I was out at the salvage yard earlier today and noticed a few things, maybe this is old hat to most but it was new to me, the '73 and '74 parking lights are self contained in a metal housing (lens is seperate) and the '75 and up are in a plastic housing (lens attached) but yet i found two seperate '74's with both, a metal and a plastic housing, was this one of Fords other mid year changes? and if so when did it change over? on a side note, when did Ford switch from the clear lens to the amber lens on the parking light? was that mid-year '76?

Hmmm not real sure on that, I know ( err pretty sure) they changed to all plastic in late 75 early 76...
THat's a good one, i'm not real sure..

Ford seems to be good at those mid-year change dealies. I had issues when searching for a driveshaft and yolk assy for our '96 E-150. All the info I found online and all the salvage yard dealers said our van had an aluminum d/s and OD xmission. Except ours has the old-school metal ds and c6 xmission (yes, it's all original). And good luck explaining this to the salvage yard dealers- as they classify everything by year- I literally spent all day hitting every yard in town and puzzling them all until I finally found a shaft off some older model van- 94 I think. ...and even then, the yolk didn't match. (wound up having to do the u joints and reuse the old yolk).

I'm still not entirely sure what the deal was with the discrepancy. ...the only conclusion I can come to is a mid or early year changeup by Ford.

To be honest...I thought the steel to plastic housing switched between 73 and 74. I thought they went to all plastic in 74...maybe it's possible that Ford was up to their crazy antics and used surplus parts the next year...who knows. But I was pretty sure '73 was the last year for the metal housing, and then com pletely swapped for '74.

Just checked your post again...and noticed the amber lens switch...yes they did switch from clear to amber lenses midyear 76. So the only discernible difference between a 76 and 77 would then be the badging on the fender instead of on the cowl in 77.

UTfball68 said:

To be honest...I thought the steel to plastic housing switched between 73 and 74. I thought they went to all plastic in 74...maybe it's possible that Ford was up to their crazy antics and used surplus parts the next year...who knows. But I was pretty sure '73 was the last year for the metal housing, and then com pletely swapped for '74.

Click to expand...

I always thought the metal to plastic conversion happened in '73, i thought the bumpsides in '72 were the last to have metal housings, obviously i was wrong, apparently it happened sometime in '74 or '75 the best i can gather.