Hello all. I figured it was about time to make this post. I have been in the process of rebuilding my 73 from the ground up for a couple months now, and this includes the installation of a 2003+ Crown Victoria front end to replace the old twin I-beam suspension. It has been a fun and arduous process. It wouldn’t have been possible (or at least would have been MUCH more difficult) without many hours spent scouring these forums for pictures and tidbits of advice from other people who blazed the trail. So I figured it would maybe help someone in the future to stumble across my build.

One major issue I had is that I decided to rebuild the old FE engine in the truck (bump it up from 360 to 390 and all that, full machine shop trip. I love the old iron) Anyway, I couldn’t find any pictures of how the swap looked with an FE engine. Maybe this will help the next FE guy that decided to tackle the swap.

I had to get a rear sump oil pan, dipstick, and oil pump pickup tube in order to clear the crossmember. The best place to source this is at the junk yard from pretty much any 4x4 ford truck that had an FE big block from the factory. Ended up having to order one online from a junk yard in Portland, OR.

To mount the control arms (or whatever they are called) to the frame I went to pick-n-pull and got a spare set of bushings, cut the round part off, and used the plates to weld to the frame. They are mirror images, so it is now set up where I can unbolt the arms if I need to drop the front end in the future. We also swapped the original bushings so that more of them were under the frame instead of sticking out to the side and needing to be reinforced and gusset’d. One bolt was welded to the frame so that a nut could be fed up from the bottom. Overall that turned out pretty well.

I boxed the majority of the work from the main mounting with pieces of the crown vic frame that I had laying around. Looking back, I should have just bought some metal stock for that, but cash was getting tight and I was looking to cut corners.

All that is left right now is to fabricate motor mounts and build the steering linkage - this should all be wrapped up either this weekend or later next week.

My entire build is being (for the most part) recorded, edited by me, and put on a series of youtube videos. So if you are interested in seeing the whole front end conversion process basically in fast forward and in HD, its all on my youtube channel and the CV swap has its own playlist.

Its a lot of work but also a lot of fun. Can’t wait to get the real engine from the machine shop (the one in these pics is a spare FE i have laying around to use for mock up) and see how this thing handles down the road! If anyone has an questions, wants more pictures of something specific, or has any words of wisdom/advice, all are more than welcome. Thanks!

 

 

Ok sorry - i tried to post a link to the youtube playlist with the video, but I guess that isn't allowed? every time I try to, the forum makes my post unreadable. Sorry :-/

 

Nice! Ive been wanting to do this swap as well, I'll be following this one closely!

 

Ok! I'm gonna call it done! Got the motor mounts finished today and installed the steering. The motor mounts are just stuff we mocked out of cardboard then made. The steering consists of two Borgeson universal joints (3/4" DD x 3/4 36 Spline; 3/4" DD x 3/4" V) and 15" of DD steering shaft. Fortunately, everything worked out just right. Bolted up the headers to see what kind of nightmares we were in for, and it turned out that the motor mounts, headers, and steering components all fit nice and snug. I'd like to take credit for master planning ... but it was a bit of luck. Anyway, here are the pics

 

Bob do you plan to tie the top of the motor mounts back to the frame for added rigidity?
What is your youtube Channel? Name?

 

Originally we were going to do something like that. However, after consulting with a few stock car builders who were using this kind of a set up for 500+ HP engines just fine, we decided to give it a shot with our 300(ish) HP street engine. It seems pretty darn sturdy.

My youtube channel is "ApocalypseBob Auto" or something like that. If you search "1973 Ford F100 Rebuild" my videos should pop up. Theres a bunch. Crown Vic swap has its own playlist though. Working on the final vid of that now!

 

Thanks for posting the steering parts. Pulled my 351W out of my truck and sold it this week in prep for my Crown Vic swap. Making a stop at Summit in August on my way to Floride

 

Thanks for sharing your build, I hope to see more continued progress. I especially like how you decided to mount the radius arm bracket. I was wondering how I was going to do that and now I know... If I can ever get all my honey do list done and get my frame back in my garage..
I was also wondering about the motor mounts but see that its been asked already.
Anyways thanks again

 

 

Wow. Wish I would have taken a time lapse for my CV swap. Pretty cool to see someone else do this on video. Quite a different approach on pretty much everything from tear down to fab but interesting to see. Thanks for sharing.

 

good stuff, great soundtrack too!