Awesome progress man.


Welding body panels sounds like it is a tedious process, I have not done any of it yet (in due time I am sure...)

 

More great progress this weekend!! Lots of grinding and cutting!

We pulled the engine and set it in the bed. Dang near made the truck wheelie. lol. I could easily lift the front of the truck! I ended up putting a jack stand under the receiver hitch so we would not have any worry of it flipping over backwards. haha.
















Next is cleaning and then a lot of measuring and drilling!

 

That's looking fabulous!

Does the new K-member just bolt up to the frame directly with new holes drilled in the frame? (i.e., are the frame rails the same width as the spacing on the other K member?) If so, that's awesome!

I see in the signature you're doing an EFI swap on the 460 - any details on how you did it?

 

The frame rails are pretty much a the perfect width for a CV front end. Of course this swap has been done many many times by others, so I am hardly blazing new ground here.

It basically just bolts in with some minor welding that needs to be done. Pretty easy stuff though.

We are doing the EFI conversion the easy way. Plop an entire 1996 EFI460 engine/wiring harness/transmission into the truck. I have 99%of the wiring figured out so it should be a real easy deal once we make it back to the "make it run" part of this project!

 

Almost have it all bolted in. The rear bushings were completely toasted, so I had to order some new ones. Stock 460 motor mount towers were trimmed a little so I could weld them to plates that bolt to the CV crossmember. We went about bolting it in a little differently than some. Instead of using the 4 long CV bolts and tubes, we used 8 shorter bolts and bolted to the lower frame rail and frame rail tops separately. We also flipped the upper mounts left to right and that allowed them to span the stock motor mount towers.

 

Looks good man.


I like the idea of the shorter bolts vs. the longer ones with tube spacers.

 

All done and on the ground except for the steering shaft. It will be here this week. So, we went ahead and put the engine/trans back in. Fit perfect.










Currently it is 6" lower than it was. I expect that to drop a little more once the front sheet metal is on.

 

impressive transformation.

 

Wow awesome build with your boy. Ive got a long box here that I want to shorten, just the bed. Where did you find the info to it? and what tools did you use? Thanks and keep up the great updates.

 

I just read some other threads about shortening long bed trucks.

I just used basic tools, angle grinder with a cut-off wheel, sawzall, hand drill, and 110v welded with flux core wire. The flux core wire puts more heat into the work piece than the same welder using gas will = better penetration. Plus it welds better in the windy conditions we have here.

 

HOW DID I MISS THIS??!!??? Do you still have your CAD files? I've been considering the same mod, but I was thinking of overlaping the web but butting the top and bottom flanges. Then I was going to plate the inside of the flanges. I wonder how different the f250 and f100 frames are?

 

Do you have any "tweener" pics? Like where you were fitting the bolts? Oh, did you overlap the flanges because not only does the frame get narrower, but it also changes elevations?

 

Haha, yes I still have the cad file.

Your idea would work well too. These are pretty much the only pics I have. As far as the bolts go, I just drilled and bolted while the ratchet straps were still on.

I decided to overlap because the frame tapers and it would have been a mess to try to butt the two together. By overlapping, I was able to squeeze the frame rails together before I welded them. Elevation is sort of relative here. In the the section I cut, the frame is essentially flat. Just ahead of this, right under the back edge of the cab, the frame starts to slope down. I stayed away from that area.

If I were to do it again, I would trim the slot I cut more so that the two halves could slip together a little easier. The went together so tight that if I had needed to adjust before bolting and welding, I would have a really tough time.

 

Well, my thought was to not take a section out of the web, just totally overlap the 16" of frame, but I'd take 16" of flange off the top and bottom. Can you send me your CAD file? ljhATzrhdDOTcom. I just have the frame drawings in PDF format that you can download off the site.

I had seen another guy shorten the bed, he cut the front panel off between the stake hole and the front wall, then he trimmed the outside metal off, cut the inside to where it needed to be then slid the front wall inside the bedsides and welded it back to the front edge of the bed. Then he cut the stake pocket out and put it back in place.

 

I don't think there is room to overlap the entire 16". I think the leaf spring crossmember is in the way and the rear cab-mount crossmember is in the way.