I need some help and I have searched the web and forum with no luck.

I'm in the process of doing the Crown Vic IFS swap. I purchased an 1989 Lincoln Town Car with low miles to swap over the fuel injected engine and aod transmission. My question is can I use the Town Car rear end? It would give me the same bolt pattern as the Crown Vic and is only has 52,000 miles on it.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

you will have to measure width but it would probably work. Is it discs?

 

Sure. Why wouldn't it?? Chop, cut, and fit - right? Wheel offset/backspace, shock mounts, leaf spring pads, driveshaft flange, etc.


But I would have done the T-bird/Cougar MN-12 subframe retrofit to get an IRS.

 

I just haven't been able to find where someone has done it. Would I need to cut the shock mounts and such off of my old axle and weld onto the Town Car's axle or is there somewhere I can buy them?

I've considered the IRS but the lug patterns are different and I already have this rear end.

 

OK...


Leaf pads? Speedway Motors, A&A Manufacturing, Blue Torch Fab, Currie, just to name a few....


The MN-12 has the same pattern.

 

You should start a build thread, I can't get enough of these swaps, and have read about every thread out there, lol.

 

Take a look at this build:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...-vic-swap.html
I think that it is very close to what you are intending to do.

 

The MN12 uses a 5x108mm bolt pattern. Panther chassis is 5x114.3.

The '89 Town car would have come with a drum brake, 28 spline rear. Standard was 10" drums, a tow package car would have 11" rear drums. Tow package cars were typically a "K" code 3.55 trac lok as well, which would be nice for your truck.

Do you have the Crown Vic rear? That would have a wider width (they changed in '03 with the new front suspension), and I believe in '05 they went to 30 spline axles, which is a nice upgrade. Plus, it would be a disk brake rear, and come brake job time you could just order parts for the same car.

Not sure on the width from flange to flange, but in 1990 the panther chassis rear track width increased by 1". Good to know if you are swapping axle components between years.

Also, using the '89 EFI engine from the towncar... I am not sure if you know this or not, but that is not the "Mustang" engine. It isn't the truck engine either, for that matter. The standard output EFI 302 uses a different firing order than the 5.0 HO; it also uses the E6 heads (HO uses E7s), a different upper intake (lower is the same), smaller throttle body, different computer, 14# injectors, different camshaft, and some other little tidbits. You may already know this. If not, just an FYI. The good news is, you can do an HO conversion very easily.

Additionally, you may find this interesting. Lincolns have a longer chassis that the Mercury and Ford panther counterparts. The Lincoln uses a longer tailshaft that the Mustang/ Crown Vic/ Mercury. So, if you have a driveshaft made that mates with your Lincoln tranny, it would be too short if you try and swap in one of the shorter Mustang/ Panther transmissions at a later date.

Just an FYI.

Source: I've had alot of '79-'89 Panthers

 

Thanks for the info.

I'm now reconsidering going with a Thunderbird rear end and doing an IRS.

I knew the town car motor wasn't an HO motor but have purchased the parts to switch it over. Couldn't pass up a cheap low mileage vehicle.

So many decisions but at least I'm down to the last one for the rear drive train and suspension.

 

Hello, I'm very curious about how this has turned out with dropping the Lincoln TC 5.0 and auto trans. I'm actually considering the exact same thing with an 86 Lincoln TC for my 68 F100. I'm interested in what mounts you used to mount the TC trans into the truck and also what you did for a steering column. I'd appreciate any insight you've got. Thanks!

 

I used the stock transmission mount from the truck. I believe that I had to move it forward. I also used the stock steering column. There are several post on how to adapt it to the crown vic swap. Hope this is helpful.

 

Was your stock steering column an auto or was it manual? Mine is a 3spd manual on the column. Thanks for your response!

 

Mine is an automatic.

 

Cool. Thanks for your help!

 

We used a Crown Vic rear end in our Bullnose truck. We grabbed a Ruff Stuff kit and it worked great.