My Daughter's 71 F100 - The FORDification.com Forums (2024)

So I picked up this truck (71 F100) with the intent to flip it and hopefully make a few bucks to spend on my other projects. But my daughter came home and saw it and asked "Sooo whats with the new truck... it's my favorite color so it must be for me right?" I said the first thing any loving father would say... "hell no you already have a truck"... (she has a 72 hiboy that we just never got around to doing a body swap on) So her response to that was I'll trade you my hiboy for that one. Wow that's a tuff one considering I paid for both... All things fair she did pay half of the hiboy back and I gifted the other half and parts on her birthday. Anyway I asked if she was serious and she said yeah the F100 was really more of what she wanted. So feeling guilty for not getting her hiboy done for her I said yeah and started in making it more road worthy. Here is the only pic I took right after I got it.

So the grill was busted scratched and bent the hood trim the same. front bumper was bent and had tabs welded on top of it. The tires were dry rotted wheels were extremely rusted. Dash pad cracked and busted, seat and door pads ripped. The wiring was a mess and melted behind the alternator. It would start and run strong but not restart. and the hood had really bad rust in the structure. But she loved it so I got to work... Spent a day hunting wires and besides some really strange rewire attempts from previous owners, blown fuses (from said bad wiring attempts...) and the melted wires behind the alternator I got everything working. Changed out the alternator and all the wires going to it as well, new ground and power cables, new solenoid, new starter. I also changed out all the heater and radiator hoses along with the water pump. New cap & rotor, spark plugs and wires and it now starts runs really strong and restarts like a champ. It came with a brand new carb and the brakes had been redone already. After that I turned my attention to how it looked. Took the grill and front bumper from the hiboy (don't worry I have a spare set and a plan for it) Cleaned up a set of hood chrome (F100 badges and front trim) painted the F100 badges and the "F O R D" letters across the front and also repainted the "FORD" on the tailgate. The bumper was an ugly rusty step bumper but I had an idea of cleaning it up and coating it with spray on bed liner and then painting the outer edge to match the white on the letters. Looks a lot better and my daughter likes it so that's all that matters. Then I swapped out the ripped bench seat for a nice one I was saving and an almost perfect dash pad I also had tucked away. Replaced the armrest and just cleaned it up. It still needs a bit more help on the interior but it's getting there. The big project just happened over the weekend and that was skinning the hood and replacing the inner structure. Many will question why waste your time with such a rusty hood and I would have been one of them a few years back but the whole rat/rustic rod fad has slowly grown on me and my daughter likes them too. Also we had already fallen in love with the great patina the truck and hood had on it. So I started looking through my hoods and I only had 2 that I could justify cutting up for this project and the hiboy hood was badly dinged and bent on the outer skin and it just so happens that it was the same color on the under side. Ok time for some pic's....

Grill from the hiboy...

Rear bumper and new "FORD" paint.

Hiboy hood

71 F100 Hood

Cut out the inner structure from the Hiboy hood

It didn't take much to cut out the 71 hood so much rust that it all but fell out.

Just a few parts still hanging on...

The big flat area of the hood that are glued to each other were still hanging on really strong so I pored acetone down behind the panels and it softened the glue enough to pull them apart without damaging the outer hood skin.

I scrubbed down the inner hood and hit it with a wire wheel on the back side then coated it with spray on bed liner then did the same to the inside of the hood skin. Then I coated all edges with wieldable primer...

With the spray on bed liner still wet I slit the 2 pieces together and started clamping them down.

At this point I moved everything up onto a makeshift work bench and started pop riveting it together. for this big of part I like to rivet it together to keep it from shifting (clamps can slip or get bumped off) I then spot welded it back up through the old drilled out spot weld holes and left the rivets for the added rustic patch look when the hood is open.

Last thing was to clear coat it and then put it back on the truck.

I drove it to work today and before the hood would bounce at the front corners a good 1/2 inch or more at 60 mph, took it up to 80 and it never moved. I would call that a success!