I am the owner of a 56 f100. The truck is stripped down to the frame and the first thing i would like to do is set-up the stance of the truck. I am unsure of how to determine the width of rear-end I need to accomadate a large wheel and tire combo. And I prefer to have my rear wheels very deep in apperance. Also plan on a mustang II front suspension. Also preferably deep look. What do i do first???? Build the truck around the wheel and tires????

 

Casey, probably the first thing you should do is go to some car shows or a get a big stack of magazines to find a truck that has the look you want.

After you figure out want changes you need to make to your truck to get
'the look' you want, you can decide what work needs to be done now.
Things like frame cutting , new front I.F.S., etc. need to be done now.
Changing rear springs or a rear axel could be done at a different time.

Check out trucks in the gallery feature of this site and ask questions.
I'm sure other people will contribute ideas & questions. Keep time, budget
& your skills in the back of your mind too, while you make plans for your truck.

 

Casey56f100,
Here is a link to some good tech info on Mustang II front ends. On the HAMB, Elpolacko is Steve Szymanski of Industrial Chassis who is a professional hot rod builder. He KNOWS hot rod suspensions.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/s...ght=Mustang+II

You could also do a search over at the HAMB on Mustang II suspensions. There have been some concerns with a couple of the MII manufacturers and the materials used and the thickness of materials.

There are some other choices for independent front suspensions for our trucks. Find the tech article prepared by this forum on this site. Its the most unbiased look at the various choices for IFS for old trucks.

I hope this helps.

Phil

 

I looked on my computer here at home but can't find it, it must be on my work computer. I have a link to a site where the guy takes a set of GM 15 x 8 deep dish wheels and a set of 15" Ford wheels, he cuts the centers out of each set of wheel and mounts the Ford centers into the reversed GM rims to get an 8" deep dish steelwheel for a Ford truck. Its a fairly easy process.

I'll post the link when I get to work in the morning

Bobby

 

At the stage of your build, I would get the current line cards, (data sheets) of the wheel manufacturers to see what sizes of dia.,width and std offset and see which manufacturer offer custom offsets. Then get a scrap steel wheel and mock up a few chipboard disks to represent various diameters and you can tack 3-4 thin strips of bar stock to the scrap wheel to allow the chipbourd disks to slide in and out to represent width and offset. You can go a step further and do same with a larger set of ring to act as the "tire" There is a jig that the pro builders use in chassis set up but I can not find the mag article at the moment, but it does all those things. If your are doing big/littles , you need to find the combo size adn build your fe and re for rake b4 you set the eng/tran location. Big rears will most likely need inboard leafs or a 4 bar set up and tubs if over 8"with std offset.Lot to swallow I know , but now is the time plus wheel style( and availability ) will change over the time the project is finished and ready for the final wheel choice..Plus the paint color comes into play for wheel choice. Most custom wheel vendors have the new software for scanning a pic of your truck and then putting on many many combos of "virtual " tires and wheels.Jon

 

About 8-9 inches is about as wide as you can go on the rear unless you do some kind of bed mod (like a tub of some kind). I've found that you really need to have the bed placed on the truck to figure out how narrow you can go with the rear end and you need the rear fenders on to determine how wide you can go with the wheels. How deep do you consider very deep? If the wheels and tires are extremely important to your build then you probably should build the truck around the wheels and tires.

 

Here is the link I refered to last night, it is an interesting read.

http://www.fordmuscle.com/archives/2...lies/index.php

Bobby

 

Good questions.. wish I had spent a little more time on this myself.

I installed the Volare clip on my 55 frame. Using the tire/wheel guides at (front) and (rear)
I get 6.5 inch outer and 4.5 inch inner measurements for the front,
and 3.5 inch outer and 6 inch inner measuremens for the back. Due the the type of rear suspension I did, I can only deepen the rear backspacing a little bit more, so I added small (3in) wheel tubs, and now have almost 8in rear.

I am using a lincoln/mustang 8.8 rear with disc brakes.

What all this means is that for both the front and the rear, the wheel mount flange will have to be closer to the outside of the wheel, rather than the inside.. This would be NOT deep looking from your description.

If I had done a 4-link with inboard mounted airbags, then I could have used a shorter width rear, and moved the wheel flange in more..
I think the Mustang II front end would have allowed me to do the same for the front.

I think I will be ok, and it will look good.. see my gallery (bed on) for pics with recent model mustang wheels installed for a preview. Those have too much backspacing and rub on the upper A arm of the volare clip and the bed wall on the rear (prior to the wheel tubs)..

Sam

 

I did not know wheel vendors had that type of software. thanks.

 

Good info above Casey. Here's another thing. Don't go too unusual on commonly replaced items such as tires, belts, hoses etc. You'll replace those items several times over the life of the truck, make sure you use parts that will be available in the future, and plan the build around them. I'm in the wholesale tire business, and local retailers often send rodders to me to solve a tough fitment. Mostly the problems are from poor planning, building the car around a tire size or load rating that doesn't exist. Even worse, they solved this problem years ago with something "off the wall", and now have to change the car because that size no longer exists, or is prohibitivly expensive. There are plenty of options, try to find something that's popular today, on a popular car so you can replace them years down the road, or find a replacement on the road.