Ok, so I have realized I have not posted since December of last year, sadly I haven't had alot of time to dedicate to the project as of late, I also have dedicated the time I could have been posting to sourcing parts and putting new parts together, so bear with me on this one.

I have finally gotten my plans back from the waterjeter, that had my plans for over a month, and have decided to do some updates to the design, hopefully it should make for a more drop-in friendly design for the mounts. Here is just a little preview of what I have in store:





Then for the Cruise and Column I finally managed to source a 1979 Manual Trans Column, so I now have the Cruise Control Wheel and Horn Insert, Cruise Control Turn Signal Relay, and Cruise Control Module all going in, I am exploring adding an extra kill switch to the Clutch pedal and making it a part of the kill to the Brake Pedal. More on that later. Converting the column was pretty easy and I used the original 1976 Firewall seal with the new Column.





I also have more to update on Springs, axles, and spindles but that will be in the following posts in the next few days and over the next week, so stay tuned and bear with me

 

Ok, so here is that update I promised:

So as I was really thinking about this project (going on 2+ years now, wow) I had the original intent of going flatbed so I could mount a drop-in Welding Rig into the back of my Bed, that and so I could haul whatever I need as my other Longbed Truck still retains the Stock Longbed. so as I may have mentioned before I am not a big fan of Flatbeds with SRW axles in them, I am also not a big fan of just converting a SRW axle to DRW like was done in the 70s-90s with D60 rear axles with companies like Arrowcraft since I don't really like spacers and wheel adapters. plus there is a serious difference and advantage to a Dana 70 or Sterling 10.25" Ring gear and heavier housings with a DRW setup over a Dana 60 SRW axle.

That being said I would have loved to have done a tried and true 1970s conversion with the axle and front hubs, but there are 2 reasons I opted out of the Dana 70 DRW axle and wheel mountings.

A: The D70 only came in 34" rear frame width variants, and while I could move the Spring Perches to fit my 37.5" width rear frame I would not have been able to retain my 3" rear springs and the rear swaybar from the D70 which would pretty well negate my stability and force me to cut off my old spring perches and run the earlier thinner springs in the rear. not really willing to do the work to move backwards and it pretty well defeats my purpose of making it so any of my changes on this truck could be reversed at any time.

B: the D70 rear would have some wheel clerance issues even with the move and while possible to perform, it pulls the wheels too far in towards the frame to really look right with the modern Beds like what I am about to run on my rig, so not so much my axle of choice here.

Because of this I decided to go with the 10.25 DRW Sterling from a "Bedded" 1988 F350 Crew Cab I managed to track down. I had a choice between 2 trucks (shown below) but in the end the 460 powered 1988 seemed to have less abuse on it compared to the White 1988 F350 Crew Cab (not pictured but the VIN will be pictured later) with a 7.3L in it.








Now, being a 1988 means that the Wheels and hubs are a Hub-centric mounting instead of being like the earlier lug-centric mounting (for those of you not in the know I will do my best to try to describe the differences below, for those of you in the know skip this paragraph). so what is the difference? well for starters with a standard 70s 8 lug (SRW and DRW both included) all the wheels were using a Lug-Centric design, meaning you have a conical Lug nut that actually centers the wheel on the hub and will retain the wheel in the proper location. now DRW trucks were all 8x6.5" Lug patterns from 1946-1998 (with exception of some trucks from 1955-1968 which were 6x7.25" patterns but I won't get into that), but from 1946-1984 the wheels and hubs were of a lug-centric design, as of 1984.5-1998 the DRW design changed to make the wheels "Coined" and be a Hub-Centric design, this took the load off the studs themselfs as to centering the wheel and made it so the Hub caried the centering load and the lug nuts only put the clamping force on the wheel to keep it in place over being both a clamping device and a centering device in the earlier Lug-Centric design. there is plenty of argument as to which is better or stronger, and so on, but from what I have seen I honestly trust the Hub-Centric design to be superior. don't have to agree with me but that is how I see it. so I'm going to roll with it. below are a few comparisons between a Lug-Centric Hub from a 1979 F350 Chassis-Cab and my new 1988 Front wheel Hubs which I will touch on in a moment.

***Will add photos here later***

So being I grabbed a 1988 F350 Rear axle being Hub-Centric and I had a 1988 F350 at my disposal with good front Hubs and Bearings, I went ahead and also grabbed myself the front 2 hubs and as the 1988 F350 was a Ball-Joint mounting for the Spindle to I-Beam mounting and my 1976 F250 is a Kingpin design I opet out of the 1988 F350 Spindles in place of a set of 1989 E350 front spindles instead, after measuring the Kingpins and Mountings I found the Spindle would be a direct fit to my 1976 F250 I-beams with 0 modifications needed and I will post a detailed swap posting after the axle swap posting is written, for the time being here is the photo of the E350 VIN Tag and the Spindles I grabbed. this should make for most of what I need to move the steering forward of the I-Beams.





So, after pulling the axle, Springs, load leafs, and Swaybar (With the Help of my Friend Colby Spyers from up towards Orland,CA) I lugged everything back home and did a quickly comparison of the axles by sitting the Sterling on top of the Frame. I found that my supiscions were correct and that the axle did indeed share the same mounting locations for the Leaf Springs and that the Swaybar did have the same profile and mounting locations as the 70s Dentside Swaybar for the Dana 60s. So I quickly planned on swapping everything over (with exception of the springs that are waiting on a new set of Bushings and a set of heavier Wild Horses 4x4 "Super Shackles" meant for a 1978-96 Bronco Spring (same hanger for all 3" rear leafs, I use the same hangar on my 1979 F150 4x4 Chassis). Here are some photos from that swap.















Now as for the Leaf Springs, I had same concern as to them being the same or not or swapable, I went ahead and had left them on the ruck in the Yard until I could get some measurements, I came back a few days later and someone had Grabbed the Bed off the Truck (how convenient!) so I was able to get a proper bare frame photo and to be able to grab measurements without rolling around in the dirt which was nice, low and behold after measuring the 1988 F350 springs checked out and I went ahead and purchased them for $30 a pop with the load springs and spacer blocks included. below is the photos of the Bare frame of the 1988 and a comparison photo of a 1978 F250 4x4 3" spring next to the 1988 F350 2wd 3" Spring, as you can see the spring pack is quite a bit heavier than the F250 spring but everything is the same otherwise. The F250 spring looks different because I did not remove the Load Lifter retainers off that spring, so ignore the fact it looks a little higher. the F350 spring though it looked rusted in the photo on the frame was just covered in alot of dirt, so to avoid confusion the F350 spring is cleaned and is black in the following photos.















So far so good, I will update some more in the following posting as this one has been fairly lengthy.

 

So to update further I had a set of 3 Hub-Centric "Coined" Wheels that I had collected from a Scrapyard and went ahead and mounted them to Red Green before moving on to the front Hubs, here is a photo of the Truck on most the tires, as it stood it looked a little funny without the right wheels up front, but it definitely shows the progress had. if you note the second photo the wheels stick out about a tire's width past the body which seems far but the bed I will be purchasing will cover this just fine.






Now for the fun part, there was alot of questions regarding the fitment of 1980s style E-Series Kingpin Spindles to a 1970s Kingpin I-Beam, and after a bit of playing in the yars and measuring I finally found a set that was not too badly worn and bought the, up for about $28 a pop. now I went for a E350 Van spindle from 1989 because it was the only one that I could find without the Bendix Rubber Isolator type Brake Caliper mountings, this is the later style Dayton Dual Piston type brakes that are similar in style to the 1970s F250/F350 Dual Piston Dayton Calaipers. I wanted to keep with my Stock style brakes so this I figured was the best way to do this, so I pulled the Spindles and Kingpins along with all the related hardware and brought them on home to try for the swap. As mentioned before this is mostly to allow me to run a 4x4 style 70s Steering box and to move the steering forward of the I-Beams to allow for the Oil Pan to be unmodified/cut to clear the Stock Steering assembly. As it sat the stock steering would hit the oil pan if any suspension up-travel was had.

I went ahead and pulled the Factory Spindles from my Truck and did a quick comparison of the 2 spindles. the Kingpins shared the same diameter but the 1988 E350 Kingpin was a hair longer due to what looked like a slightly thicker casting, which wasn't and issue as I was going to be using that Kingpin and related hardware anyhow. The Wheel bearings between the two assemblies were the same Timken LM102949 (inner) and Timken 15101 (outer) bearings, they also have the same mounting points between the two different spindle types. Now one thing that I did notice is that the two different spindles have 2 different contours to them, it seems as if the E350 and the 88 F350 had quite a bit more material to the center point between the 2 bearings which I would imagine would make for a stronger spindle as it is a thicker diameter and less of a taper, so I would imagine there is some benefit to this. Below are a few photos of the 1988 F350 DRW Hubs, the comparison of the 88 F350 and 76 F250 Bearings, and the comparison of the 1989 E350 Spindles and my 1976 F250 Spindles.

 

Moving on to the actual Hub swap, everything went seamlessly, I managed to remove the original Kingpins and Spindles and get the new Spindles in, I will be rebuilding the Kingpins once I take everything back apart to blast and coat it, but for now I assembled everything and greased it up properly just in case I decide to go ahead and test drive the Truck before doing all of that. after the reassembly and greasing the kingpins were alot easier to move, though both ungreased and greased there was no play on the shakedown. here is a photo comparison of the swap before and after for the Driver's side. Sorry the Photos are so large guys.

Also before the saftey guys get on me, yes I know ih ave no jack stand under the I-beam, sadly the CA rains have been drenching the ground so it was so saturated out that a Regula Jack Stand would hve just sank into the ground, so I didn't bother using one. I do not suggest trusting a Hydraulic Jack for doing any kind of work like this, don't follow my example please.

 

Just posted on them, Beams are quite a bit different but the Kingpin type Spindles are a direct swap

 

For those wondering about the Part Number on the Spindles used they are E1TA-3108-AA so I would say it is a good bet they were used since 1981 or 1982

 

so now that the Hub swap is complete the only other thing is to show on them how the wheels sit in relation to the fenders, I went ahead and just sat the driver's side fender on the Truck since my front-end has been disassembled for a bit of time, but this is about how everything should sit, looks pretty decent in my opinion.

 

for my final post of the nigh I just wanted to show the fitment of the 70s Dayton Brake Caliper and Pads in relation to the Brackets and Rotors, I sadly forgot to take a photo of the E350s brake Calipers but I do have a shot of the F350's Brakes and other than the mounting type the Caliper looks the same type since they are both the later Dayton type brakes. the Brakes are just a spare set I had laying around the shop from another project, I just mocked these up just to show the fitment, I will be getting a reman Caliper set for this rig and also getting a new set of Brake hoses and swapping some lines around so this is far from a final product.

 

Great info, thanks!!

I will continue to follow the build to steal more ideas for my '78.

 

I cannot believe that since starting this thread in 2014 that I have received 45,453 views, that is insane... but as most of you may have noticed, in the past 3 years I have not updated this build page at all, that is that is about to change because the build never stopped, in fact since picking it back up there has been quite a bit of progress and I have found that the parts pile grows a lot more now.

So in update, I made several moves, a move to Colorado, and a move to Idaho (again) all from the start in California for this Project. Red Green here and my 1974 bodied 1979 F150 4x4 both lived at my good friend's place in CA until I had a place to move them to, well just so happens I made the move to Idaho for the second time in my life and moved both my rigs up with me 2 years ago. Red has undergone some work, but most of the work has been to the motor and collecting the parts that were needed to complete this project, there are some cool things coming. I'll post a few photos from the moves and I'll be getting to the updates on where the Project is going. I am hoping to have a moving and running Truck here in the next year.

A Preview of updates to come:

Red Green and Chief Blackhawk in Valley Springs CA



Red Green taking the ride home to Idaho



Red Green in New Plymouth ID.



Fresh Cut Passenger Mount Plates and Trans Mount Plate.



The 6.9L residing in the Garage in Homedale ID.



Red Taking the trip to New Plymouth ID on the back of my new 2002 Ford Excursion Daily.



New Engine Data Decals made by OBS Decals to replicate the 1994 IDIT engines.



Red in disassembly ready to pull out the mock-up 6.9L.



Building the Trans Mount Plate using the original Mount.



Industrial Front-sump IDI Oil Pan.



Engine waiting on the new Saginaw Hydroboost Pump.

 

Just a tip there's already a hole in the block for the front sump oil pan dipstick, just keep that plug and use it to plug the rear hole. Maybe you can find a international s1600 dipstick and adapter sleeve on eBay or something

 

Thanks for the tip, I'm actually aware of the bossing and the dipstick I have the tube for already but will be taking one of my 400/351m front sump dipsticks to fit to the tube since I was unable to find the dipstick itself. I'll keep note of the S1600/CO1600/Loadstar though in case the 400/351M one does not pan out.

 

So, after reviewing my blog and Robert Bronco pointing out that there were a lot of photos on here that were still being hosted by Photobucket (which is now a pay service for hosting photos and has watermarked and blurred all my photos) I have been taking the painstaking effort to dig up my old photos, go through each post, and re-upload each photo to FTE... so far I am at page 2 🤪. So as soon as this updating is all done and my built thread no longer looks like a Photobucket advertisement, I will continue with the new posts...

 

OK, all that photo uploading and editing being done (FINALLY! ) I can get back to catching up on thew build, some of this may jump around in time a bit as some time has passed, so I"ll just focus on topics more than going in perfect order. First I'm going to be starting with the Steering and Spindles since that was the last topic really touched on...

I had mounted the Spindles from the Kingpin 1980s E-Series Van, now with weight on the Chassis from the Motor, Trans, and Body of the Truck I found there were some issues with positive Camber (photos below), now I had retained the 1976 I-beams for the TIB system which means the beams are still made from a Forged Steel Material which could be corrected for Camber by being bent (Not like the later TIB systems in the 80s-2000s that utilized a Cast Beam that you could not perform this with, and were actually marked "Do Not Heat or Bend") . Now sounds simple, have the beams bent, yeah, well, few choices there. Either A: find an original Bending system that allowed for use of a beam and jack to bend myself (Photos of original system below), B: Find a Semi Tractor Shop that still does alignment including camber (Oh man, almost harder than finding the old Camber system), Find a Hotrod/Offroad shop wit that will bend a beam... Well long story short after about a year or more of searching I found one such shop even willing to undertake this task, AutoFab (https://autofab.com/) , now I spoke with Auto Fab as I have worked with them before for Trans Mounts and the like for 6.6L Ford 1/2 ton 4x4s that IO have built in the past, at first they weren't quite as receptive judging I was working to make this a DRW Truck, but after talking them over the F250 I-beams being used and the same beam they advertise as being and F100/150 re-arched I-beam only they were a bit more receptive, so if bending beams and front steering are your thing or only option I'd suggest reaching out to Auto Fab for that, you will have to provide what camber is currently, I did this with one of my old Longacre Racing Camber/caster bubble level gauges that I have left over from racing in SCCA.

















Now, I was going to be sending my beams in and then laying out the Steering system and prepping to convert to a 4x4 box up front and ran across Mr. John Clugston out in Pennsylvania that had posted up a International Loadstar Engine with a Commercial Front-sump Oil Pan on it. I reached out to him and was able to secure an original Loadstar 1600 Oil Pan, Pickup, and dipstick tube (Sadly short the actual dipstick) of which I gladly offered up way more than one would really go for so I could just obtain it as they are slowly becoming rarer. I got in the oil pan and started measuring it down, and though the pan looks like it will be close to the crossmember with my new mounts in their current configuration but should be able to clear with minimal issues, good thing I tent to bias my engines more towards the Radiator to help with clearance of turbo systems . So with that being said, I sat on it for a bit and have decided to take the front steering and the spindles off and go back to a rear-steer system with the original steering box, linkage and spindles with the DRW hubs. This will eliminate the need for changing up the brake lines to the calipers, bend the beams, and fab up the 4x4 steering box, and change over the steering column for the 4x4 style (Even though I had already swapped in the 4x4 shaft in a 1979 manual column I will be reversing this). So changes abroad, less fabrication, less parts searching, but the tradeoff is a slightly rarer pan and pickup/dipstick. Now Thankfully the Block is already bossed with the proper dipstick hole and just had a punched in piece of metal in the bossing hole to plug it which can be knocked out and placed back in the rear sump dipstick hole. I have not yet fitted the pan but will be in some time here once I can stop working 6-7 day weeks for 10 hours at a time .

 

Nice find on the s1600 stuff!

Also cool documentation on the "old school" way to adjust your camber, good luck and hope they don't crack on you, I would try cutting a little out of the coils to get it to drop some but that's just me and it would be hard to get it precise.