Tinman,

I will get pics of the steering for you. On first glance it looks like it will line up pretty close.

I don't plan on moving the motor... I would like to keep it right where it is. I guess I will find out soon if there is anything that will prevent that from working, but so far things seem to be lining up.

 

I got some pics of the steering linkage. The steering shaft enters the steering box at a very steep angle and has a u joint right at the box output. the shaft itself slides so there is about 6 inches of adjustment in length. At the end of the steering column there is a double u joint that will give me a little more room for adjusting the angle. I am not sure if I am going to use this steering column (It's huge) but it will plug right into the harness and I can keep all the cruise, ignition, and even air bag if I do.

The steering box is right in front of the front axle.

This is a picture of the top of the steering box

 

I probably have a lot of issues that I haven't figured out yet.. but one of my biggest concerns has been footwell room. Because I am putting a wide big block V8 in this thing, and I want to lower the cab as much as possible, I am going to have quite a bit of doghouse. My biggest concern was around having enough space on the drivers side for the steering column and pedals. As I was measuring, it appeared that there was only going to be about 7" of footwell.

I did some measuring today and discovered what I had previously suspected. Ford had apparently recognized this problem in their E350 chassis, so to help solve the problem the offset the motor to the drivers side! The motor is right up against the frame rail on the passenger side, but has about 6 inches of space on the drivers side. This is consistent with the fact that the drive shaft is offset 3" to the passenger side as well.

The good news is this is going to make my drivers side footwell space much easier. The bad news is that my wife isn't going to have so much space for her feet. I guess that's the price she will have to pay for getting to ride in the 51... maybe if the passenger side is uncomfortable enough she will make me build a second one for her... hey, a guy can dream right?

Here's a pic of the engine from the back, notice how it is offset to the right significantly between the frame rails.




And you can see he driveshaft offset as well.

 

Yeah, that big ol diesel under the dash is going to be a headache....even with the offset. On mine, even the straight six creates space issues in the foot well areas. You may not be able to mount the cab as low as you want.....I wish I had left mine higher.

The steering looks very workable though.

 

Remember they have to lift the cab on newer models to do head work on 7.3s so yours will be even further into the cab. I too wouldnt go too low.

 

Hello and welcome to the forum! I'm subscribed!

 

I hope to learn a lot about how everything is going to fit this weekend.

One advantage I have is that the motor will actually be significantly easier to work on with the COE body than it was in the van body no matter how low I put the cab (lower actually makes it easier because there will be more engine exposed in the doghouse). With the COE, I can fairly easily pull the front clip and have the front half of the motor completely exposed. Also, the entire dog house will be removable in the COE, where in the van just the back cover was, so where the sides and top of the doghouse were, there was almost no room to work.

All that being said, the doghouse is going to consume a lot of cab space...

 

Time for the weekend update. I was pretty excited that I was going to have a lot of time to work on the COE, but that didn't work as planned. Fortunately, I did get a few hours each day to work on it.

I started by pulling the radiator and engine wiring harness off, along with a few other easily removed pieces. I also removed the one body mount that was offset from the frame (everything else bolted straight onto the framerail).

While I had everything cleaned off, I took another shot of the steering box so the linkage would be more visible.



Now I had everything cleaned off so I could put the front clip on easier. I put the front clip on and marked where I needed to cut get it to fit better. The only places I had to cut were the inner fenderwells to trim it over the spring perches and make a cut along the back of the inner fender so I can bend it in a little farther. The original frame was narrower, the back of the fenders would push out because the inner fenderwells were hitting the frame. At some point I am going to have to make some nice bends and finish that area, but for now I can get things to fit. I borrowed a friends plasma cutter so that made quick work of the cuts. :-)

Now I had the fenders fitting about where I wanted them, and I new how far back I can go. If I push the front clip back until the front of the frame rails is against the panel behind the headlights, then the fan in its factory position is about 3" from the original radiator mount bracket. Because the fan on this thing is so large, it us slightly wider (and offset, remember) so I am going to keep it behind the original radiator mount area and build a shroud around it. I am going to need to get a different radiator as well, the E350 one is about 4" too wide. that will allow me to put the new radiator a few inches farther forward than factory, buying me a little more space.

Here is where the fenders sit now






Next I brought the cab out and put it on the hoist. In order to give myself as much working room as possible, I hung the cab from the hoist with tie straps, that way nothing is in the way. I pulled the front body mounts off of the cab as well, as that obviously wasn't going to be needed.




Next I brought the chassis back in underneath it. About that time I realized that the cab corner skirts that hung down the sides and went outside the frame rails were not going to fit as they were, as the frame was 1 inch wider than the gap inbetween them. I decided to remove them, but some of the bolts proved challenging. Eventually I got them off and slid the chassis underneath.




Now this was starting to feel like progress. After getting everything lined up, I set it down close to the engine to see what I was going to have to cut off the cab floor to make it fit.

Interestingly, because of the engine offset, I will only have to remove a small part of the firewall in the front to make room for the vacuum pump accessory.





With the current placement the back of the doghouse cutout in the floor looks like it will line up nicely as well. I might have to cut out a few inches on the passenger side to make room for the bumpout for the turbo.

Now, the passenger side is a different story, because the engine is shifted to the right 3 inches and because it is so wide, the passenger footwell is getting very narrow. I think this is going to be my main difficulty and will probably determine how low I set the cab.

My plan is to grab the plasma cutter and start cutting out areas of the footwell until I can get the cab to set down around it, then I can figure out exactly how low I can set it and what else I might need to remove.





Once I get the body setting in place, then I can set the box on it and get good measurements of what will need to be done to shorted the chassis, how much of the back of the frame I can remove, and how much I need to narrow the bed.

Then I get to pull the body back off and do chassis work and start doing some body work.

 

Very cool build. Starting on my own 47 so I will be watching intently.

 

I finally got back out to the shop last night. I grabbed the plasma cutter and removed a slice off the passenger side firewall and floorboard. I then dropped the cab down to see where it landed. I also slid the front clip mostly into place to see how things would fit.

The cab is about 4 inches higher than I think I want it. Technically it is about 8" higher than I was initially thinking, but I am not sure I want to take that much cab space for the doghouse. Alternatively, I can buy a 3" lowering kit for the front end and get the ride height I was looking for without loosing as much cab space. Right now the truck sits very high. That is also a result of the stiff springs in the front and almost no body weight. Those heavy E350 springs are not going to work but when I bag it, that will solve that issue.

I also decided I am going to try to push the cab back a couple inches more. I had resisted earlier because it would require cutting a few inches off the front of the frame (not needed anyway), but pushing it back will give me more cab space as well, along with a shorter overall vehicle.

Here are some pics of how it is fitting right now. Feedback is welcome.

 

IMO, it looks very good if you maintain that ride height, just like a real truck. Those COE fenders are massive to be slammed down over the wheels. Like a pretty girl with ill fitting clothes, you can not see the beautiful lines
But, it is your truck, your build. Very nice, BTW.

 

IMO, keep the cab as high as you can and do the lowering with the suspension. The engine fits better in there than I thought it would.
I had to swap out the 1 ton front springs as well, that alone brought mine down 4-5 inches.

 

The reason why I want to lower it is that I want it to look less like a truck, and more like a pickup (hence the pickup box I am putting on it). I am listening though, and have already conceded to leave the body about 5" higher than I was originally planning on. I am sure I will appreciate that in the long run.

I also made another interesting discovery this week. in order to use the 2000 ford dually bed, I need to narrow the bed so it will line up with the cab. The floor is shot on my bed anyway, and I plan to put a wood floor in it, so narrowing it isn't a huge deal. But, because I need to narrow the bed about 10 inches (exact measurement will be determined shortly), that means that the axle will no longer fit under the fender flares. I have considered a few different options.

1) Don't narrow the bed.
Unfortunately, I can't come up with any way of doing this that wouldn't look hacked together.

2) Ditch the rear duallys.
This wouldn't be as hard, but misses some of the coolness factor. I bought a dually donor because I wanted a dually truck. Going with a "Super Single" style tire with the right offset might be acceptable, but I don't even know if that is available.

3) Narrow the rear end to fit.
This was my previous plan. I just have to cut about 4-5" off each side, buy new axles and I am ready to go. I don't really want a narrow dually axle, but it will still be wider than a non-dually truck. Unfortunately, this means that I need to remove the leaf springs and put a new suspension in on the inside of the frame rails to make the axle fit. that is a pain and an expense, but since I want to bag it anyway, not unreasonable.

4) Wide rear fenders
This is the new idea I just came up with. After a quick search, I found that you can buy rear dually fenders for my bed that are 4.25" wider than the factory fenders. That should allow me to keep my full width dually, not mess with the rear axle, and have the "big fender" look I am going for. Hopefully I can get enough fender to make everything fit right.

I have also considered doing a slightly wedged shape box. If I had the front of the box a few inches narrower than the rear of the box, that would give me a matched cab/box transition with a little more tire space. It also would match the wedge shape of the body. I think with an 8' bed it would hardly be noticeable. Any thoughts? Has anyone seen this done before?

 

Like a glove

 

With my skill set, I would do option #4 if I was doing your project.

Since you and your friend's have welding ability, I was thinking of tapering your bed before I read your last paragraph.