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Dome Light, Paint Job and Possible Seat Belt Repair/Replace 1977 F 150

Just got a new dome light bezel, new cover and a new bulb. I haven't started yet but I assume I will have to splice in the wiring and that there won't be a my terminals. Hoping it will be a straight forward project. Also would like to know if two quarts of paint will cover if I do not paint inside of bed. Any ideas on seatbelts. Can I replace the webbing myself or is it better to replace everything. On a budget since I am newly retired. Any and help appreciated. Thanks in advance.
 

Fellro

Moderator
Staff member
Unfortunately typically a gallon to paint a car, so potentially more to do a truck. However, a possible alternative to keep the cost down is to look into tractor paint. Don't know what colors you are looking to do but can get a decent selection that way. Was looking at painting my gray truck with Massey Ferguson silver metallic. Then the local store quit carrying it... Tractor Supply used to have truck and trailer paint, but same story.
 
I had my seatbelt redone a couple years ago. Used these guys:

https://www.safetyrestore.com/

Just take it off, send it to em and they send it back with new webbing and all the mechanicals cleaned up and smooth.

Of course if you don't care about color matching you could probably just grab one from a junkyard.
 

Jasperrc

Texas Chapter member
Years ago I looked at redoing the seatbelts in our 77 on my own but the more I researched, the worse that idea was. It's much safer to buy replacements or send them off like velocityboy suggested. You didn't mention redoing them yourself but just in case the idea came up, thought I'd share what I learned.
 
Thank you all for the information. I did the painting and only used a quart. Just used a foam roller. Overall I am satisfied but the job is not a high quality covering. Although it does look much better than it did. I still need some work. As for seat belts, I am still considering that job. My next pro will be continuing the work on my dash lights and gauges. I replaced the back cluster and my gauges don't work at all...before they worked occasionally. I had some trouble with the nuts that held the circuit board and had a little trouble putting the connector Beck in. I also need more bulbs. Before I only had one signal bulb working. Now I have high beam, both signals and alternator lights working. I got the dome light replaced. It is working but I bought a bulb but one was included. So I have an extra.
 
The gauge cluster on these gen 6 trucks is the worst thing about them. The plastic on those things turns to potato chips as it ages. I went through three of them in the course of about 6 yrs. One of them I hit a bump and it literally fell out of the dash in pieces.
Eventually I gave up and, over the course of a couple years, pieced together a custom gauge cluster with AutoMeter gauges whenever I could afford one.
Took some time and effort but the end result is rewarding, far more accurate than the idiot gauges on the original, and solid reliability.

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Jasperrc

Texas Chapter member
It takes time and patience to work through some of these issues so hang in there.

For the gauges, there is a little instrument voltage regulator on the back of the cluster, Make sure it is connected.

Also, these trucks are notoriously sensitive to bad grounds and that can impact the gauges as well.

I was fighting with my gauges not working well, fuel, oil, temp and voltage not reading correctly, if at all. The last thing I did (after making sure I had good grounds throughout the truck and replacing that little voltage regulator) that finally got them working right was removing the thread tape from the oil pressure sending unit where it screws in to the block. Evidently it was was throwing the voltage in the system off enough to not work. To this day all my gauges work great.
 

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