I made some progress this weekend, but there isn't a whole lot to show for it.....it always amazes me how long electrical work takes to do.
First thing I did was clean off the flatbed - it's amazing how fast I can accumulate junk on that thing!! Once it was cleaned off I drove it around to see how the mirrors would do. I made a slight adjustment to the passenger side one, but overall they were fine so I decided to move forward. I snapped a couple pics while it was out in the yard since it was the first time out after paint.
While cleaning the bed off I looked at the door sill plates again. I decided that with a little modifying I could make these work. I have the correct ones coming (in fact they're OEM), but this truck doesn't need OEM, so I'll make these work on this truck and save the nice ones for a future project. Also since they stopped making OEM, they will be more valuable and expensive if/when I need them later.
After pulling back in the barn I wired the mirror lights. I found that both leads reached to the middle of the dash, so I tied into the ashtray light since that was convenient to get to.
After that I decided that I might as well stay on electrical while the bottom of the dash was torn apart and hook up the trailer brakes. I installed 2 circuit breakers under the hood for power to the system and for auxiliary trailer power. Once wires were run out back I drilled a hole in the flatbed and mounted the plug there. I think it will be a good idea having it here because it will keep the plug away from abuse, however I may have to extend the leads on my trailers, we'll see.
Once all the wiring was done I added D rings to the hitch. I wasn't in love with the little tabs that the hitch had so I figured it would be nice to add the D rings - both for safety chains and also for a place to hook up a tow strap if I need to. Once welded the whole hitch got wire wheeled and painted.
Since all electrical was done I figured I could button up the interior all the way which also included the door panels. As I'm putting things together I notice that the driver side lock rod isn't going up and down.....this is bad, since I had just replaced both actuators! I fiddle around and finally find that the nubs on the body of the actuator had broken off! So I get to do a warranty claim on that with Rock Auto.
The final thing I worked on was start final mods to the Dana 80 to install Ford wheels. This isn't done yet so I will post what I'm doing there hopefully tomorrow night.
