Revamping My 1985 F-150 Bullnose: Mods and Future Plans

Howdy folks, Ed here. Welcome back to Bullnose Garage. What is a bullnose and why do I have one? A bullnose is a Ford truck built from the years 1980 to 1986, like the one behind me. This one here is a 1985 F-150. Bullnose trucks are F-150, F-250, F-350, or Bronco, anywhere from ’80 to ’86. And why are they called a bullnose? Well, because the front of the truck looks kinda like a bull’s nose, if you imagine.

So why do I own a bullnose? Well, it’s a project truck for me. I’ve always loved Ford trucks. In fact, my daily driver is a 2007 Ford F-150, so the F-150 platform is something I know and love very much. And I wanted something older that I could work on, something carbureted, something that was easy for me to sort of sink my teeth into and learn how to rebuild engines and do all the kind of mechanical stuff. See, my entire life I’ve been a computer guy. I write programs for a living, so I never really worked very much with my hands. And I thought, what better way to get my hands dirty than to do it on an old Ford truck? So, my project.

So why did I choose this particular truck? After all, I had to drive all the way to San Antonio, Texas, to pick it up. Well, I couldn’t find any trucks like what I was looking for around here. So what does that mean? Well, first of all, as you can see, it’s in pretty good shape. The paint’s a little faded, but there’s no rust, and the body is really straight. So that’s one thing. Another thing that’s pretty obvious is that it’s a short bed. Now, I was looking for a short bed because I want a truck that’s going to be a little bit sportier, because I’m planning on putting a few more horses under the hood and making like a little street truck out of it. Now, I’m not going to do any kind of racing or anything, but what I’m going for would be better with a short bed, so I wanted to make sure I got one of those.

It also runs really well. I basically could just drive it right out of the box, except for the fact that it’s a manual. So I knew I wanted a manual because I’d never driven a stick shift before in my life. And I figured, what better way to learn how to drive a stick than to buy a vehicle that I can’t drive unless I know how to drive a stick? So I had to teach myself, and that’s what I did. And I’m glad to say that it works. I can now drive a stick shift. At least I can drive this stick shift.

The last thing that I wanted to make sure that I had, no question, was air conditioning. I mean, because come on, I live in New Mexico, and it is hot as in New Mexico. Let me go ahead and start her up, and I’ll let you take a listen. The engine in this truck is an inline six, and it’s got an NP 435 manual transmission. That’s a four-speed, but it’s effectively a three-speed. The first speed is granny low. I mean, I could throw this thing into first gear, get out, and walk alongside it. So you basically never use first gear in a truck like this.

Even though I pretty much just started my channel last month, I’ve had the truck for a couple of years, so I’ve had some opportunity to do just a little bit of work to it. So let me just briefly go over some of the stuff that I’ve already done. I’ve changed all the fluids, including this stuff. I’ve replaced both side mirrors. I’ve replaced the door and window seals, and I replaced the door striker. I’ve repositioned the license plate so the tailgate doesn’t smack it when it comes down. I’ve changed the battery twice. I have replaced the alternator. I replaced my marker lights and updated the blinkers. I replaced my tail lights. I’ve wrapped the steering wheel, and I’ve replaced the rear view mirror. I added LED dash lights and LED interior lights. I let someone from Craigslist load something into the back of my truck with a forklift and bend the bed. So that’s my bullnose.

But I’m not done. I mean, I started this channel with the intent of making videos for people who may have a similar truck or similar interests, and mostly because I’ve never done this before. And this is all gonna be a learning experience for me. And so I’m kind of hoping that by going through this and having a learning experience that, uh, if I film it, maybe I can help some other folks. So let’s talk about what my plans are for the bullnose and for this channel, and I got a whole bunch of them.

So obviously the big deal is a new engine. The truck right now has a 306. It’s an inline six. These motors are bulletproof, and there’s going to be a lot of people, a whole lot, that are going to tell me that I shouldn’t swap the motor, that the 306 is one of the greatest engines that Ford ever made, and it’s ridiculous to pull a perfectly good running 306 out of a truck and put in something different. But a 306 is not the engine that I want for my application. What I want is something with a little more punch. So what I’m putting in there is a 351 small block, and I actually already have one, but that’s a future video. Eventually, I would like to stroke it, probably to 408, and get between 400 and 500 horsepower. But that’s a long ways down the road. I think to begin with, I’m just going to go ahead and do a regular engine rebuild, and I might put a couple of power adders on there, but I haven’t quite decided what I’m going to do with that just yet.

And of course, um, I’m going to do basically everything that I can to make the truck as nice as possible. So we’ll do some interior work. I’m going to work on the interior molding, make it look nice. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to do, if I’m going to spray paint it or if I’m going to wrap it with some kind of fabric or, you know, what I’m going to do there. I do know I want to put some kind of sound deadening on the inside. I do want to add carpet. Right now it’s just that old rubber mat on the ground. I want to take care of that. I’m going to have to reupholster the seats or get real nice seat covers, but I think I’m probably going to end up reupholstering.

Um, so I’m also going to do a lot of electrical work. When I inherited the truck, well, when I purchased the truck, whoever I inherited it from did some questionable electrical work, so I need to go in and take care of some of that. I’m going to replace the headlights with probably LED headlights, and eventually I’ll be putting in a stereo system, probably putting speakers in the door panels and adding things wherever I can figure out how to add them. I might try to put a double din radio in there. I’m not quite sure yet. I’ve got an extra dash piece, um, bezel for the radio, so just, uh, I screw it up, I’ve got an extra, so we might try that for an episode.

Um, I gotta change the horn. The horn that’s in it right now is stupid. Maybe one of these times I’ll honk it for you and let you hear it. It’s wearing, it’s really terrible, so I want to upgrade the horn. Um, at some point I may paint the truck. I’m not sure if I have the ability to actually spray paint a vehicle, but I think I’d like to try. I’ve watched a lot of videos on it. I’ve seen a lot of instructional videos and read a lot of websites and forums and stuff. And, uh, we’ll get it sanded down and strip back probably to metal and put some primer on it and get sanded and do all the blocking and everything else and then pick a color and maybe paint it.

I’ve also thought about putting vinyl on it in terms of like a vinyl wrap, although I wouldn’t wrap the entire truck, but I might wrap parts of it rather than do a two-tone paint job because I’m not sure I could pull off a good two-tone paint job, especially since I’ve never painted a vehicle before. I’ve thought fleetingly about doing a crown vic swap. So for older Ford trucks, especially older ’79 or older, the generation before mine, a lot of guys put crown vic front ends in them from 2002 and forward Crown Victorias because they basically just bolt right in, and they’re more of a car suspension, so they handle power much easier and they ride much better. You can do a crown vic swap on a bullnose. It’s a lot more work than, um, it’s called a dent side from the earlier generation up to ’79, but it can be done. So I’m thinking about that.

Regardless of whether I do that or not, I’m going to have to upgrade the suspension on the truck just because it’s a little sloppy, and I’m putting a little bit heavier engine in there, and it’s going to have more power, so I want to make sure that I’m not falling down on my suspension. Um, I’ve thought about upgrading the transmission. A, uh, NP435 isn’t exactly a race transmission. Not that I’m gonna be racing it, but it’s a very solid truck transmission that drives like a truck, and it could probably handle four or five hundred horsepower as long as you’re not working it too hard. But what I’d really like to have is the ZF5. The F5 transmission is a heavy-duty, still a truck transmission, but it’s a five-speed with overdrive. And, uh, the fact that my truck doesn’t have overdrive right now is rough, um, especially on the interstate, you know, going 65, 70 miles an hour, it’s spinning pretty high. So I’d really like to have an overdrive transmission.

If I had all kinds of money, I’d go out and get a TKO transmission and, you know, put one of those in there, but they’re big bucks, so we’ll see what happens. And I’ve also thought about maybe changing the rear end, uh, getting a locking differential or changing the gears. Um, to be honest with you, I don’t remember exactly what the gears in there are right now. I’d have to look it up. I have it written down somewhere, but I’ve thought about changing the gears and doing a gear swap in the back and adding a locking differential. Obviously, I’ll be upgrading the tires and the rims. In fact, that’s probably coming in the next couple of weeks, and, uh, I’ll be doing things here and there to spruce the truck up and, uh, just make it better overall.

So I’ve got a lot of plans, and hopefully they pan out, and hopefully you guys get to see them because I’m really excited about doing all this stuff on camera and, uh, getting some of this stuff out there, especially when it comes to the engine. I’ve got some really interesting ideas as to what I might do in terms of, you know, pistons and heads and camshaft and that kind of stuff and how I’m going to get to the horsepower numbers that I eventually want to get to. Um, thinking about maybe using some cheap eBay parts just to see how they work. I mean, I’ve got a donor engine, so if I blow it up, then, well, I mean, I still got the original 306 I could drop back in if I had to, or, you know, 351 ones aren’t that hard to find in that junkyard somewhere. So yeah, I may have a little bit of leeway to screw up. I mean, it’s my first engine build ever. I’ve never even worked in a small engine before, so, um, I may be biting off more than I can chew, but hey, you know, that’s part of the channel. That’s, uh, that’s part of what we’re doing here.

All right guys, there you go. That’s a bullnose. That’s my bullnose. That’s what I’ve done, what I plan to do, my plans for the channel, all that stuff. So if you have any questions, comments, concerns, gripes, internet ramblings, stick them below. As always, thanks for watching guys. We’ll see you next time.