Oil pressure gauge. I always want to know if and how much oil pressure I have.

 

Why did you not put it inside the cab?

 

There is one there as well. If and when I am working on the engine, I want to be able to see the oil pressure.

 

F100 is there any concern the gauge is on the wrong side of the 'gutter'? Or not to worry because it will be parked under cover? I just know you took the time to try to keep the water out but it seems the gauge is on the wet side of the seal.
Door windows look great as well as inner door.

 

The gauge will be sealed. It can get wet.

 

sweet build!!!

 

I like your dash layout, I may have to copy a few aspects of that. I want to do an integrated a/c setup like that for my next truck, but underhood space will be at much more of a premium due to the V8 diesel.

 

I would assume you are doing a power stroke swap? A/C compressor already on the engine? Top front? Should be no issue?

 

Finally got the cab off the chassis to finish up the floors and firewall then send to the body shop. I think I spent 10 hrs grinding, scraping, and sanding the 47 years of dirt and dried up grease from the bottom of the cab. I probably remove two gallons of dirt from all the cracks and crevasses as well. Got the recessed firewall fully welded in and finished up. Also finished up the rain gutter on the fire wall. Lastly, I primed, seam sealed, then coated the inside of the cab, the fire wall, and the bottom of the cab with Second Skin Audio sound deadener as well as their Firewall heat barrier. Same stuff as Lizard skin I think. I did it from the underside of the dash all the way up the back wall of the cab. I'll be putting some fat mat in as well as some closed cell foam insulation too. I want to make sure the inside is as quiet as possible with this little rattle trap motor. next is to get the chassis back in the garage, finish up boxing the frame and other misc welding, then paint the frame and engine and start reassembling when the cab comes back from paint. Pics below……

 

 

How much to have a gutter installed on a 74? I think I know one that could benefit from it. Nice work F100! Chassis looks good, as well as the finished firewall. Anxious to see this one finished.

 

Close, mine's running an IDI, so will the new one. Just an enormous engine to shoehorn into a little compartment and no room for an underhood evap box.
I do like how much attention to detail you are putting into your build, it's so much nicer than a lot of these cookie cutter things you see in magazines and these older trucks just have a sort of class that doesn't exist in the newer ones.

 

F100, I just went back and looked at the first pictures in this thread, you've come along way bud!
I was looking to see if you listed your parts numbers possibly for the Mustang 2 front suspension, you wouldn't happen to have any of that would you? At the moment I am torn between it and a crown vic set up. I think the mustang 2 has more options as far as performance upgrades in the handling department, but I have been wrong before and probably will be many times again. What is your opinion on the crown vic VS mustang 2 as far as the best potential for handling? Thanks for any help.

 

Well, it depends. How low do you want your truck and are you willing to purchase wheels with a custom offset. I would have no problems doing the CV but there are a few things I would do. First would be to notch the frame where the cv mounts. It lowers these trucks nicely but not quite as much as I like. I might even consider doing bags on it. The other thing is, I would order a custom offset wheel to suck the tires in a little more. The factory wheels that everyone seems to put on the cv fronts limit you to how low you can go and how big of tire you can install because they push the wheel out toward the fender so far. Other than those things, I see no downfall to the cv. It definitely seems heavy duty enough and is a little more modern than the MII. And pretty much bolt in to boot.

As far as the MII; you are correct, there are tons of options. What engine are you going to run? The Mii was never intended for a heavy vehicle. Now the after market has made these suspensions way stronger than the originals, but there are some week points still; ball joints. If you do the Mii, I would advise you upgrade the ball joints to a K719 ball joint which has a much larger shaft. Not totally necessary, but safe. And it will require you to purchase a reemer to make the shaft holes in the spindles larger. I love the fact that you can get virtually any track width you want, there are tons of options for springs, shocks, coil overs, stock height or dropped spindles, rotors, brakes, tubular control arms in many styles and configurations including narrowed. Options! Of course the MII will require more fab and welding, but you will have a nice suspension with a lot of options and if you are looking to lay frame you can definitely get there with the Mii.

Hind sight is 20/20. I think if I was going to do it over again; I would have actually built a 2x4 steel chassis and used the CV front with whatever offset wheel I wanted. That way I could get the cv at what ever height I wanted and have a modern suspension I could get parts for from the local store. And I think it would have actually been less fab wrk than what I am doing to this chassis now.

In your case, you need to evaluate what you really want your truck to do? How low? how much fab? how much budget? what look are you after with wheels?

 

Thanks for the response F100. I agree on the Correct wheels vs what is available for the crown vic swap. My end goal is a light nimble well balanced and handling street truck that is lowered for performance first and looks second. You pose good points to ponder and I will continue to research my best options. Thanks again.