Eventually you will find examples of F100 interiors here to see what you might like to do with your truck. Many companies offer restoration original interior panels. Kick panels and door panels are fairly easy to make. The headliner is a bit trickier.
The answer is: Any way that you like. But, if you’re looking for some ideas, I hope to develop this page with lots of color combinations. Hopefully this will allow you to see what your truck might look like before you commit to some ugly combination that you thought would work. This should let people experiment more so that we don’t see a ton of bright red trucks every time we turn around too!
We’ve also gotten a lot of requests about POR-15. POR 15 is a paint that you can apply directly over lightly rusted metal. A lot of truck builders are interested in POR 15, especially for frames, inner fenders and the underside of the cab. POR-15 from all accounts that I’ve heard, it works very well. Here is the POR-15 web site if you want to buy some.
If you’re looking at buying a Ford F-Series Truck, take a minute to review where these trucks commonly rust. The cab is the hardest to see rust in.
Ford F-Series Cab Rust Problems On Un-restored Trucks
The top of the cab is usually fine. Sometimes a drip edge rusts out. The lower part of the cab is where a lot of the typical rust occurs – common sense. Floor pans are notorious around the 4 corners of the cab. Lift the carpet or rubber mat to inspect closely. Commonly you will find bad fixes with pop rivet jobs that don’t look very good and won’t last. If a floor pan has been fixed extensively, check it out closely to see that it looks professional. The back cab corners usually at best have small holes in the surface metal. At times, the entire cab corner can be gone. There are patch panels to buy that curve around and can be welded in to fix this area.
Front F-Series Cab Corners & Cowl Area
The worst place for these trucks to rust is where the back part of the front fender mounts to the cab. This is called the cowl or front cab corner. Attached to that on the door jamb is the hinge bucket. This area can rust terribly! F100 Central sells the lower cowl panel and the lower hinge bucket, if yours is rusted out. Keep in mind that this area is complex to fix and will take a lot of time, even for a professional. You definitely have to watch and get the lower hinge bucket installed so that the door aligns. That means lots of checking and mounting the door to see that it will fit.
Dented or Rusted Out F-Series Doors
Again, the top of the doors are usually fairly clean. The lower part can rust out. Luckily the rust generally occurs on the inside/underneath part of the door that few people can see (unless your truck is being judged). If your door skin is dented, panels are available to weld back on.
Front and Back of Ford F-Series Fenders
Fenders usually only rust out where the running board mounts, unless there just wasn’t any paint on them.
Ford F100 Running Boards
Since running boards are down low, they can rust where they mount to the fenders as well as simply rust out from water laying on the flat surface. They’re easy to inspect though.
Ford F-Series Bed Options
Beds are usually too beat up to use. It usually makes a lot of sense to buy a new bed. It can end up costing you plenty of money or time in bodywork to get the original bed parts straight for paint. If you’re lucky enough to have a good straight bed, then you may not need a new one.
Ford F-Series tailgates typically rust out in the lower part where the hinges mount, actually the whole lower section. You can also get a new reproduction tailgate from our online store.
I use to think it mattered that you keep a Ford engine in a Ford truck. I don’t know if it matters to me anymore. I guess it just depends on the truck you build. And for me, I love the trucks, so what’s under the hood is less important than someone taking care of it. I prefer to see a variety of trucks. I think that’s what hot rodding is about. You get a mix of hot rod, restored trucks and nostalgia and you’ve got a good show. For nostalgia trucks, a 53 with a flathead in it is very cool.
For all around driving and decent performance, it’s hard to beat the 5.0 EFI or 302 with carburetor. Taking the engine out of a late model Mustang and putting it in your 48-64 Ford F-SERIES (F100) will give you good power, reliability and a lot of tech articles available to make it go about as fast as you want. Fuel injection is nice once you understand it. It’s actually not that bad to install. You just have to get the correct computer and wiring harness out of your donor car when you get the engine. Usually, computers differ from manual and auto transmissions, so if you pull an engine out of a car, take the computer and wiring with it. You’ll need the oxygen sensors as well as the other sensors to make the EFI work right.
Installing a 4.6 Liter or 5.4 Liter Ford Engine In Your Straight Axle Ford F100 F-
SERIES
The 4.6 or 5.4 Liter Ford is also a good runner. If you want to mount one of these up, get the book by Sean Hyland on building the 4.6 Liter and 5.4 Liter. He’s the master and has built and raced the engine for many, many years. The book is a bit old now (written in 2003), but it’s full of good info. for finding out what cars/trucks to get a 4.6 or 5.4 from. The book tells you tons of detail on crossover parts, heads used on each model and more.The biggest hurdle most people see when contemplating a fuel injected engine swap is, of course, the electronics. What the heck are all of those sensors and wires for? Here are the basics: The engine is an air pump. The sensors give info. back to the computer to manage the engine. The mass air meter measures the air moving through to the throttle body. The mass air meter tells the computer how much air is flowing and the computer tells the injectors how much fuel to spray to match the air flow. On the exhaust side, the oxygen sensors (usually in the manifolds/headers) give information on spent gases. There are other sensors such as throttle position to make the system work. The point is, the computer does all of the work.If you want to perform a 4.6 or 5.4 swap in your F100, pull the entire engine, wire harness and computer out of the donor vehicle. It’s always best to actually see the engine running in a vehicle before you buy the engine (and other components with it). Keep in mind that the computer is specific to an engine in that it has been programmed to match the engine. And, the computer used for automatic transmissions will not generally work on a manual transmission car (and vice versa).
If you’re not sure about fuel injection and the electronics, just get the engine installed. Producing more horsepower should be secondary to installing the 4.6 and 5.4. Get the engine in and running, and then hop it up. The computer program can be altered by aftermarket programmers or you can buy a new chip to get more power. If you want to go all out, put a Chrysler Hemi in your truck. No one will whine about that! Those engines are just too mean and you can’t really hate them!