bed (I think)

After searching the internet like a 21st century kid (ebay, google, CL), the good old Valley Trader came through. She’s a multicolored, almost rust free (well the least rust free I could find), 2 owner truck… she’ll be getting me to the vanpool while the Integra is on jack stands (my long overdue track car/autox build), hauling firewood, all the home project supplies I could ever want, and all the various BS that trucks are supposed to do. The last owner lived in the same town that my fiance and I do, but his son was borrowing it to move so I had to go out to bumble**** VA to look at it… seriously it made our house feel like we were in the city.

A/C is cold, heat is hot, clutch kicks like a mule, 4 low and high all work… hell both gas tanks work and the rear one doesn’t leak (yet). She has 200k miles of love and a fresh tune up… the engine is dead quiet when its running. Not one tick or knock. Its crank windows, manual mirrors… but it does have an airbag! I feel so safe.

The bed isn’t in the best shape but its only got “some” fender rust and if it didn’t rain/snow yesterday it would have been taken care of. A the drivers side front fender has as rust HOLE and the front spring perches have seen better days… im going to order a new front fender and I called one of the local offroad shops and they said they could cut out the old perches and put in new ones for about $400. (I might as well have them replace the rusty old shocks and level it out while they have it… less frustration on my part!)

I rarely pay asking price for anything. He wanted $4k for it, he didn’t get that much money… I didn’t bring $4k with me and I still had cash in my pocket to insure it for a year, fill up both gas tanks (they were both on empty lol), buy a new radio and speakers, buy a new matching spare 10 hole, have lunch with my friends, and buy that new front fender. I’m a jerk and he needed some money.

Step UNO: There is 200k miles of old man funk on the inside of this poor truck. So step one is cleaning everything out of this old girl and getting it to the place where I don’t need hand sanitizer just to sit in it. That seems easy enough… I just need a day where its not raining all over the damn place (no its too big to actually fit in the garage lol).

Step 2 will be the much needed upgrade to the sound system. Nothing fancy, but the speakers are from the 90s and the head unit is factory fresh (with cassette player… and buttons warn OFF). I do want hands free/Bluetooth to help with goofing off while driving a 3 pedal full size truck. And I need to do something (read: replace) those tiny little fog lights that don’t do anything. They are the most useless POS lights I’ve ever seen… I was going to throw them under the rear bumper to give me more light when backing up, they would even be useless for that.

Step 3 will be to make the whole truck one damn color. I’ve decided to Monstaline the whole truck from the roof on down. I’m debating on if I should remove the bed and really do it right… at least one of the bed bolts is broken so I’ll need to fix that anyway… and I might as well build in the tie downs while I’m at it (i would like to get some flush fit tie down rings under each of the bed bolts anyway… ehhh its going to be a solid weekend project (maybe two). I'm thinking a red/black combo like on some of the XLTs.

At some point in its life someone screwed a bed liner or cap down on the bed… I’ll be welding up all those holes before it gets bed lined. I also need to dolly out some of the spots where they stretched the metal when they ripped up whatever was screwed down lol. I’ll probably do a front and rear diff service while this whole project is going on.

Step 4: I’ll probably just clean the engine bay and wait to see any real leaks. I think at some point a rear main seal was bad, but I don’t see any fresh stuff…. After reading the internet there is ZERO point in intake/header/exhaust/chips etc with a 4.9L… what you get is what you get… all they get you is sound.

Its going to need a leveling kit and 31-ish tires on it… the factory came with either metric 29s or metric 31s… and at this point I’m not sure which this truck actually should have. But its got 3 matching tires and a used one (cheap *** rednecks)…. I’ll probably also do fresh shocks before I put on any expensive rubber! (after running out the read the door jam, it had metric 29s for tires from the factory … boohisss)

After one week she got some new speakers and a radio… Sunday we put her to work hauling firewood. I love getting coupons for crutchfield… I hate that I’m in the same state as they are so I have to pay sales tax!

The old crusty ford deck that didn’t want to come out… breaking off the face makes it easier to remove!


200k miles of dirt under the door… and crappy old ford speakers.


The new Kicker CS series speakers



The new Bluetooth cheap radio that is pretty amazing… especially for the old beater.

JMURACN

We call it… Redneck Flare… 5 tqs per!


new plates are in.

JMURACN

***I am consolidating posts from my college motorsports forum, sorry for the project bomb***


So before the integra can go on jackstands… I want to seal up the F150 (and I need to start working client side/using the vanpool again… 140 miles round trip to work every day will hurt the bank account)… so I decide to attack the F150 on Saturday. Well the biggest thing to tackle before monstaliner is the pickup bed… which means fender work.

IF YOU HAVE RUST ON ANY CAR, DON’T WAIT, ATTACK NOW!!
This is how it looks… seems pretty reasonable.


I HATE stupid trim pieces… I had to use the grinder to remove the screws that held them in place… that should have been a sign.


We start getting down to the metal to find out whats going on…


OMG it’s a Honda! Look at the hole!


The rain looked like it was moving it so I decided not to weld… I sprayed some metal sealer in the hole and then used some self etching primer to cover whatever I could. Doesn’t look too bad after the rain.

The next step is to drill some holes along the fender and blow out any dust rust in there, spray more sealant inside the finder, weld the patches, and finish prepping for the monstaliner. I’d say the other side doesn’t look “as bad” but then I would doom myself to find more work

JMURACN

these will go under each one of the 6 bed bolts after the monstaliner is done. I'm also trying to source (not trying to hard at this point) 6 new grade 8 stainless nuts and bolts. they are rated to 1500lbs/tie down... slight over kill

JMURACN

This past Saturday started with cleaning up the rear fenders. I already knew I was welding a patch in on the passenger side fender, but it turned out I didn’t need to patch the drivers side…


Cutting the patch… drill a hole, run a screw into it so you can move it around the fender….



Weld weld weld…



Drill some more holes so you can pull it tight. (I also drilled some hole around the fender lip to blow up all the crap that was in there and to spray in some sealant.

While the welder is out… welding up the self tapping screw holes the previous owner decided to put in the bed. Weld, grind, prime on both sides... there were at least 80 holes (i dont know what this guy was doing with the self tapping screws but he wasnt afraid to keep going at it)

JMURACN

Bondo sucks… but its part of life. You have to use some sort of filler to make it smooth. Just a tip, dont bother with the buddy knife they sell next to the bondo... go get the window tint credit card smoother, it worked like a charm and its flexible enough that it was easy to clean off once the residue dried.



Sand Sand Sand…. (insert joke here)


Sunday began with sanding off the over night primer and using the skimming bondo. If you left any air into your bondo or worked with it when it was getting hard, you get rough spots and this stuff will fill that in and gives the “better” look.

One inch diameter skimming bondo, one inch line of red hardener… I read the instructions


Skim skim skim… sand sand sand



Prime it… show it the finger… cover it up with bed liner! I still have some work to do to the passengers side wheel arch, its pretty beat up and depending on how you look at it, it either looks good or it looks terrible.


The front fender had a rust spot on it, so we got a new one from JC Whitney. You basically disassemble half of the front end, then fight and curse at it until you wiggle it out. After the fender was off I sprayed sealant and rust stop on the inside fender locations (I don’t plan on pulling fenders very often)

JMURACN

The fiance was a little worried the 80ish pound hood was going to come crashing down on our heads... the 2x4 wasnt enough... she had to add the stool... the dowels were my added joke lol


Transfer over all the crap….


Fight curse and wiggle in reverse order… we had some major gaps to shrink but i'm 99% sure this aftermarket fender will never fit like the OEM... who cares? its getting monstalinered and abused as a work horse.

thallendorff

Looking pretty good. Redneck bling or not, can never complain about supporting our military. Thank you for those who serve past and present.

JMURACN

It replaced a "trout" sticker...

that sticker is one that is sent out with purchases from LaRue Tactical... I have built a lot of ARs in my life time and have a stack of them

one project might be to build a flip out/lockable truck gun "safe" behind the flip out seat.