Hello all, I was searching the net to see if anyone has ever done this swap. It led me to this site here and with a bit of research have found that it is rarely completely and there surely seems to be alot of haters on the subject.
So with that said, I will outline the project.
53 f100 from the corn fields of Iowa (picked up (8/6/12), pretty decent shape over all, but surely not a mark of "beauty".




I am currently in the hunt for the donor explorer, the plan is an AWD V8, 96-2001. I chose to go with this generation because its an OBDII vehicle with ease of tuning and decent datalogging. As I will using the factory ECM to control the engine and trans. With the control we have over these ecms it will be no problen to turbocharge this combo and have something that may tickle the 11's and drive like a dream Plus the support for both the 4r70w trans and the pushrod 302 are nearly infinite.
The four wheel disc brakes, 8.8 rear, torsion bar front end all have their unique appeal too.
With the cost of a low mile explorer nearly doubling that of its hi mile counterpart, I feel that finding a donor with less than 80000 miles is the most cost effective way to do this. The exploder i have on the hook now has 60k on it and is about $3k to own. Seeing explorers with nearly 4 times the mileage for sale, I would have to say that there is plenty of life left in this particular drivetrain even with the addition of a turbo and 11 psi it should last a good long time as a "driver".
Not to mention the cost of rebuilding a high mile engine will easily double the purchase price of the hi mile donor, and the need of regular service items such as ball joints and bushings are inevitable with a hi miler donor, this routine maintenance also adds quite a bit of time as well as cost.
The other advantages to finding a low mile donor is the fact that its winter use will be limited, therefore making the need of "hotsaws" and "recipricating easy outs" nearly unnecessary.
My vision is only its infancy at this point as the donor truck has yet to arrive on the property, hopefully I can make that happen tonight.

My goal is simple, to build a "patina" style retromdded rat rod if you will, with performance and reliability that will make anyone who drives this truck feel comfortable taking it anywhere.

Discussion with the owner of the explorer will continue this afternoon and with any luck we can strike the deal to make it happen in a timely fashion!

I hope to update this thread often and be detailed with my findings.

 

Welcome to the forum! The term "RAT ROD" is a bad term here! PATINA is good...Do yourself a big favor any forget that first term!
I have a '96 Explorer 5.0 that I am using, and the 8.8 rear axle, but that's

the extent of it for me. Sounds interesting. so I am subscribed.

 

Welcome to FTE! Haven't done it but I'd like to see it done and documented. We get questions about putting an old truck on a newer frame about once a week but there is very little around in documentation. Looks like a solid old truck. Good luck on it and keep us posted!

 

Not a simple swap but it's do-able with the right fab skills ( or stubbornness ) .

And by the way your "53" is a 54. Or at least the grill and front valance are!

 

LOL, it can go either way.. The title says 53, but I have my doubts on that too.

 

The way to check that is compare the VIN#'s on the title, glove box Vin tag and the Vin on the frame. And decode the Vin # to verify.

I like the 54's better. But that is just my personal opinion.

 

We LOVE 53s that look like 54s!

 

Good luck with your build and i look forward to your updates!

 

Heres an update, I picked up a explorer yesterday morning that was semi local, the low miler I was shooting for fell through, this explorer was had considerably cheaper than the low miler, but will burn up the difference in prep and repair, nothing major just routine mantainence stuff. In the end it will be all new (brakes, shocks wheel bearings and so on)
So here is a few pics that i took at the end of the day today.




As you can see the explorer is with out its underpinnings and the f100 frame sits vacant, I picked up the explorer around 11:30 was back at the shop around 2, and had both the truck and the explorer bared in time to grab a sandwich at the local pub with my buddies that lent a hand.








Today I set the cab on the frame and started to note what fitment issue I was going to run into, Nothing that was of surprise..
The cab is literally on the frame right now, and because I want the truck as low as humanly possible I opted to cut out the floor and trans tunnel to clear the trans and tranfer case. The body will be raise from its current position by about 3/8 of an inch once the cab mounts and cushions are fabbed up.
The front of the frame was cut short and the frame then notched to allow the old core support to slip into place, the inners are going to need quite a bit of trimming to fit over the upper control arm and shock mount.
The list of materials that I am going to need from the steel supplier are currently going to be the sheetmetal to whip up the tunnel and some box tube to make the cab mounts, floor supports and bed supporting cross members.
Because the cab is so low on the frame and the upswept rear section of the explorer frame the bed will be shallowed. My expectation is to raise the bed floor and have to cut only the bulkhead, maybe add a little mini tub to it too! We'll just have to see what we have to work with when we get to that point.

 

Oh yeah, both the f100 frame and the explorer are available for parts or whole, there is just a few things I need off each before they can leave.

 

What motor are you using? I like it!

 

Raise the floor in the bed, maybe trim some off the bottom of the bed if needed ?

 

search for a thread from a member called houghda . i have bumped it up a million times . he finished what your talking about . also dav boley on here is doing a simialar thing , but different ....... so the info is here for ya guy !!!!!!!!!! hades i'll find houghda's thread and bump it ... again....................

 

Interesting thread!

Very similar to what I'm planning for my '55, without the frame swap part. I'll just be pulling the entire drivetrain under the old frame and see what happens.

 

Im using the 5.0 that was in the explorer, I have another motor/trans/transfer case here that was removed from another explorer, I will rebuild that whole setup over winter and replace the on thats in it now.
Im not sure that I will need to trim the bottom of the bed much more than over the axle, I would like the bed to "slip over" the frame to cover the frame rails. But again I have not gotten to the point ... That will be later in the week.