RedofTX, your old Ford pickup reminds me of the 1969 Chevy 1/2 ton step side I bought for a few hundred dollars right after I graduated from college, and money was tight. It had a straight six with the three-on-the-tree, and also had the deadly gas tank in the cab behind the seat. Super simple to work on, and even the EMP from a nuclear airburst wouldn't stop it. I just had to carry a spare set of ignition points in the glovebox because they wore out in about a year causing the gap to gradually close completely. Never so much as a miss until there was zero points gap.
Mine was a bright fluorescent green when I got it, but I needed to do a lot of body work on it due to the road salt used in my area. Rustoleum paint was on sale for $5.00 a quart, so I mixed and sprayed 3 qts. of jungle green with 1 qt. of black for a very dark green $20.00 paint job that held up surprisingly well. I always said my truck body had more fiberglass than a Corvette.
After doing the body work, I built a hard tonneau cover to help preserve the wood and metal of the bed. I used surplus pebble finish fiberglass panels over a wooden frame, and it was hinged on the passenger side of the bed. Access was on the drivers side, and a simple prop rod held it open. I could knock out a couple hinge pins and remove it in seconds to haul taller objects. Google says that hard tonneau covers were not produced until the 1990's and I never saw one until well after I built mine. So I may be the inventor of the hard tonneau cover, and screwed up by not getting a Patent. I drove it for 8 years and sold it for a profit when it had over 220,000 miles on it.
