I recently picked up the above mentioned truck as a beater for work. The fellow we bought it from stated in his ad that the truck needed a fuel pump. Figured it would be an easy fix as we have a few Ford fuel pumps kicking around from previous vehicles. Managed to get the tank down and the sending unit/fuel pump out and was surprised to find a big white plastic thing.

My question is this: before I start tearing into things, is this plastic thing just a cover and there's a normal fuel pump inside or is the plastic thing the pump? All of the pictures on the Autozone website show the big plastic thing as the fuel pump, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask here.

That "big white plastic thing" is called a Fuel Delivery Module. It contains, among other things,the fuel pump. AFAIK the pump for a 96 is not available as a separate item.

I answered my own question and managed to get it all apart. The pump is different than anything else we have and the strainer is on the outside of the white container rather than being on the pump (which has its own, smaller strainer).