It's honestly just a safegard and pretty easy to do, if your state uses salt, or even just de-icer like ours, then it's worth using as that stuff is corrosive. The south makes a big difference, you just get fewer seasons and high heat for longer

 

For the dirt pocket, it won't look bad, per sé. From the front, against the cab floor, it's open enough to cram your fingers into it, you should be able to feel the metal go back down toward the floor (look at my pic of the inside) on mine, it was level, and just caked dry dirt right up to the top.

For the tape over the holes, it's normally a black fabric-like tape that the factory installs, but over the years, the glue fails and some will fall off, others are just loose and aren't sealing the hole any longer. I pulled off the remaining tape, sprayed fluid film left, right and up in there, then used the aluminium tape to cover the holes again.

 

Grabbed a $13 MTM sealed box (usually an ammo box) for storage under the rear seats, just one for now to hold the odds and ends that don't fit elsewhere behind the seats and in the section with the jack.
Stuck some little rubber feet on the bottom to stop it sliding as the weathertech mat is a hard plastic instead of rubber

 

This came in today, about $8 on Prime, so i figured i'd order it to see if the quality was any good.

Unfortunately, it's size and quality seem pretty good, so i'll have to get on with removing the Flexfuel badge

 

Still working on the Flexfuel badge, it's off, just need to polish the paint before applying the new badge.


In other news, i had no idea that Ford made their own air/oil separator for the Coyote engine, read oil catch can - and whilst i do think it's funny marketing techniques, it was interesting they stated it's advantage helps prolong the engines life. I know the deal for oil catch cans, what they do/how they work etc. but hadn't really thought about one for the truck. It's not cheap, but decent catch cans with the correct internals aren't cheap either.


https://performanceparts.ford.com/part/M-6766-A50

https://www.amazon.com/2018-5-0L-COYOTE-OIL-AIR-SEPARATOR/dp/B07HRXW4DW/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=M-6766-A50&qid=1605395065&s=automotive&sr=1-2

 

Ya, they're mighty proud of that, $$

 

Finally finished this very slow burning "project" today, added a twist, and blew up my heat gun

I obviously decided to get rid of the Flexfuel badge, it never gelled with me and as much as that didn't bother me, it was very easy to remove, a little heat gun action and some yarn.
I rolled off the remaining rubber backing with my fingers and then removed the remainder with some isopropyl alcohol.




I lined up the new 5.0L badge with the bottom and right edge of the old Flexfuel badge, Ford and other manufacturers do include edge spacing in their badge placement for a reason.







Whilst i was there, i decided that removing the 4x4 sticker was also on the cards. It is in that kind of off-gold colour, which i actively didn't care for when i got the truck, but didn't even think of removing it, or know how easy it would be. The pictures don't show it too well, but the truck is filthy right now, weather outside is frightful, da-de-da not going outside to clean it....
I just managed to get enough heat into the sticker before the fan on the heat gun went mental, it stopped producing heat and started producing burning circuity smells instead. Pealing the sticker got really slow towards the end as it got quite cold


Anyway, i think a nice, easy and very cheap "upgrade" for this, i like the cleaner bed sides and the little $8 5.0L badge seems to be nice and subtle, to my liking.

 

Well said Maxx, and looks much better.

 

I like the clean look and it was an excellent badge choice to go with your chrome.

Also like the underseat storage. Took a look, already 3x the price, but it looks like a perfect fit.

 

Ah yes, you're blacked out for the most part, maybe this one would fit yours better? black figures and half black background -

As for the MTM box, yes, it is a perfect fit under the seat, both for maximising height as well as depth front to back of the underseat space. Amazon are out of stock right now, that's why it's only showing far more expensive options from 3rd parties, i'd keep checking the page or use camelcamelcamel.com for tracking.