I did some more work this weekend.

I started thinking of the best method of starting this build. Whether I do the front crown vic swap first, the rear suspension first (need to pull the bed), or do the LWB to SWB conversion first... Well, I decided to do the LWB to SWB conversion first.

First thing I did was pull the rear bumper. I first disconnected the license plate lights and then looked at all the bolts needed to remove this thing. Only 4, this should be straight forward. Let's hope it goes smoothly. This thing is heavy. Heavy enough I used my engine hoist to hold it in place as I unbolted the thing. Here it is. It'll be going up for sale in the Market Place soon...


Here's the back side of this bumper. It was held on by 4 bolts. I didn't strip any and it was actually fairly straight forward to remove.


Main view of the bumper. There are bolts on either side that were useful in connecting a chain to to hold the thing up. I haven't measured, but it seems to be 3/16 in. steel.


Rear bumper fully removed from the truck. I think it looks better. I'll be getting a roll pan for it, but that is several months out.

After the rear bumper I decided to remove the bed to start the LWB to SWB conversion. Only 8 bolts to remove and it's off. Easy, right? Nope... The auxiliary fuel tank was right in the way of the last carriage bolt. "Fuuuudgge!" Is one word to describe what I was thinking. So I got after it and disconnected the rear light harness and then removed all but the last carriage bolt to hold the bed on. Next was removing the fuel tank fill hose connections and the fuel line and sending unit connection. Got on to the skid plate and all those bolts came out pretty well. One bolt that had me stumped for about five min was the bolt that held the e-brake cable. Had to scrape a bit of crap off of it and it came out pretty easy. Then on to pulling out the tank. Unbolted the tank straps and a bit of pulling, tugging, and VIOLA! Tank was out. That was pretty simple... on to the final carriage bolt.


22gallon aux. fuel tank removed. Time to get to that final carriage bolt. I'm hoping I can re-use this in my build. I think there's just enough room for it so I don't have to worry about a 70's mustang tank.

Ah, the final carriage bolt. This should be easy. Just like the rest of them. Grab my cheater bar and 3/4" socket and pull. "POP", unscrewing easy. I grab the ratcheting box-end wrench and notice the darn bolt is spinning. UGH... Out comes my welder. I'm not messing around with this. I welded a nut to the bolt. Just a few tack welds should do it. "POP" Nope, tack welds snapped. Okay, let's weld the darn thing on there good. So, I did. As shown below. Bolt will have this nut on there forever. To my surprise, this wasn't a carriage bolt. No wonder why it just spun. Well, it's out. Time to get the bed off the frame.


Final carriage bolt. Or so I thought it was... nope, just a standard bolt that spun as I tried to remove the darn thing. So out came my welder and I welded a nut to it. That worked great!

Once all the bolts were removed, I grabbed my engine hoist and some ratchet straps and lifted it off the truck. I had my wife steady the bed in the air above the rear wheels as I pulled the truck out of the garage. After that, I put some stands underneath the bed and there she sits. All nice and pretty ready to get all the trim removed and then it'll be ready for some cutting.


bed on stands in my garage.

The truck frame looks great. I believe it still has some of the original black paint on the frame from the factory. If it's not, that means it was painted at some point.


The rear of the truck with bed removed. Frame looks great. Still appears to have the original black paint.

Passenger side of the truck. Frame is just as good on this side as well. Lots of cleaning to do, but should be a good frame for the LWB to SWB conversion.

So does anyone know where the tool box seal (Black rubber ring around the door in this pic) can be located or a good alternative? Since I'm cutting this thing down 16" I'm going to need a new one. This toolbox will hold my battery and starter solenoide so people can't just come along and start the truck without a key to get to it.


This will be fun to cut down. Any leads on the black rubber seal? Will need to find something to keep out water after it's modified.

This coming week I'll be removing all of the trim and the inner portion of the toolbox prior to cutting the bed down. That will be a few weeks in the making, but I'm looking forward to getting it done in order to move on to the frame work.

 

Got some more work done today. Not much, but it's keeping me moving forward on this build.

I first went and removed all of the lower trim pieces. All of the bolts came out quickly along with the few screws that were in there. In the below pic you can see I'm starting to plan out my cuts to make it a SWB. Front has a 16" cut. I saw somewhere the dimensions are actually 3.8" behind the rear axle and 16.2" in front of the rear axle, but as this will easily be known it was cut down, I'm not too worried about 0.2" on either side. The frame will be getting 16" cut out of it at some point in the future.

It's no longer a sport custom... But it will be custom....


no more trim on the sides... Will have to drill out those rivets though, but I'll need a new bit for that. Mine is dull.


All the lower trim removed.

After removing the trim, I decided to remove the tail lights and it's associated wire harness. I'll be completely re-wiring this truck so I know there will be no issues with wiring. I made sure to place all of the bolts and screws in their associated bags in order to make re-assembly easier.

Removing the tool box took a bit. I ended up drilling out the bolts holding the back up as they decided they didn't want to budge at all. So out comes a few drill bits and viola! You can see the remains below.

Bolts that needed to be drilled out to remove the tool box as they wern't gonna budge.

I got all of the trim removed and got the door off. It came off easily with only one screw rounding off so that had to be drilled out.

Tool box removed. Wow is that side flimsy now.


tool box door removed. Gotta figure out where to cut this thing down to keep it's functionality when shortening the bed.

As I set the body of the tool box down I noticed it had dirt up on the top of it. It's been there for I don't know how long. Probably since it was new... I knocked it off and only surface rust was there. I'm as surprised as you are! I guess this dry NM weather is good for no rust!

Main tool box body. All that dirt was on the top of it. I'm surprised it's not rusted out as it was just clumped up on there after almost 50 years.


Inner surface of the tool box. This thing looks great!

After removing the tool box, I made sure to put all of the bolts and screws in a bag to keep things organized. This will help a lot during re-assembly.

All the bolts in their respective bags.

Hopefully I can get the rivets from the upper trim drilled out and all of the cuts marked out on the bed by the end of this weekend. We'll see if that happens as I have a rifle match in the morning, picking up a CV front end in the afternoon, and then a board meeting on Sunday for the rifle range I'm a member of. Lots of stuff to do and so little time.

 

I also noticed after taking a look around, there is a ton of dirt in the bed support beams as shown below. What would be the best way to get all that dirt out from each of the support beams? I was thinking of potentially cutting part of the bed out to get to each of them so I can either wash em out or rig something up with my shop vac to see if I can get all that dirt out. After cleaning them out I gotta figure out how to coat the inside with POR-15 or something similar to keep em from rusting. Any ideas?


All the dirt build up in the bed supports. I imagine it's like this in all of them.

 

You got a lot of work ahead of you.
Look into engine cleaning brushes to push into the cross beams, may need to work from both sides then use air to blow the dirt out.
Could set up the shop vac on 1 side and blow from the other to keep the dust / dirt down some.

Eastwood makes a internal frame coating that has a long plastic hose and a 360* spray end for coating the insides of boxed frames.
I would use that before you go cutting anything, Besides if you do cut it how would you put it back together, weld it? You then burn / hurt the POR15 you just put in there.

I used a style side long bed ribbed floor in place of my 81 F100 short bed flare side floor because I had the LB bed floor and all the cross braces for the flare side were gone when I got the truck and was $1000 for them on an $800 truck. Looks factory.
I also added duel tanks, not a factory option on flare sides, using all the LB parts inside & out. That is the "custom" in my 81 F100 custom.
Dave ----

 

So I've done more work. Last weekend I picked up a CV front end for $300 bucks. I can't complain. It was dirty and had dirt filled oil all over it.


Newly acquired CV front end

Since it was dirty as could be and seems like it sat in the dirt here in NM, I decided to buy a power washer from Harbor Freight with their 25% off coupon on the 4th and wash it down. It looks Much better now!!!


Clean CV front end. Looks 100x better.


Other side of the CV front end. Looking clean!

I took a few days off and then started on the bed of the truck.

First things first... get the PPE!!!

PPE for cutting and grinding on the bed. Face shield, safety glasses, hearing protection, gloves, and jacket. I've seen what happens when wheels come apart so I feel this is an important thing to stress... USE YOUR PPE!!!

Then it was measuring, marking, and taping where I wanted to cut on the bed. I ended up going 9" back from the front of the bed (towards the cab). This allowed me to stay on the flat edge of the tool box and then have enough clearance to miss cutting on the bottom support member.

Showing how I measured 9" from the end of the bed. I marked the end with a sharpie and just moved the edge of the straight edge down while keeping it flat against the edge. Notice the arrows stating where to cut... it helps.

As shown above, I carefully measured, marked and used painters tape to mark where I wanted to cut and to keep my cuts as straight as possible.


Another view of how I marked the sides.

If you look carefully at the two pictures above, you can see how I marked on the tape which side to cut. This is very helpful when you get in the grove of things. It reminds you where to cut.
After cutting the sides, I measured how deep I needed to mark using the below method. It worked great. It gave me about 7 3/4" from touching the inside of the bed. If you're using this measurement, please double check on yours. It may be different.

How I marked the interior of the bed after the first cutting the sides.

After marking, it was just cutting everything with a 4 1/2" grinder with a cut off wheel. The floor edges were a pain due to the edging/seams that are bent and welded. I got through em slow enough. and then...

Front of bed is off. Let's hope the cuts are straight and true...


Well, no turning back now...

After getting the front of the bed off, I used a drywall square to measure out 16". I ended up sliding it in the lower groves of the bed as shown below to mark the inside of the bed. It helped on the sides as well to make sure everything was even with the prior cuts. See below for a quick and dirty method of marking the bed interior.

Marking 16" from the first cuts

After marking, I got everything taped up with painters tape.

All taped up ready for removal of the 16".

For some reason, the seams at the corners of the bed were harder to cut out on this go round... Oh well, it's now off and I'm a good 25% done with the conversion on the bed.

Now it's def. a "No going back now moment."

In order to lift the front of the bed back up and to make the edges, I ended up cutting out some square pieced of the 16" section of the bed and tacked them on to the side of the bed.

Pieces cut from the side of the bed for alignment of the front of the bed to the back portion. I this this on both side of the sectioned part.

Sides tacked in for alignment of the front of the bed.

Sides tacked in. These are just for alignment of the bed and will be removed later.

I also added some alignment "Tabs" on the bottom of the bed with some 1" square bar remanent I had left over from the table I made (see earlier post). I knew those pieces would come in handy at some point!!!

Alignment tabs on the bottom of the bed. These were made out of 1" square tubing I had laying around. Worked a treat.

It was at this point I had a friend of mine show up. I'm glad too. He helped point out areas that needed re-trimmed such as the corners of the interior bed. It's a good idea to check these and fit, remove, fit, remove. It's a lot easier with a friend around to help move this thing. I'm glad he showed up as it helped a TON! I also purchased 24 of these wonderful clips you see all over the bed getting ready to be tacked into final configuration. These things are fantastic!

Getting ready for welding this bad boy up.


Other side with lots of the clips in place. I'll need to cut a section out of the other piece as there is a bit too much of a gap in the bottom to just weld it.


Interior fitment of the bed. Not too bad. I did have to cut a few areas again in order to keep a 1/16" gap all the way. nothing a grinder with a cutoff wheel can't handle.

So now, it's tacked into final position. A few of the clips are still in position, but I should be able to get those out soon. I'll be working on getting this part finished by this next weekend.

In it's final configuration. Still needs to be fully welded up, but that should be able to be completed by next weekend.

 

More work has been done! The past week or so I've been finishing up the welds from the front part of the bed. I'm almost done. A bit more tack welds here and there and some more grinding, and grinding, and grinding and grinding and the front will be done.

More tack welds in order to grind those down and see where those pin holes are!

More tack welds above the tool box. I burned through in several places and hand to fill em back in... what a PITA! But it's mostly done now.

Most of the bed welded in place. Grinding this sucks due to reaching over the back of it to get to the welds. I ended up using one hand quite a bit.

These clips are great for the ground strap. Just make sure you've ground off the paint prior.

Other side getting tacked up. This side still has about 8 in. to weld up. I'll get to it this coming week if I can.

Today, I had a friend come over to shorten the rear of the bed. It took about 5 hours with a break for lunch in between. I started off by taping about one inch from the seam. I also added a brace since I took the tailgate out. I'm getting a new tailgate as this one has several dents/dings in it and I can't really say I want to do the body work on it..

All taped up and brace tacked into place ready to be cut off. Cuts to be made on left side of tape.

Taped up ready for cutting. In this image I'll be cutting on the right side of the tape. It's about 1" from the seam where the ends are welded on. This allowed me to be far enough away from the brace underneath the bed.

As shown above I have it marked out for 2" from the seam. I decided on 1" as the seam made a great line to mark from. This also allowed me to make sure I wasn't going to cut off the brace underneath the bed.

I started cutting using a 4 1/2" grinder with a cut off wheel. The corners were still a PITA, but a lot easier the 3rd and 4th time doing it. We ended up taking the guard off the grinder and using a fresh cut-off blade to really get in there. Then I went in from underneath and finished the cuts on the seams.

Here's my friend cutting away at the bed.


Here I am doing work. With all the PPE on I was sweatin like two rats in a wool sock... But I'd rather sweat than loose skin or other things.

And Viola!!! end is cut off.


Rear part of the bed is off. WHOOOO!!!

After cutting the end off we got to measuring and taping again. We then cut 4" out from the end of the bed. The temperature was about 90 F outside and cutting with a shop jacket, hat, gloves, safety glasses, face shield, and ear plugs got rather hot. At least we both walked away with all of our skin!


4" cut from the rear of the bed.

After cutting the extra out, we started to grind the paint off for welding the end back on. My friend getting all the paint off the edges for welding. Yes, he's wearing shorts... not the best to be cutting and grinding in, but I can't really tell him no.

My friend grinding off all the paint getting the edges ready for welding.

In order to place the end of the bed back on, I did the same thing as an earlier post where I tacked some supports along the bottom of the bed and used parts of the side walls as guides. I didn't take pictures of those as it can easily be see above. We ended up getting it all aligned pretty well and then I tack welded it up. Here she sits... An almost finished short bed!

Here she is, sittin pretty!


Side tacked on.


One of the sides tacked into place. These but weld holder clip things are amazing!

And this coming week my nephew gets to town so I wont be doing too much work on this thing. We will be taking the extra engine I have apart though. He's never done it before so it'll be a good experience for both of us. It's a 352 FE Mirror 105 block. Once we get it apart I'll be getting it cleaned, sonicated to see how far I can bore the cylinder walls (I'll be going .060" over for a standard 390) and then magna-fluxed to make sure it's good to go. If it all turnes out well I'll bore it, have the mains alignhoned, cam bearings removed and replaced, oil galleys work on and all the freeze plugs done. The guy here in NM has done several of these so I'm confident in his work. For the engine build I plan on a Skat stroker kit, lunati hydralic roller cam, edelbrock heads and Pro-Flow 4 efi. Should be good for about 500 Ft-lbs of torque down low for the twisty roads. I'll be backing it up with either the Tremec TKO-600 or the T-56 magnum... not sure yet on which one though.

 

Looks good. I like that your keeping the tool box.

 

Thanks! I think it's a perfect size for a battery and starter solonoid (SP?). That way you just can't open the hood and start the darn thing.

 

I did some more work this last weekend. My nephew is in town so I decided to switch gears and get him acquainted with engines. We started with this engine... I was told it was a FE 352. The block shows that it's a mirror 105 block so we'll see what we find when we start to dig into it.

Top of the engine that we started with. It was sitting in a guys yard for several years. Guy only lived 10 miles away from me so I got it for a great deal... I hope.


Side view of engine.

Prior to my nephew getting here I sprayed the exhaust bolts down with PB Blaster... Thank goodness too. Only one bolt broke off! YAY!!!
Once we opened up the valve covers we got to see a bit more into the engine and how it's life was. One rocker was off to the side. The spring holding it in place was broke. Probably due to it rusting through with the moisture in the heads. Loads of sludge, but mainly on the back side of the engine.

getting all the ancillary stuff off. Carb, carb linkages, valve covers, and Water pump all removed.


Driver side head. Doesn't look too bad with the exception of the rust. This was probably due to the moisture in the head when the engine sat for so long.


Passenger side of the engine. Notice the intake valve rocker for Piston #2. It's a little off its rocker... Pun intended!!! Doesn't appear to be any damage to the valve so it seems fairly new. Most likely due to the spring rusting through and failing.


My nephew helping out.

After getting all the ancillary stuff off it was time to start tearing into the long block.


rockers, lifters, and pushrods all lined up as they came out of the engine. Only parts I may be re-using is the oil galley pan thing... Heck, I forget the name of it, but I'm keeping it for the build.


Manifold and heads removed. I used an engine lift for removing these things. I didn't want to chance dropping them on anyone's foot. You can see the boxes at the top. All the bolts went into labeled bags so I can re-use if need be.


Manifold and heads removed. Ready for the shortblock!

We flipped the engine over and started getting the timing cover off. Well, I need a new gasket for the timing chain cover. When we were trying to get the Timing chain cover off, the spacer that the harmonic balancer was touching didn't want to budge. I removed the key and still, nothing. I"ll need to purchase a gear puller to at least break it free.

Short block most of the way taken apart. It doesn't look too bad. Some of the mains were worn down to the copper and some show some marring. Probably due to me rotating it without oil.


And it's apart! I made sure to keep the pistons together in the way they came out.


Everything's out now. Now to get a gear puller for the crank shaft spacer for the balancer (I think that's what it's called).

So most of what you see in these pictures will be sold, given away, or used a boat anchors (manifold...) After getting the block wiped down we started taking some measurements of the bore. As I previously mentioned I was told this was a FE 352 engine; however, after measuring the bore with a bore measuring tool I'm getting 4.078ish... Which means this is .030 over for a 360/390. HMMMM... maybe I only need to get it re-honed!!! Sweet! I'm gonna keep my fingers crossed. Otherwise I may need to go .060 over and get a custom stroker kit from Scat. We'll find out. First things first is to get this block cleaned, magnafluxed, and to see if I can get away with just a hone with the torque plate.

Next up is more welding on the bed to get it fully welded up. I'll be filling in all the seams so it's a lot of welding to do. I do have a quick project for my wife's uncle. I'll be making a switch box for his FJ40. I had some extra 16ga sheet laying around so I'll be cutting and TIG welding that up. Let's hope my TIG welding goes well. I'm still learning it so we'll see how that goes. Until next time...

 

I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted last. Not much work has gotten done with the exception of some more tack and grind on the bed. I ended up getting away from the states for a bit for my much delayed honeymoon with the wife. We ended up going to Scotland for two weeks and it was great! Here's a few pics of Scotland with nice weather...


Scotch/Whiskey experience just before heading to the Tattoo Festival (It's a military band presentation pretty much... not people with tattoo's everywhere).


Getting ready for the Tattoo festival in front of Edinburgh Castle.


One view of Edinburgh Castle


Palace of the Holyrod


View of Drummond Castle from their gardens


Entering Stirling Castle... In my opinion, it's much better than Edinburgh Castle and much bigger. I wish we had more time to explore all it had, but we were in a rush to get back to the Tattoo.


View of the Viaduct after we went over it on the "Hairy Potter" train, also known as the Jackabite line.


Dunavegan Castle on the Isle of Skye. Pretty cool castle built in the 1200's.


The view of Edinburgh Castle prior to the final firework show for the end of the Festival season. They let off over 4000 fireworks. Great show!

I did manage to get some work done on the bed this week. I ended up cutting and started welding the toolbox together. The first thing I did was determine where the best place for the first cut would be.

Taping off for the first cut on the bedside toolbox.

I noticed that I'd need to either cut the crap out of one of the supports so I decided to see how to remove two of them. I ended up drilling out the three tacks on it and prying up on it easily so as to not bend it much. It popped right off without any fuss.

Removal of two of the rear supports. Just drill out the tack welds on it and pry up easily. Don't pull too hard or you'll bend it.

You can see the toolbox is angled a bit. I made sure to start the cut where it was flat and would mate up to the other side easily without much fabrication. After making the first cut I went and measured 16" for the second cut and marked it out.

Measuring out 16" for the cut line.


Taping up for an easier sight line for cutting with an angle grinder.

After marking up the cut line, I started cutting and viola... two parts to weld together.

All cut up and ready to get welded together.

I ended up using about six buttweld clamps to hold it together to tack it all together prior to welding. It worked a treat. Here is how I left it as of now. I'm hoping to get the rest of the welding of it done this week along with the door cut and welded. We'll see how that goes...

in process of getting welded together. This is where I left it. I hope to get the rest of it welded this week.

 

those pictures of Scotland are amazing! going there is on my bucket list.

 

Thanks! Those were some of the highlights of the trip. I definitely want to return and spend a bit more time in some of the other areas of Scotland.

 

Got some more work done on this thing. I was able to finish welding up the toolbox. After re-connecting the leads on my welder, it made the welds so much better. I then started on the toolbox door. I started out by drawing a line along one side of the door and then using painters tape as a cutting guide. This cut line started just on the outside edge of one of the end hinges (there's three). Prior to cutting the door, I drilled out the tack welds on each side of the hinges so I'd be able to pull them off without damaging them. I want to re-use them after welding the door back up.


Hinges of the toolbox door. I'll probably only use two of them as the toolbox wont need all three.

Once the hinges were off I started the first cut. After the first cut, I used a square and marked up 8" away towards the center of the toolbox. I repeated this for the opposite side. You can see how it was left after the first two cuts.


First two cuts on the toolbox door. Notice the hinges are removed and I'm using painters tape as a cutting guide.

After it was fully cut; 8" out of either side of the opening latch, I tacked it into place for a quick fit up on the bed. It fit great!


Door tacked up ready to be fully welded. Fits great!

I ended up leaving the door tacked up and decided to move the bed of the truck out of my garage and move the truck in so I can start stripping it down for shortening of the frame and the suspension swap.

First was moving the bed. All by myself. I used my engine hoist and some ratchet straps and move it around. Placed it nicely back on the frame of the truck and drove it over to my RV/Storage garage for final bodywork.

I pulled the truck into the garage and started work on the hood. I had a friend come help pull the hood off as it's just a bit bulky for one person to handle. I ended up drilling two small 3/16" holes on the upper mounting brackets for alignment when I go to put the hood back on. Should help quite a bit for re-aligning it. Once the hood was off I started on removing the front grill and the front valence.


Pulled into the garage and the hood removed and work on removing the front grill. Yup, the wife's car still fits in the garage. She made me promise her she'd be able to keep her spot as I did the work on the truck.


Grill, Bumper and valence is off. Some of those bolts are a pain to get to, but I got em.
From the looks of the engine bay, it doesn't look too bad. The passenger inner fender needs a good clean-up, but that will be easy once it's off. Engine will be coming out and another one will be put in this one's place. I'll use this engine as a mock up spot during the build. It only has about 1000 miles on it since it was re-built (at least the miles the previous owner said it had and the miles I placed on it prior to striping it down). It'll be a good backup if I blow the engine I'm building for it.


Shot of the engine bay. Not too bad. Lots of work to be had cleaning everything up prior to being put back on.

After pulling the front grill and valence off I started on the passenger side of the cab. I pulled the door apart and then took the door off. In order to pull the door apart, windows and all, I followed the following thread: https://www.ford-trucks.com/articles...-window-68-72/ It helped quite a bit on how to pull things apart. I still have one of the tracks to pull out, but that shouldn't be too difficult if it comes out like the window felt does.

One thing to make sure you do is put all the nuts, bolts, and screws into a bag. This way you know where to look when you need to put everything back together later.


Door completely disassembled. It should clean up nicely. Man there's a lot of dirt at the bottom of the door.


Door parts.


Door is off the truck.

Yup, the floor will need to be replaced. I have the part in my storage area waiting to go in, but first I need to pull that outer fender off. about 9 bolts total and viola! It's off. It'll clean up nicely once I get to body work. That'll be later though.


Fender is off. Only a spot that needs fixin.


Another shot of the fender off. Looking pretty good so far.

This is how I left her today. I'll be working on the other side to get her ready for engine removal hopefully this coming weekend.

 

I've done a bit more work. I was able to get both doors completely torn down with the exception of the back side window track and also both outside fenders are off. Getting that second door torn apart was so much faster. I guess once you do it, it's a lot easier the following times. Here are a few pictures of how she's sitting currently.


Passenger side door and fender removed.


Drivers side door and outer fender removed.


How she currently sits. Will hopefully be getting this engine out this weekend.

After getting the fenders off I was finally able to make it down to my machinist to drop off my bare block. It's a Mirror 105 block that has controversial suggestions saying the bore liners are thicker. I'm having my machinist clean the block and check the bores. It looks like it's been bored 0.030" over already so I'm hoping I can get away with just a good hone. He'll check that out for me. I'm also having the cam bearings removed and replaced, the mains checked and align honed and if need by, I'll see about getting the block decked from 1-4 cylinders and 5-8 just to make sure it's completely square. After that, I'll be bringing the block home and starting the build of this engine. I'm hoping for a good low end grunt with a SCAT 4.25" stroker kit, lunati hydralic roller, edlebrock heads and the edlebrock pro-flo 4 kit. We'll see how she goes. Here's the block before I dropped her off at the machinist.


The Mirror 105 block I just dropped off at the machinist.

I'm hoping I can get the current engine out of the truck this weekend and continue stripping the cab. I want to be able to do the floor pans shortly and then move the cab out of the way to start the suspension work. As shown above I have the suspension parts, I just need to install em. I have plenty of steel to box the entire frame in so I'm hoping to get that done by Christmas. We'll see how that turns out...

 

Absolutely awesome man.

The tool box box cut is too cool, thanks for all the detail and pics!

Ive got a similar suspension setup going in mine (‘18 GT IRS, 6k miles)