Obsolete Body Parts (Rust Repair Sheet Metal)

[reece146]

Hi All,

I parked my 2001 Expedition during the pandemic and now I'm working towards getting her back on the road.

Made the mistake of parking on grass, lots of extra rust to deal with now.

I've been looking for OEM body parts but seems like most stuff is no longer available.

I'm planning to keep this truck forever so have in the past done things like totally replaced the radiator support to repair the rust. I'd like to save some time by buying other pre-made OEM repair parts where possible.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places? I can't find the under body floor cross members for example. Well, can find them but always "no longer available".

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places? Is there a vendor out there that bought up all the 10th gen F-150/Expedition sheet metal?

If I was smart I'd probably try importing a rust free example from Arizona or similar.

Any insights appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Dobermans]

For a lot of parts your best bet is a junkyard. I Had to replace my torsion bars the only places I found them was on eBay (more expensive) and a junkyard. I got mine from a junkyard upgraded to 7700 torsion bars. I would look at car-parts.com for parts. They show junkyards from all over the country.

 

[JamaicaJoe]

I recently got a radiator support for mine. Probably the last OEM one on the planet. I went to my local dealer, they looked up the part. Of course not in stock. Then he looked on their parts system that links all dealerships and I found one 1300 miles away .

 

[reece146]

Hmm, so used to scrounging it never occurred to me to try the dealer directly. The public online interface says NLA but I don't know if that actually looks at individual dealer shelved inventories.

Thanks, will try that.

Failing that I'll have to make something I guess.

Btw, have you welded in the radiator support yet? Just curious how it fit. The one I used was not Ford and it needed some "massage" but was not terrible. If I had my time over again I'd spend the extra couple hundred bucks for the Ford part I think.

 

[Capn Don]

I agree with the wrecking yard from Arizona or some other dry climate. I had an opposite situation, a fitting broke off the top of the plastic fuel tank (brittle due to excessive heat). To fix my repair shop finally had to source a used tank from Wisconsin, since all the local wrecking yard parts were just as brittle as my tank was..

 

[JamaicaJoe]

Hmm, so used to scrounging it never occurred to me to try the dealer directly. The public online interface says NLA but I don't know if that actually looks at individual dealer shelved inventories.

Thanks, will try that.

Failing that I'll have to make something I guess.

Btw, have you welded in the radiator support yet? Just curious how it fit. The one I used was not Ford and it needed some "massage" but was not terrible. If I had my time over again I'd spend the extra couple hundred bucks for the Ford part I think.

I am still waiting to install it. It measures out to be correct and unlike the aftermarket ones, the metal is stamped correctly. Some of the aftermarket ones look like they were either recycled from wrecks or hammered by hand.

 

[JamaicaJoe]

I agree with the wrecking yard from Arizona or some other dry climate. I had an opposite situation, a fitting broke off the top of the plastic fuel tank (brittle due to excessive heat). To fix my repair shop finally had to source a used tank from Wisconsin, since all the local wrecking yard parts were just as brittle as my tank was..

The tank is concerning as it is plastic and NLA from an y source.

 

[reece146]

Just came back from the local Ford dealer. No steel stampings available. Apparently this is a "thing" that the crew behind the counter were aware of as I guess it gets asked every now and again these days. They did check inventory in the hopes of new re-pops but no luck - didn't say no out of hand.

I'm in Canada. No idea if they are linked to U.S. inventories. Maybe I'll try next time I'm down. Or I'll just suck it up and make some or pay someone to do it depending on my mood when I get to it.