Subscribed!

 

So, clutch master is mounted, brake booster has been a pain. Ends up being about 4" away from firewall so first plans were to lengthen hoses, but after a good debate about how to modify them in such a way that you could replace it in the middle of nowhere, came to the conclusion that it's just better to move the booster away from the firewall using a bracket and lengthening the pushrod. Doing this won't modify anything likely to need replacing like the hoses so they are still factory parts.

One thing I've noticed is.... no matter how many times you look at something, there always seems to be some little hurdle. Both firewalls appear flat from the outside, but the 97 has a bulge on the inside where the clutch crossover rod passes through the firewall. I just torqued the bots down to pull my firewall closer but might build spacer to go inbetween in the future... it's little things like that that will really slow down a productive day.

 

Here is a swap my friend did...good reading with a billion pics....he put a 69 f250 cab onto an 87 bronco frame, and it's nearly complete

FullSizeBronco.com - 78 - 96 Ford Bronco offroad club, forums, tech, installs

 

Anybody got a pic of F600 hood hinges? Sounds like thats what I need for my mud truck since I ditched the inner fenders and core support for a custom tube skeleton that holds the fenders and grill on.

 

I don't have pics but.... where the inner fender bolts onto the firewall where that piece sticks out and the 3 bolts go through, the hinge and the hinge alone bolts there so in theory you could have a cab with a functional hood attached but no grille, fenders, inner fenders. I don't recall off hand how the 600 inners attached, but basically that raised rib that goes up to bolt to the cab isn't there and the inner fender was flat?

 

So... my new laptop works a lot better than the old one... which doesn't.

Update
Uh.... had plans for a flatdeck, but after a lot of abuse from my friends, the box is going back on... which means the rear axle had to come ahead. I'm midpoint on that right now, looks like a 6.5" slide but a crossmember rivet is in the way right now.

WORD TO THE WISE
DO NOT attempt to put the hydroboost in the factory 79 brake position... it messes up a bunch of stuff including but not limited to pedal alignment. At the point I had figured out that I had made this mistake, I figured it was too late and would deal with the problems as they came up. BOTH the brake and clutch pedal should end up to the left of the steering colum, mine do not. The booster on the 97 is offset to the drivers side and the 79 is slightly offset to the passengers.... just didn't think about it too much when I was putting it together but in reality, the 79 booster hole in the firewall should be closed off and a new one made to the drivers side.

HINDSIGHT...
I'd cut the 97 firewall out to include all the wiring holes, steering, brake and clutch holes. Even figure a way to get that little angly throttle pedal mount grafted in cause it's a pain right now.

UH...
There's been a bunch of stuff on the 90 donor truck that has made for a nicer swap... I'm betting that the pedal bracket from the 90 (mine was auto so minus clutch stuff) would have almost bolted into the 79 and made life a bit easier.

 

Brought the truck home the other day, after running it for about 40 min it developed a skip/stutter/stall thing. I have baked the starter trying to get it going again and replaced with a new one. It'll crank like hell now, and sounds like it's trying to fire but just won't catch. While working on it I noticed a fuel leak in the filter area and am in the process of ordering all the o-rings to reseal is, and while I'm in there I'll be doing the IPR and stuff that tends to go wrong cause I don't want to be fixing it every weekend.

What's left:
Get it running again
Shorten driveshaft
Mount box
Figure out the dash... probably gonna run the 97 cluster by.... building a plate to mount it in or???? (open to suggestions)
Properly mount the radiator
Bolt front sheetmetal/hood back on
Mount all the wiring in place
Batteries.... probably mounting 2 31 series in the box... unsure yet.
Seats... probably not bolting the crappy bench seat that was in it back in.
Hook E-brake cable up to brake.
Fab/mount rear shock mounts and figure out the brake-height lever thingie
Mount throttle pedal
Mount steering column (gotta space it down a bit)
Rewire to use the 79 key to run everything (lotta time spent disecting the ign switches with ohm meter)




In theory, the bulk of the swap is done, if it ran and had a driveshaft and a seat I could move it around. Body is bolted into final position minus the box, and rear suspension has been moved ahead. Steering is done, minus some column mounting, and clutch/brakes are operational.

4wd swap is on hold until all of this is completed and I get some run time with it....

Someone asked about where the computer was going... looks like all that will be on the inner fender for a while.... wiring length right now looks to be an issue although it's not done yet, so when I finally bolt all the wiring in place, something might change. I pulled all the 79 wiring out, minus the switch for the wipers, and the heater, those just seem to get 12v and will work happily.

 

im really interested in this swap eventually i wanna do the exact thing except with a long bed

 

Id really like to see some pics of your brake booster / hydraulic cluch setup. I'm in the process of starting to figure all of this out on my 78 that Im swapping in a 4bt Cummins and a ZF 5 speed.

 

Haven't touched truck in a while... bought an 08 F350 supercab shorty 4x4. Like I said, I'm not happy with the way my brake booster setup worked out, it's set up a little differently on the 97 than typical 79 as far as where things fit on the firewall which resulted in me having to bend the pedals around the column whereas if I had seen everything being offset on the 97, it would have saved me some time. I'll see about getting a good firewall pic on here, have them somewhere but not here.

 

any progress?

 

none to speak of. Thinking of getting back on it soon though, everyone's been asking about it. Seems a shame to leave it sitting.

 

where are you located? maybe i can help you.. i want to do that same thing sometime

 

Canada, thanks, but it's not help I need, just ambition.

 

ohhhhhhhh i see haha