Another update. Had what I thought was a fuel pickup issue and pulled the bed to check it out. Got to buy a new sending unit lock ring because the old one was rusted through. Took the opportunity and flipped the bed over to figure out why it keeps cracking out below the passenger side tail light. Turns out, when they cut the wheel well openings out they cut far enough to detach the bed side from the wheel wells, which along with neither brace being hooked up let the side flop causing the cracking. The braces were done for, having pulled out of the bedside so I made some patch panels for the holes and welded everything together including the area under the tail light for hopefully the last time. I also welded the bedsides back to the wheel wells.
The next day, go figure, ford enginuity combined with what I can only surmise as some car designer fixing what wasn't broke to turn the truck into a school bus during a rain storm. For those who don't know the wiper transmission is held together with a ball and socket design featuring a metal ball and a plastic socket. A concept so brilliant that nobody makes a replacement, part for it. Again for those who don't know, up until this step back in reliability wiper transitions were held together with a washer and cotter pin, which in the almost unheard of case of failure can be fixed for around 4 cents if the parts guy even bothers to charge you for a new cotter pin. If its not obvious yet, I'm still ready to kill someone over this. After jury rigging it twice a day for 5 days until the weekend came, making patches out of electrical tape to take up the slop, I tore the whole set up out of the truck and welded on notched tabs to keep the pieces from separating, then as an afterthought, I cut the bottom out of the plastic sockets and welded a washer on each of the ball pieces just in case the tabs ever wear through. Afterwards I did some welding and grinding on the new home made rear bumper and removed the cb whip antenna and put a firestick on, moving it to the front fender. I also got around to mounting the linear amplifier to the dash and,working on my temporary dash panel for when I redo the original one, paint and cutting out the stereo opening. Next will be more work on the bumper, reworking someone else's home made front bumper into my new rear bumper, and taking the starter out to tear it apart and clean it up, the bendix is sticking when it's cold out. Also planning on a reworked stock grille at some point in the near future.