Ya, it is very rotton body wise... i just bought another 77 extended cab 2wd f250 last week, and the cab is rough as well. up here in canada it is pretty hard to find a good solid dent side with all the winter road salt. i got lucky with my crew because it had not seen a winter in 20 years...

 

I am jealous of you guys in the warm weather states.... its -30 here with a foot of snow.... and my crew is too big to fit in my shop.....i have it in one of those tent garages to keep the snow off it while i work on it.....

 

cool swap i'll be keeping an eye on this build, Ya any vehical from ontario is normaly screwd from the salt us B.C ers are lucky a clean truck is fairly easy too find still

 

Ya, you BCers just have the rain...lol...
As far as the rear end build i replaced all the bearings/seals, installed the tru-trac with the 4.10s, gave it a paint job, and had my buddy powder coat the diff cover....

 

I do have some more pics of the new carrier and internal pics, i just can't find them right now....
Oh ya, sorry for talking in past tense right now because i have been working on this for a year now and im kinda back tracking...

 

So, since i knew that i needed to lift the truck to make my front axle clear the front crossmember, i decided to install a rear shackle flip, add some extra springs, and install some factory ford lift blocks that i got out of a hi-boy that i was wreaking..

 

Heres what i ended up with for springs. I rerused the original ford leafs, then i added some from my stock pile....


I cut the old rear shackle mounts off the frame and used a pair that i took off of an old international 5ton 4x4 that i stripped (i put the 5ton axles under my 1979 bronco off road machine, but thats a different story..) After doing some calculations i ended up lengthening my original shackles by 1.625 and boxed them in. I will add pics asap, but im at work now so i don't have access to them... gotta love the midnight shift!!!

 

Heres what the rear turned out like.

 

Heres another shot, everythings not as clean as when it was installed...

 

Now to work on the front. As i mentioned before, i noticed that my 2wd frame was almost identical to a hi-boy frame. It even had the bolt holes in the front frame horns where the front 4x4 crossmember (with the spring mounts on it) would have bolted on if it were a 4x4 truck. I assumed that since the crews were the lowest number of ford trucks built in that era that the frame rails were probably made to accomidate both 2wd and 4wd trucks. After some measuring between my 2wd frame and a 4x4 frame i had lying around i decided to fabricate a crossmember that would give me the required lift needed, and bolt right onto the original frame location. I started with a peice of 3"x5" square tubing and began to fabricate the ears for the leafs out of 1/2" plate. I also added bolt locations to install the original frame gussets, and added a front hitch tube.... After looking at some other builds on this site, i noticed that others had built front crossmembers similar. even with the hitch tube!! In the end i ended up with a bolt on crossmember that gave me roughly 4.5 inches of lift... with adding a couple of extra leafs i would get the 5"-6" of lift i needed.

 

The finished product.

The bolt pattern went right onto the frame...

 

Nice work. Keep those pics coming! Like Chasetruck said, welcome to the crew cab Cummins club.

 

good **** man.

 

Since my frame had the three holes for the rear shackle bushings (front spring) but no hole or bushing mount, i decided to make my own bushing mount, and that i would mount it below the frame. This would let me keep a shackel length that would be close to the factory length. In the end i wanted to keep as close to the factory geometry, only 5" lower (making the truck 5" taller). I used a piece of 4"x3" 3/8" angle iron, then i machined a steel bushing and welded it to the angle with a heavy duty gusset. I decided to machine my own spring bushings so after a little reaserch i decided to use nylatron. I machined bushings for the shackel mount, as well as both spring eyes. I then bolted my assembly to the frame and installed my leafs.

 

So, with everything installed, heres what i ended up with. this should allow my front 60 to clear my existing 2wd crosmember... and if it doesn't theres lots of room to trim that crossmember... the reason i was optimistic with the 2wd crossmember is that it is low enough for my cummins pan to clear, unlike the 4x4 crossmember that needs to be lowered.