I'm cheating a little bit because the engine and pcm that I snagged out of pull-n-save was from a cop car which means that it does not have any passive anti theft (PATS) crud. The only codes I should have to deal with are the rear O2 sensors (knock on wood). I don't have any O2 sensors installed right now and it runs surprisingly well but I will install the front ones so the pcm can fine tune the fuel. A guy here in town is a wizard with electronics and I will have him do his magic with his tuner once I get an exhaust system installed.

Sorry to hear about the shoulder, I cracked a rib this winter and it sure slowed me down so I understand your plight, take care.

 

Gary,
Haven't heard from you for a while. Is everything OK?

I ended up sending my harness to CA. He's leaning it down and getting everything in order. Says I should be able to use the Mark VIII ECM as is. That saves several hundred in programming.

 

Hey guys
Unfortunately I have spent more time out of town doing fire support stuff this summer than I really want so I haven't had much time for the truck. When I do find time to get out there I continue to sort wires and reconfigure the crown vic harness to fit my truck..
.what a pita.

 

Figured that where you were but had to ask.

Glad to hear you're OK and just busy

When you get a chance can you explain the CV Transmission wiring. My DOHC 4.6 came out of a Mark VIII and they only have floor shifters. I want to shift it from the column.

 

The floor shifter for the electronic transmission I saw was a simple cable operation, Didn't seem to be too difficult to adapt to a column shift.

 

Hey guys,
Well, it has taken me all summer to configure the crown vic wiring harness to actually fit my 55.


It took me this long for 2 basic reasons, 1. I was in and out of town all summer doing fire relief and 2. It turned out to be a major pain in the *** to reconfigure the harness the way I want it.


For any of you who are considering transplanting your donor car wiring harness into your project, please pay attention to my folly.


Here is how it all started. I had the chance to strip ALL of the wiring, the instrument cluster, fuel pump / sender, lighting control module, steering column, and anything else I wanted for less than a hundred bucks at my local pull-n-save so I went for it.
I figured that it would be a no-brainer, plug and play operation and at the same time save me several grand by not having to buy new instruments, steering column, switches, fuel pumps, senders, and of course a new wiring harness.
Well, I instantly found out that the cv harness was not only WAY too long for the pickup but it was configured totally different from anything I had ever seen before. The wiring harness actually went all the way around the engine compartment and came back into the car on the passenger side and connected to the under dash harness again. (plugged in from both sides).
So, not only did I need to remove all the un-used / un-wanted circuits like air bags, traction control, variable power steering, and a host of others, but I now had to back feed all the remaining circuits that wrapped around to the right side and bring them back through the main firewall plug on the left hand side.
This is where the ford wiring manual became my bible.
Sometime in August I finished this phase and ended up with a chassis harness that was shortened about 4 feet and neatly wrapped around the engine bay from left to right and terminated at the battery junction box at the right hand side of the radiator.


Now I had to make the under dash harness fit and match my re-wired main chassis harness.
Again, I was faced with the hassle of pulling out all of the un-wanted circuits, cutting it down to fit in the space available, then re-routing all of the circuits that used to come back in from the left side to connect at the main firewall connector.


I finally test fit the modified under dash harness last night and am happy with the way it is coming out but it has been a long frustrating road to get to this point.


Just to give you some perspective on the amount of work required to make this harness fit, as of last night, I have used approximately 200 (18-22 ga) splices, 75 (14-18 ga) splices, and 20 (10-14 ga) splices.


LOL,,,,Now all I have to do is install the wiring for my add-on devices, test every circuit, wrap the finished harness and move on to the next item on my list.


In closing,,,, think long and hard before you jump into something like this, it's not terribly hard but it is time consuming and frustrating.


Gary

 

Glad to hear you're on the down hill side of the wiring. I gave up and sent my stuff to a guy to lean it out for me. $250. Seemed like a deal. Haven't installed it yet but he even sent VERY detailed instructions.

If anyone's interested:
Chuck's Roadster Electronics
12438 Hillcrest Drive
Nevada City, CA 95959
530-447-7829

Great guy to work with and the harnesses 7 in total look Factory!

 

Thats really not a bad price considering all the head scratching involved. Did he just do the EFI harness or the chassis harness too?

 

He did everything to make the 4.6 DOHC & Trans run. He could have / would have done the rest but I'm going to use a aftermarket wiring harness for lights, etc.

 

Awesome project. Took me forever to read everything (well, scan through it is a better way to put it). I recently picked up a 04 vic for a donor. I was looking at where you moved the front ifs forwar an inch. I was curious where this measurement was taken from or based on? Did you have a reference point to work from?

 

Looks as though most folks are using the straight axle's frame mounted rubber bumper as the Iffy's center point and then moving the CV crossmember forward using the pin in the crossmember as center for the CV crossmember.
I'm planning on adding a 2003 CV crossmember to my 56 Panel this winter!

 

Anothet question. I was lookong at pinion angles and there are many thoughts on the subject. Just curious, when you fabbed the trans mount was there any angle to the tail shaft or were you to level it out?

Trying to figurr pinion angle and many are saying 3 deg upward but others are saying parallel with the trans tail shaft. Any thoughts.

 

The pinion angle is usually around 3 degrees because most engines/transmissions sit at a 3 degree angle. However, it's more important that the pinion be parallel with the transmission tail shaft, whatever angle that turns out to be.

Here is a simple graphic:

 

That seems to be the majority on the subject. Thanks again.

 

Do NOT install in a straight line like the first illustration either! The needles in the bearings will not rotate when in a straight line and will beat themselves to death in a short time.