1980-94 Ford F series medium duty grill

[Aaronw]

The 1980-94 Ford medium duty F series pretty much ran the same grill during its whole run until it got a new hood in 1995. The vast majority have a blue oval in the center of the grill, but I run across a few with FORD between the upper and lower grill halves. It looks like possibly a 1-2 year thing as most seem to occur 84-85. Is anyone familiar enough with these trucks to know what the deal is with these grills? Just a limited time, aftermarket, weight or trim level?

 

Also anyone with access to one of these who could measure the length of the hood? I've got an old Pinecrest resin cab for the Ford, and I'm pretty sure it is quite under scale, probably more around 1/28 as the whole cab is a tiny bit shorter than a 1/25 f150 which seems wrong to me.

 

Thanks

Edited April 10, 2016 by Aaronw

[Rob Hall]

I've never seen one in resin, but I assume the 1:1 switched from Ford lettering to the blue oval in '82 when the light duty F series did..

[Aaronw]

The Ford lettering only on the early trucks makes sense. The grill most likely fits all years regardless of the oval or / lettering so probably resulted in many trucks getting the wrong year grill out of convenience. The grills are plastic so I imagine quite a few were replaced over the years junk yard finds and left over stock probably ending up with FORD on later trucks for a couple of years after the change, and with only the first few years having the letters, the blue oval grills would be more common later in the run so you can find them on early trucks.

Interchange of the grill would certainly explain why it is so confusing when looking at photos of these trucks where you might find an 80 with a blue oval, an 85 with FORD and then an 87 going back to the blue oval.

Thanks 

[av405]

That is correct. It was only the first few years of this body style that had the FORD lettering on the grill. I want to say it was 1980-1981, just like their smaller light duty brethren. 

[DRIPTROIT 71]

Look in the truck kit news & review of this forum under the Moebius 67-72 Ford pickups on page 9 there is a grill chart covering these year models.