Jon's 1950 f-1
 

Hey guys, now that I have pretty much figured out this photo posting thing I will share some build photo's of my friend Jon's 1950 ford f1.

The story behind this truck as told to me is this, it was his grandfathers farm truck from the time it was new until Jon bought it with sweat while working the farm when he was in junior high school.

He drove the truck for quite a few years then as many young men did those days he went off to vietnam leaving the truck quietly parked at his parents home. Upon his return he went off to college and formed other interests and started his own buisness.

When a family friend asked to buy the truck Jon parted with it, thinking it was gone forever. Then in 1999 his old family friend showed up at the hangar one day and explained to Jon that he was needing to get rid of some of his toys and wanted to give Jon first dibs on his old truck, so Jon bought it back 20+ years after he had sold it.

We put the truck in storage for another 9 years or so before we had a slow winter and he decided to tear into it.

The plan when we started was to retain the flathead but put a c4 automatic behind it instead of the top loader 4 speed, add rack and pinion steering to reduce the steering forces because of the wide tires that were now on the truck, to beef up the braking system, and to have the entire truck repainted and new interior.

As you will see, we scewed far from that original plan as we got more and more involved.

I hope you enjoy the photo's, and we hope to finally complete the final assembly before the snow gets to deep in Idaho to be test driving it.

Gary

Gary

Like the story - didn't see the pics??

what we started with
 

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...0FordF1001.jpg

The PO had done a mini resto of the truck and it looked really good other than I am not a fan of lemon yellow.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...0FordF1003.jpg

The front end was flattened out a bit and Jon confessed to nailing a tree or two with the truck before he sold it, just boys being boys with their truck.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...0FordF1007.jpg

The interior had been redone and left pretty stock with the exception of the addition of the Nissan front bench seat and the 15" spoked steering wheel.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...0FordF1013.jpg

Jon had had the engine overhauled about a year before he had sold it, when he bought it back it had only accumulated about 3800 miles since the milage listed on the bill of sale. It ran like a top and had good power (for a flatty).

the teardown
 

Once we began tearing the truck down to rehab anything that needed attention and to install the c4 tranny, the plan began to morf,,lol

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend049.jpg

The front clip and radiator core support were removed as a unit just to make it easy to get to the steering and front brakes but we also planned on removing the cab to make fabrication of the new tranny crossmember easier.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1353448269

We knew we had some additional work to do as soon as we pulled the carpet out to get to the front cab bolts and found a huge chunk of sheetmetal screwed in over a large hole in the left and right floorboards.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1353448269

The passenger side hole is still covered with its screw in patch and about a quart of undercoating that had been liberally poured over it.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...g?t=1353448269

So Jon made the decision to do it right and have the entire cab media blasted so we could find any other hidden damage. Are you beginning to see the snow ball effect comming on?

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend046.jpg

So, beings as we were going to media blast the cab, we decided to blast the entire truck, repair all the damage and build it back up with a solid foundation again. That snow ball is getting a bit bigger!.

I really like the yellow, but prefer just enough black highlight to tone it down. Great story!

Don't you eat that yellow snow!

- vague song reference for most of you folk. Sorry..

Watch out where the huskies go...

Not so vague for some of us... :-X03

The tear down continues
 

Ok, all the aircraft are safe and warm for the night so I will continue with the saga.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend040.jpg

So, with the new plan of media blasting everything Jon and a few of us pulled the bed and broke it down into pieces.

the front clip which had been removed before recieved the same total disassembly trick and the baggy's of bolts, nuts, and widgets began to grow rapidly.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend029.jpg

Now that the 60+ year chassis was exposed to the light Jon asked me what we could do to get rid of the rust and make it look like new. We talked about painting, vs powdercoat and he finally decided that we should take the extra step to powdercoat the frame before we put it all back together. This of course now meant that we had to completely disassembly the rolling chassis but also had to make sure that every modification that he wanted to do was done before the frame went to the powdercoater.

That snowball was getting bigger by the second.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend031.jpg

So Jon and Dan pulled the flatty out and bolted it into an engine crib, fully expecting to put it back in in a few weeks,,,,lol, so wrong was I.

It was somewhere about this time that we began throwing around ideas for making the "new" truck ride a bit smoother, steer better, stop better, etc and I said that we had to do anything he wanted done before powder coating because after that all we were going to do was waste his cash if we changed plans after it was shot. Thats when the dream list began.

We stopped work after we had the bare frame resting on jack stands and began doing a bunch of research to fulfill his end result desires which now included a mustange II IFS with power rack, power disk brakes in the front (preferably all around), making the rear end ride soft and smooth and we finally settled on a four link with panard to accomplish that but he wasn't really sold on having coil overs all around so the decision was made to go air ride on all fours. One thing that he had added to the wish list was AC, it was at that point that alarms began to go off in my head because our powerplant was a flathead that made a whopping 110 bhp on a good day and we we now taxing 20 hp for the tranny, 12 to 15 for power steering, and an additional 15 to 20 for the AC compressor. Thus sucking about 50+ hp from our available powerplant with everything running.

Jon thought long and hard for several days then decided to go with the wish list and he would explore re engining the truck as well.

So, as he found a new powerplant, I started on the mustang II IFS kit we bought from TCI.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend008.jpg

We bought the TCI kit with the x member already welded which saved a lot of time, all I had to do was weld in the supplied boxing plates, slip the x member into place, set the angle and begin tacking things in one at a time. The TCI kit went in very smooth and in no time at all I had the shock towers aligned and tacked in place, ready to mock up before I welded it all in solid.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend005.jpg

The pieces all fit together just like they were meant to so I began the slow process of jumping from side to side and stitch welding eveything in solid.

As you can see, the sway bar is not attached, that is because TCI sent one that was 2 inches too short to connect to the lower a arm, after a chat on the phone and sending a photo of the item they sent one that fit properly during final mock up.

Thats all for tonight, a new day of xmas tree harvesting begins at 0500.

Thanks for sharing, can't wait to see more!

Gary - wow, your start looked like 'finished'. Thanks for sharing the saga of mission creep. From the pics/narrative, the truck is in great hands.

DW

Front end and power brakes
 

Thanks for the comments, this has been a really fun project for me because as an aircraft mechanic / inspector I don't have the latitude to "free style" whatever I want on the aircraft but each thing that Jon wanted let me run free and design and build something new.

Now I'll get back to it and post some more pic's. Then I will have to load more into photobucket before I can continue.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend003.jpg

I had run out of gas and of course it was a weekend so to tack the front end in I had to convert my wire feed back to rosen core wire, note the white flux haze at each weld.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend002.jpg

But rest assured, I went down monday morning and got a new tank of stargon before I finish welded things.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend004.jpg



http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ntend020-1.jpg

I truely hate the fumes that come off of rosen wire.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...NoteToSelf.jpg

Note to self,,,,,nomex flying gloves are not welding gloves,,,,hot splatter goes right through, then is held there against your finger while it brands you!!!!

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend010.jpg

We bought a bolt in power brake booster kit which was designed to pick up existing frame holes, there was no drilling required once the original mount was cut out.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend012.jpg

It uses the 8" covette booster and master cylinder which is so popular because of its small profile.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rontend014.jpg

The new mount and booster actually take up less space inside the frame rail than the oem mount did.

Love all pics and progress so far. Keep it coming :)

Very nice history about the truck, wich im sure makes the build even more rewarding. You guys are doing a great job, and its gonna be a super nice truck when you finish. Thanks for sharing it with us, I hope you keep us updated on your progress with lots of pics.

The Snow ball gets larger
 

Ok, at this point of the game Jon walked in and announced that he had decided to replace the flatty with a built chevy 350 and wanted me to go help him plan it out with the builder he had been talking to, so off we went to Spokane, WA.

After several hours of discussing all the variables for his engine he consigned them to build him a fully built 350 that they garanteed to make 400+ hp on the dyno.

So, we now had a couple of more items that we now needed to mate the new powerplant to the truck, a transmission and a rear end that could hold that much umpth when Jon padded the throttle.

I lucked out almost immediately and snagged a posi unit from a 2003 ford mustang GT. It fit Jon's wants and needs to a tee, it had the Roush performance kit already applied to it plus it had the disk brakes that he wanted on the rear wheels.

So, while we waited for the engine and the new Raptor 4L60E transmission to be delivered I installed the 4 link kit on the stang rear end and got it installed.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...nksideshot.jpg

Again we bought the TCI 4 link kit with the air bag option for around 4 bills (with the bags).

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...nkfwdmount.jpg

The front mounts are pre drilled to align with the upper rivet holes of the front spring hangar, then we had to drill the lower hole through the frame (the upper link hole)

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...mountfront.jpg

The rear mounts are weld on units so after some very carefull measurements to make sure they were centered to the pumkin centerline and were aligned to pinion angle I tacked them in place.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...inkpanard1.jpg



http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...linkpanard.jpg

This system uses a lower panard bar which runs from the lower link bolt on the R/H side diferential mount to the lower bolt of the L/H frame mount.






http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...irbaglower.jpg

Now the the diferential was stabilized within the frame I tacked the bag mounts to the dif so that they were straight up and down.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...linkairbag.jpg


Then we had to pause and do some more math to figure out how high or low to placed the upper bag mount/crossmember. The bags are supposed to be at mid stroke when at ride height so I had to go back to my teardown notes, cumpute how much frame drop we needed for ride height, the diameter of the tire and wheel combo that Jon planned on useing, etc,,,It made my head hurt but we finally located it near the top edge of the frame. I should have paid more attention in math class.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...tshotclose.jpg

This is what it looked like from the drive end (front) when we finally had everything tacked in place.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...kbagmounts.jpg

A shot from the rear showing the mounts in relation to one another and the shock installation.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...umkincover.jpg

Heres a shot of the Roush performance kit that came with the unit.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ggtrearend.jpg

It was a nice score to find the posi 8.8 dif with almost new disk calipers and rotors, the brake pads were still clean.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ndrearshot.jpg

And here it is a week or so later after it had all been finish welded, primed and painted.

air ride goes in
 

I'm gonna jump around a bit here because I don't have all the thumb drives with me down here in rainy Oregon, so heres the air ride installation we did.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rpodcover1.jpg

The ride tech air pod was housed in this huge ABS enclosure that was like 36x18x12 inches, there was no place to mount it except the bed which was out of the question, soo

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...components.jpg

I pulled the compressors, computer, fuses

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...demanifold.jpg

The air manifold

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...galairtank.jpg

and the 5 gallon air tank and decided to hide it all either under the running boards or between the frame rails on the left hand side of the truck.


http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...irrideinst.jpg

So after several layouts useing scrap plywood I mounted everything on one 10 ga plate that I box formed for rigidity and bolted it to the bottom of the frame rails, this way it could be easily unbolted and dropped down if repair or service was needed.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...kinstalled.jpg

The bottom of the plate is still 1/2 inch above the lowest portion of the running board mounts so a lot of sheetmetal is going away before this unit ever touches mother earth.

You're really blasting thru this job! Can you make your pictures larger, looks like some interesting stuff.

lol,,,We didn't really "blast" through the project, I spent about a month putting the chassis together while I jumped back and forth between the truck and my aircraft duties.

The body work and painting is still not quite done but we are very close finally, all thats left is assembling all of the front end pieces that have been painted at long last.

Tail Gate Fabrication
 

While I have some time I will post some more photo's of Jon's Truck.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...h/tailfab1.jpg

Jon wanted something totally differant for his tail gate and I suggested a full height unit with hidden latches and he said go for it.

So I started with a piece of chrome moly tubing between the hinges and fabbed a sub frame onto it. Then I rolled the upper roll in the outer skin and tacked it into place before making the spring loaded latches from cold rolled rod and some more chrome moly tubeing.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ailgatefab.jpg

By adding the sub frame (5/8" square tube) it did make the gate fairly heavy, but it's strong as h***. lol

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...illatchfab.jpg

The round bar was drilled and tapped to 8/32 so I could add a finger latch to draw the rods in and unlock the tail gate.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...llatchfab1.jpg

Its hard to see, but right under the latch is an alignment pin which prevents the bed sides from wiggling around.

I also installed ford f-150 tail gate cables useing the stock snap lock bolt on the top and fabbed a lower cable mount which bolts to the tailgate itself.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...llatchfab2.jpg

Here is a better shot of the latch and alignment pin which slids into the sub frame as the tail gate is closed.

Once everything was adjusted the inner skin was bonded in place with panel bond so it is smooth on both sides, making the beast even heavier.


http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...h/tailfab2.jpg

And here it is, a full height tail gate, with hidden latches and cables, which does not rattle or move when the bed flexes.

I have already begun to fab another one like this for my 55.

Gary

Bed repair and mods
 

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...bedmockup3.jpg

The PO had screwed a piece of 3/4" plywood covered with plastic grass glued to it for the bed floor. This had totally rotted through and held water against the sub frame long enough that 3 of the bed supports were destroyed and had to be replaced.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...bedmockup2.jpg

While I was welding in the new bed supports from LMC I also welded nuts to the inside of the sub frame so we could use button head allen screw to re-attach the bed sides easily.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...bedmockup1.jpg

The header board of the bed was hammered so bad that we decided that it would be cheaper to buy a new one from LMC rather than waste a lot of man hours making it straight again.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../bedmockup.jpg

After the sub frame had been repaired it was powder coated to prevent any future rust problems and the bed was re-assembled to finish up the bed floor installation.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...bedwoodfab.jpg

Jon bought a oak bed kit but because the PO had "modified" the bed and installed his own custom roll pan I had to cut and modify the wood kit to fit the available space. Once the wood had been fully mocked up in the bed and all the "bugs" were ironed out I applied 8 coats of marine spar varnish to both sides of the wood decking and spacer slats until it began having that glassy look.

Brake line installation
 

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...heckvalves.jpg

Now that the master cylinder and both the front and rear ends were in place it was time to hook up the brakes.

We went with the original style pressure switch for the brake lights, just because its a simple system and they rarely fail if placed vertically.

We installed a 1 psi check valve in each line close to the master cylinder and placed the porportioning valve in the rear brake line aft of the check valves.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ightswitch.jpg

Here is a better shot showing the porpotioning valve placement (left of the master cyl).


http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...einstlhfwd.jpg

The rest of the system is just your basic brake installation, here is the front L/H side.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...brakeclose.jpg

another fwd L/H shot.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...rbrakeinst.jpg

L/H rear brake line installation.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...gbrakeinst.jpg

The mustang gt rear axel brakes installed.

Hope stuff like this doesn't bore you guys.

And here I was going to offer to come by to lend a hand or moral support as I will be driving for UPS in Spokane next month. Well I already had a feeling you were well along with the project, appears you'll have it done about the time there is too much snow to drive it. Maybe we can have breakfast/lunch at GW Hunters one day.

Final prime then bed in paint
 

Here are some shots of the bed after final priming and final mock up before disassembly and painting, then some shots of the finished truck bed.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...nishprime1.jpg

After our body guy Cal had everything in final prime we reassembled it all one more time just to make sure that we hadn't forgotten anything.

We found that we didn't like the gap at the junction of the front bed panel and the top of the bed, so we added metal to the head panel and filed it flush then plugged the top rollover hole before final/final assembly and paint.

Also note that Cal removed the support in the center of the bed sides over the rear fenders, this makes the side of the bed look so much cleaner.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...inishprime.jpg

Everything else fit flawlessly and every gap was dead on.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...gateprimer.jpg

the tail gate fit like a glove and operated perfectly.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...lgatelatch.jpg

here is a good shot of the latches and alignment pin, the bolt below the pin is where the cable attaches.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...t/bedfront.jpg

the bed with final paint and the first buffing completed.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...t/bdtgdown.jpg

The wood decking and tailgate, I inset the fuel filler flush into the bed deck.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...t/tgcables.jpg

The upper cable attachment

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../cabletotg.jpg

And the tailgate attach point.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../paintedtg.jpg

The 12 inch tall FORD lettering looks small against that tall tailgate

That sounds like a great plan.

Yea we are Juuust about done with Jon's truck but feel free to bring your tool bag and jump right in on my 55 project,,, its a long way from cruising the block,,,lol

Gary

Front clip work
 

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...dingfrtfen.jpg

Jon bought fiberglass front fenders because he and I both wanted to smooth the nose out some and be able to re-contour the wheel openings.

We presented these new fenders to Jon's body guy Cal and he spent several weeks cussing both of us but he did an awesome job of bonding the upper and lower fender halves.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...hfrtfender.jpg

Along the way Cal decided that because he had to do so much fiber work, he would custom fit them to the cab and hood with a minimal gap. So he had to build up areas so that each mating surface could be block sanded back to a perfect fit.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...dersbonded.jpg

I think the front fenders looks soo much better without the seam between the upper and lower half.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...fenderhole.jpg

You can see the tight fit between the fender and tire, this is another reason we used fiberglass ones, so that we could readily trim the opening to fit the tires exactly. Plus the flair at the rear of the wheel opening will be filled in and contoured to match the tire.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ndermockup.jpg

Cal spent hours upon hours sanding and fitting the fenders until the gaps met his standards, I thought they looked great after the second fitting but it took about four more times to please him.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ofrtfender.jpg

Cal also re-contoured the top of each fender to exactly match the lower hood surface, when the hood is closed there is an even 1/8" gap all around.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...lfrtmockup.jpg

Even in primer it looks great and the seams are all tight and smooth.

Wow! Awesome Project!!!!!

What is that color?

making larger photo's
 

OK, I will try to make the pic's bigger, this is my test

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../paintedtg.jpg


kewl,,,,finally figured out how to do this,,,I am a bloody genius!!! lol

You passed the test! :-X22

It seems that I have figured this photo thing out -----finally!!!

The color is Monterey Red, its the same color as Jon's vet and it looks even better in person than it does in the pic's and it way bright out in the sun. Jon made a great choice I think.

engine is here
 

So, the engine finally arrives and it is a thing of beauty. I waste no time getting the 4L60E tranny mated up and fitted between the frame rails, as low as we could stick it so as to keep the center of balance low.

Only one small problemo,,, the cab wont fit back on,,,bummers, more fab work is in store.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...fittingcab.jpg

As we eased the cab forward it became evident that I was going to have to push the engine tunnel back a minimum of 3 inches to make the cab fit and have some clearance.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...terferance.jpg

I installed Locar flexible dip sticks on the engine and tranny. Jon bought a Fast EFI kit to feed this motor.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...nginefront.jpg

The front pully kit came from rocky hinge and it looked great and more importantly,,, pulled everything in nice and close to the engine.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ine/engcab.jpg

Because of the narrow frame of the fifty and the fact that we had tucked it so far down made us order hooker block hugger headers to get the exhaust out the back.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...engineleft.jpg

The engine was tucked down until the oil pan only cleared the front crossmember by an inch and a half. yet the bottom of the sump was still a half inch above the lowest surface of the crossmember.

chassis final assembly
 

Now that we had the engine and tranny mounted and all the welding and fab work was done it was torn down and every piece was sent out for paint or powdercoat.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ontchassis.jpg

Once everything had been hit with powdercoat or paint we assembled the rolling chassis for the last time....we hope...lol

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...eltankinst.jpg

We had a local fabricator make a 19.5 gallon stainless fuel tank with 3 internal baffles (2 for and aft,1 lateral) one of his apprentices warped the top but the rest of the tank is flawless.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...adiatorrez.jpg

before I sent the core support and inner wheel wells out for powdercoat I needed to fit the radiator, coolant overflow tank, Ac condenser, etc.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ezplumbing.jpg

stainless lines were used to move fluids like the PS juice around.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...teeringrez.jpg

here is the PS reservoir.

Now that all of this was fitted in place the last few chunks could go out for powdercoat.

steering column
 

Now that the engine was installed with its headers in place and I had notched the firewall to fit around the new engine, it was time to fit the steering column and linkage.


http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...columninst.jpg

The ididit column is a 30 inch unit with a 3 inch drop, I actually moved the floor board hole up 1 inch to get a little bit more foot room, its a tight cab for my large frame.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...columndrop.jpg

The column shift was just long enough that it hit the dash when placed in park, so I had to heat and bend it up and aft.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...olumnfloor.jpg

I made new floor panels and welded the upper one in, leaving the lower as a bolt if to feed the brake pedal through.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ringcolumn.jpg


Here you can see the re-formed gear selector and the notched engine tunnel.
http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...umnknuckle.jpg


The column shaft came through the floor board at almost a perfect angle to run straight under the header and plug into the power rack.

Under the Panel
 

We had now accumulated all of the computers, programers, and other electronic thingies that we needed to run the beast so I began tucking them all into place.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...FIcompinst.jpg

So I began installing the differant boxes from the far left hand side by welding 1 1/2 inch sections of 10/32 all thread so that each box would have good airflow all around them.

The first to go in place was the Fast EFI computer.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...trannycomp.jpg

Next came the computer / programmer for the 4L60E transmisson.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...el/igncomp.jpg

And beside it went the MSD ignition box.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../wiperinst.jpg

If the wper moter looks a bit out of place, thats because I had to cut it all apart and move the motor from the center right side to the far left in order to tuck the vintage air gen II unit all the way up and behind the panel.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...entcluster.jpg

And I finally found enough free time to gut the original instrument bezel and install the new classic instruments in a monkey wood panel.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...l/acpanel1.jpg

I even squeezed in enough time to fit the AC/heater panel into the ash tray panel.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...el/acpanel.jpg

It looks like vintage air made this panel with this exact installation in mind.

Assembled dash panel
 

Cal finally blessed the cab and painted the entire inside so I could begin installing the dynamat, wireing, and all the instruments and controls.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ntirepanel.jpg

The panel turned out even better than we had expected, everything was within easy view and reach.

We had though about flushing in the original radio hole but Jon liked the big chrome ford filler plate so we left it there.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../panelrtol.jpg

We bought the secret audio system because that control head is only 1 inch thick, making room for the vintage air evap/heater unit.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...enterpanel.jpg

The ride tech air ride controller went right below the secret audio head and has 3 preset ride heights or manual control.

When the truck went in for the interior he had Rick add some beading around the two contol heads which really made the whole panel pop.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...cntracduct.jpg

He also had Rick leather wrap the center ac duct

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...l/lhacduct.jpg

The left ac duct and

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...l/rhacvent.jpg

The r/h ac duct and kick panels.

Our first Cruise
 

Finally everything was wired and plumbed, all the leak checks had been done and we couldn't wait another minute to test drive Jon's ride.

So, I threw in some plywood and foam pads on the seat frame and we braved the 20 degree weather and drove over to our buddies hangar to rub it in that Jon's truck was mobile and his A model was still in pieces. It was cruel but Bill took the ribbing with good humor, he even pulled out his camera and took these photo's to commemorate the occasion.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...viewbetter.jpg

So, with me behind the wheel we drove up to Bill's and let the exhause noise annouce our arrival. Note the hand made polished firewall cover.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../lhfntview.jpg

While we let bill stew in our glory we messed around with the air bags.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...e/rfntview.jpg

Changeing seats (pads) Jon got ready for his first spin behind the wheel.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ive/rhside.jpg

We were having a blast but freezing at the same time.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../rhchassis.jpg

There were several reasons for the single r/h exhaust, the 4 link just plain got in the way to out the back and the air ride system impeded us going out both sides, so we ran 2 1/2 pipes all the way from the headers to a 3" inlet, single 3 inch exhaust muffler,,,,it breaths well and sound crazy kewl.

I like the look/fit of the control panel. I looked the panel up in
the catalogue. It did not indicate if the panel was for a manual system, is it? I put together my own system which need a manual contol, see some pics in my gallery.
Can you tell me a little more about it?



http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...el/acpanel.jpg

[quote=49willard;12517222]I like the look/fit of the control panel. I looked the panel up in
the catalogue. It did not indicate if the panel was for a manual system, is it? I put together my own system which need a manual contol, see some pics in my gallery.
Can you tell me a little more about it?



That controller is an all electric panel, the evap/heater unit uses servo motors to change from heat to defrost etc, The only manual control left in the system is the knob below the panel, that operates the original vent box which I and Jon wanted to retain so he could have fresh air without rolling the windows down. It now serves as a vent / recirculate control for the heater/ac unit.

If your looking for a manual unit I would give vintage air a call and see if they can help you out, hope this answered your question.

Exhaust system inst
 

I found some more pics, these are of the stainless exhaust system.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...tcrossover.jpg

Because we had the air ride and power booster on the L/H side we routed the exhaust under the pan to the right side.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ustrouting.jpg

There we ran it back beside the R/H pipe the the muffler.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ufflerinst.jpg

There the two pipes "Y"ed together into the muffler.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...mufflertop.jpg



http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ilpipeinst.jpg

And a single exhaust tip was run out through the R/H running board. I had my doubts about the exhaust note from this arrangement but it sounds crazy bad.

cab repairs and fab work
 

I know that I'm jumping all over and this is no exception. My wife sent me these and I'll just post them before I lose them again.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ewrhcorner.jpg

As usual the cab corners had some rot so we repaired the passenger side

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...wcabcorner.jpg

and the drivers side, but that was the minor stuff.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...ewfloorpan.jpg

The driver floor was badly rotted and we had to replace the entire side with an LMC replacement then repair the R/H corner of the passenger side as well.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...newrearpan.jpg

Because the PO had stuffed foam between the cab and bed to prevent rattles (the bed was only held on with 3 1/4 inch bolts), the entire back of the cab was rotted and needed to be replaced.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/.../seatframe.jpg

Jon had bought some Chevy Avaio seats so I took the original floor mounts and welded mount bars to them to install the new buckets.
Then I decided to make some siding drawers under the frame to add some needed storage and even put a lock on one for some extra security.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...audiomount.jpg

And the space between the drawers was a perfect spot to mount the secret audio controller / amp.


http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...nterconsol.jpg

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...solonmount.jpg

Because the seats had about 6 inches of space between them I built a center consol to fill the gap, this will be wrapped in leather later.

I even installed a couple of 12vdc power plugs along the rear of the consol so Jon could plug in any of his accessory items.

beautiful work, must read page 3 now i have to go back and read the beginning. dick r.

battery box
 

morning all,

My bride is having some technical issues sending me my photo files but she did get this one thru the net last night.

http://i1249.photobucket.com/albums/...batterybox.jpg

Because Jon did not want the battery in the engine bay and there was no more space under the cab I had to fab up a battery box that would bolt to the floor behind the passenger seat. As a safety factor I placed the two main circuit breakers and the main cutout switch in the end plate of the box. The box has 2 vent holes in the bottom, one has a small scoop that I made that sucks air into the box and the other vents back out of the cab floor. The lid has a rubber seal to prevent vapors in the cab which should never happen because we used an Optima sealed battery.