Go Make Your Bed or You're Grounded - Part I

Been a little while since I've posted but I promised myself I was going to stick with this! So here I am.

I remember growing up that my mom was always asking if I had made my bed before I could go and do stuff with friends or leave the house... So this week I'm happy to say, Mom, over the last couple of months, I made my bed, and you didn't even have to remind or ask me!

A different aspect of the build I'm doing is the 7 foot bed. A factory short bed is 6.5' and a long bed is 8'. So call it a mid sized bed, medium bed, shlong bed, whatever floats your boat. These trucks are a little bit wider than the previous generation, and I always felt like the 61-66 trucks looked obnoxiously long with an 8 foot bed but the 6.5 foot short-bed was perfect on them... Then when you get to the 1967-72 body-style, they are a little wider and I kind of felt the short beds still looked great, but maybe a little too short. So on this build I cut a foot out of the frame lengthwise directly behind the cab and left everything behind the rear axle stock where a factory short-bed would have been 14 inches shorter behind the cab and 4 behind the rear axle.

Making cuts in the frame to shorten it

My teacher Mauricio helped me make sure
the cuts I made would be the same on each rail.

Mauricio welding the frame back together after
the cuts and getting ready to fishplate/box it after.

When we shortened the bed we took it directly out of the front
to eliminate any butt welds in the middle of the sheetmetal.
This allowed us to just stick along the corner to put it back together
and have less warpage.

Another thing I wasn't in love with on these trucks was the two piece bed wall design that was seam sealed on the exterior from the factory. You can tell that Ford caught on to what a terrible design flaw it was because the new body-style (Dentside) starting in 1973 went back to a one piece bedside. My teacher at UVU said when he started working at the local Ford dealer in 1974 when these trucks were only a few years old, they were already dealing with rust issues and rot in that seam, so imagine how much worse it got over the next couple of decades... I bought this truck when it was going on 40 years old, and this year it turns 50, so it was having some issues that only got worse the last few before I opted to build a fresh upper half of the bedside from scratch at school and section it in halfway along the upper half of the main body line, completely eliminating the seam and rust trap.

Side by side with the original piece.

Planishing some of the bend marks in the
upper bedside on the English Wheel.

Getting the bedsides fitted and using Cleco's to hold them in place,
you may also notice, no more stake pockets...

Lesson learned: Don't TIG weld in shorts. Your knees
will be sunburned for two weeks after.

On top of the upper bedsides, I built a front header panel for the bed that is a little cleaner looking and less cluttered with stampings than the factory panel, bead rolled a 50's/60's era Mercury M logo into it to go with my Mercury Marauder M100 theme and then bead rolled a border around it and welded it in closing off any weird gaps or holes.

Bead rolling the Mercury M emblem into the header panel.

I still have yet to build the inner structure for the bed now that I eliminated the two piece exterior panel that previously made up part of the inner portion and after I buy wheels I will know better what I can do with wheel wells/tubs, but beyond what you see here that is about all I have left for metal work on the bed in addition to a custom tailgate skin. Using a series of bends in sheet metal on a brake, a radius brake, bead roller and then planishing in an English wheel have helped me finally fulfill my mom's wishes for me to make my bed without being asked... Stay tuned for part 2 of this project as I still have inner structure to build.

Built the lower patch to hide where the toolbox used to be.

All welded and sitting back on the truck.

Starting to do the finish work to make the front panel permanent.

Making a Marauder-er: The "Marauder M100"

If you've been following me on Instagram for the past few years, you've heard me refer to "The Marauder" or seen #projectmarauderm100 on my posts... If you are not at all familiar with the term "Maraud" or "Marauder" Google will tell you that it means: to roam in search of things to steal or people to attack.

What does this mean, and why am I calling the truck this? Here's your answer:

When building my motor in 2010 I chose a cam with a pretty big amount of lift that required adjustable rocker arms... I ended up using a set of adjustable Cobra Jet rocker arms that had a tall adjustment screw which required taller valve covers than the classic finned California Custom ones I had been running in high school. As I started to look at options that were available, I didn't want the typical "Cobra Le Mans" finned covers in a black wrinkle finish like everybody and their dog had... and I didn't want the kind of ugly "pent roof" factory valve covers that came with no badging or script at all. I wanted something unique that not everybody else had.

While searching the forums on Fordification.com one day, I came across a photo of some taller Ford FE valve covers, but they said Mercury on them and had a big lightning bolt underneath the script. I fell in love with them and decided that's exactly what I wanted. After finding out they weren't reproduced by anyone, I scavenged ebay and the local classifieds until I found a set for a reasonable price, bought them, and then I did a little research.

Mercury 410 Valve Covers painted and pinstriped to match
the air filter case

These Mercury "Pent Roof" valve covers were available in the mid sixties in cars like the Mercury Comet on their 410 "Super Marauder" engine... as I did a little more research I learned that Mercury actually had a car that bore the name, Marauder from 1963-65, and then phased it out for the S-55,  and brought it back for 1969 and 1970. After being phased out a second time, it sat unused until 2003/2004 when Ford opted to reincarnate the Marauder on the Crown Vic/Grand Marquis Platform for another 2 year run, sharing the same suspension, drivetrain and body. Unlike the Crown Vic/Marquis, the Marauder had a supercharged 4v head version of the 4.6L DOHC V8 that made it a bit quicker than the others. The front clip in the 2000's Marauder is the same one that I pulled from a P71 Police Interceptor package Crown Vic to put under my truck to lower it and upgrade to disc brakes and rack/pinion steering. So that says a little bit about the Marauder as a car, but the name doesn't stop there.

In the 60's, Marauder wasn't just a car, it also was a particular roof offered on Mercury vehicles like other companies might offer a fastback or sportsroof etc. Beyond the full size car and roofline, Marauder spent the majority of its time as a reference to the engines used by the Mercury, Edsel and Lincoln divisions.

In 1958, the term "Super Marauder" was coined by Ford for their 430 ci V8, their first ever engine that was advertised to produce 400 horsepower with a unique cast aluminum finned air cleaner case that fit the tri-power style manifold with "Super Marauder" and "400 H.P." cast in on the ends of the fins and a snorkel to pull fresh air from the fender well.

They continued to use the "Marauder" terms to refer to their high performance V8's in the late 50's and then those packages carried into the 1960's and were available for all engines in Mercury vehicles with the Super Marauder remaining the high end option of theirs at the time. You could get a Mercury Monterey, Park Lane, Cyclone, an S-55, Comet, various Lincoln and Edsel models and of course a Marauder, with Marauder engine packages. Why am I telling you this?

Ford also sold their same F Series pickups badged as Mercury pickups in Canada up until 1968. They were referred to as M Series pickups, so instead of an F100 or F250, the badges said M100 or M250. Aside from the hood emblems, tailgate and cowl emblems, the trucks were identical, but hot rod pickups weren't really a thing in the 60's, so none of the Mercury pickups were offered with a Marauder or Super Marauder V8... just the usual truck engines, still sporting the plain old "Power by Ford" valve covers on the engines, no fancy Mercury covers or air cleaner because they were work trucks. When I picked up my valve covers back in 2010, I thought it would be cool to build a truck badged as a Mercury, with the Mercury valve covers that they never had from the factory... and essentially build a truck that Ford/Mercury could have built, but didn't.

Hence the name, The Marauder M100.

It won't be 100% true to 1968 technology as it will be sporting the front clip (steering, suspension and brakes) from a 2003 Police Interceptor (same as the Marauders) but similar brake/suspension technology was around at the time. On top of that my hot-rodded 390 (block from a Mercury station wagon) will be sporting the 'Super Marauder' pent roof valve covers, and I will be hand building an aluminum air cleaner case in the Street Rod program down at UVU, similar to the cast version that sat on top of the first 'Super Marauder' V8 back in 1958.

Cast 430 Air Filter housing

Crown Vic/Marquis/Marauder Clip in 68 F100 frame
with Jake Winterton's Boxing kit

Other small touches that I hope to include are Marauder script badges on the back of the truck's bed, silver faced gauges like the Marauders had and the use of classic Ford lightning bolt/gear horn button on the steering wheel that is true to the Mercury pickups. If anybody has knowledge of a set of Marauder emblems, (considering the limited production of the actual "Marauder" vehicles...) they're probably a fortune... so if somebody else has access to a 3D printer, that might be the way to go for this build.

Marauder dash with Satin Silver gauge faces

Who wants to 3D print a set of these for me?

You may have already seen the "Cyclone Custom" Mercury pickup clone cruising through your magazines or Instagram feed. Somebody beat me to the idea, I love that truck and the details of it, but mine is still going to be different and hopefully exceed the idea I've had in my head since I was a teenager. The "If there had been such a thing as a "Sport Truck" or "Muscle Truck" in the late 60's, this would've been it" sort of idea.

Cyclone Custom built by Rods N Restons in Canada

rodsnrestos.ca

Rendering of the Marauder M100 by Chris Hickman
-Hickman Artwerks-

Stay tuned, now that you have the backstory and how I came to own this truck, now we'll move on to the actual progress and smaller projects within the build. -Scotty

Teenagers and Rattle Cans...

I've been debating for a few weeks now as to whether or not I should start some sort of "build thread" or blog about my truck project, the many smaller projects within the overall project and the things that I've been learning in school. Inspired by my buddy Layne's Edsel page on weebly, and after some input from friends, I've decided that considering that this truck will essentially be a rolling business card, or the face of "Stripes by Scotty" and the other automotive related skills that I'm developing, this place is as good as any. So a little bit of background on how I came to own this truck and what my current plans are and the weeks following will have more specific project updates/details on the various aspects of the build. Soooooo...

I bought this truck when I was 15 from my neighbor and close friend, Dustin. My dad had a blue 1965 F100 when he was in high school, so naturally I felt the need to do the same, and in some cases, one up what dad had. The truck had previously belonged to Dustin's brother but after he moved away for school, it fell into Dustin's hands and sat on the side of his house for several years as Dustin had his own sweet little 1965 F100 and other projects going on. We had initially started talking about me buying it on a neighborhood camp out when I was 14, not long after I started taking out the trash and doing small jobs at my Scoutmaster's local repair shop to start saving what little money I could to buy this truck. Some days I'd come home from school and instead of working on my homework, I'd just kind of stare out the window across the street at this old blue truck, dreaming of owning it and what it could be with some work.

The truck as it sat in 2007 when I bought it.

Fast forward to now. I've owned the truck for over 10 years now, I didn't have a dad that was into cars, so I did a lot of my own experimenting with the truck with the ideas, resources and knowledge that a teenager has and as time went on, apprenticed a master mechanic, got a job at a body shop prepping for the painter, got into pinstriping and suddenly all of the modifications I made in high school that were really "cool" to me at the time, ended up making a lot more work for me down the road to fix, and repair some (okay, kind of a lot of) rust, don't use expanding foam in vehicles for sound deadening... I had a lot of fun with the truck, but over time you start to realize that the quality of your work wasn't as great as you thought it was, and you don't want people to see your teenage experiments and think that's your current level of quality when you're preparing for a career in this field... So X number of rattle can paint jobs in my parents driveway, an engine build and a couple of college degrees later, I'm finally building this truck to a level of quality I hope will last a long time and provide years of enjoyable cruising and burnouts, without all of the over-spray and poorly prepped parts a 17 year old scrambled to make look nice before a hot date on the weekend... you know you've done the same!

I've recently graduated from UVU's 2 year Collision Repair Technology program and made a lot of great friends and learned a lot of things in regards to automotive and collision repair, started building my own arsenal of tools (student discounts are rad if you're considering a tech school program) and skills and been working on the truck at the school while attending. This fall I began the Street Rod and custom metal fabrication program that the school offers and that's when the past 2 years have come together and prepared me for all of the fun metal shaping and fabricating has begun and will be applied to the project. I have learned numerous forms of welding while in school, so I am not a seasoned veteran like many that work full time at shops but I've put the time in to practice and learn how the tools work before just diving into the truck, so for learning the theory, how some of the tools work and then bringing the projects all to life at the same time, I feel like its been a great project, but taken longer than it would for most. That said, I look forward to future projects where I've already had the experience and skills developed to where it can be a smoother process without all of the various learning curves integrated in to the project's progress.

Hang tight and in a couple days I'll fill you in on what all this "Marauder" business is about and why there's a bunch of Mercury stuff involved in this truck. -Scotty

Prior to stripping the Maaco Paint job to run bare metal for a summer

Building my first engine ~2010

Bare metal with blue accents... for whatever reason this is what I
wanted to do at the time. 

Another baby blue paint job after a summer of bare metal and
starting to rust in Utah snow/salt

Pinstriping everything, and finding the Mercury valve covers.

Somewhat current state... (Spring 2017)

Rat Fink 2016 and upcoming Kulture Krash!

Always busy with something... Rat Fink was a blast, side projects lately have been fun opportunities to get some booth time in as well as practice with the brush. 

Kulture Krash, that I help plan and put on, is less than a month away and I have all sorts of projects in the works for that right now... You can follow them on Instagram. 

The show is October 8th! Be there, or be very, very square ;) you won't regret coming, the money raised is for a great cause, helping local Utah families that have relatives with rare diseases and illnesses. Angel's Hands Foundation is our chosen organization to be this year's benefactor and we are so excited about our involvement with them! See you then!

The missionaries serving in Manti during the Rat Fink Reunion!

1940 Ford Hot Wheels Car w/stripes & Fink

62 Chevy Pickup Hot Wheels

Trailer art for the Sprinkler Head Motorcycle Club

Office sign for my machinist

Hood design on a 65 El Camino

A couple of pieces I'm donating to Kulture Krash III

A custom water ski I'm painting for Kulture Krash III

Sponge & Dry Brush... just like they did when I was a toddler

90's graphics on a brand new Duramax

My wife and I at the Peach Days show over the weekend, thank you Hotrodtime.com