Just a question, has anyone on the forum built a crew cab f150 in this vintage of truck? I don't think Ford ever built one but they did build f350 crew cabs for work trucks. Seems like one of those cabs on a supercab long bed chassis would maybe up nice with a flareside bed and almost look natural??
the question comes to mind because I need a 4 door truck but don't need a 3/4-1 ton truck that rides like a lumber wagon. I like my 95 f150 regular cab long bed.
I was looking into newer generation of f150 but I don't like the look of the early 2000's crew cabs and the mid 2000's have that crappy 5.4. plus I had other engine and transmission plans that are not available in newer trucks anyhow.
If I were to build a F150 crew, what's the ideal chassis? Seems like a supercab long bed chassis would have good frame length to mount a crew cab with a shortbed without too much modification. I haven't looked into it as I don't have a supercab or crew to measure yet but I'm was hoping someone here has done it and could offer some advice!

 

not a bad guess looking to this

 

Ford offered crew cabs in both f250’s and 350’s, long bed and short bed and up through 98 when they changed the body (I think 98 you could only get a 250 and in short bed). There were f150 crew cabs available from centurion for our generation trucks (they’re out there but hard to come by). Most of the 250’s and 350’s that are in good condition, the seller is asking an arm and leg, and the cheap ones are rough.
I’ve researched the frame issue and I think only a crew cab truck frame would work because the frame height changes behind the cab. You could of course modify a SuperCab frame to extend the cab area if you wanted

 

I guessed that pretty close! Haha. I hadn't looking into wheel base, I was just thinking about the proportion of each truck, can and box size and what seemed like a fair setup to do the crew cab.
i expect that the rear axle probably won't be exactly where you will need it but it may not need much adjustment. Maybe it will work where it is?
I have to find me a good cab!
Thanks for that info!

 

Some related threads:

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/9...enturions.html

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...ld-thread.html

Site for Four Door Broncos, but has some info about the Centurion F150 Crew Cab: www.fourdoorbronco.com

 

What he said.

I would love to get my hands on one of the Centurion F150's but they are few and far between. And the ones I have come across have been way overpriced or trashed. I'm not 100% sure, but my understanding is that Centurion took a production Supercab F-150, lengthened the frame, and spliced the back half of a crew cab onto a Supercab. Consequently, the Centurion crew cab F-150's frequently display frame sag in the middle and paint issues at the body seam.

 

If you want just a cab- https://www.facebook.com/marketplace...0501003024121/

 

Ford truck frames of this vintage kick up behind the cab. So if you put a longer cab on a frame that was made for a shorter one you need to deal with that. You can either start with a short-box frame and stretch it under the cab, or you can "french" the frame into the bottom of the cab, or you can put about a 3" body lift on it to lift the cab up enough to clear the kick-up. None of these is perfect. The frame stretch and frenching are harder to implement, the frame stretch and the body lift are probably easier to screw up into something that won't be safe. But this is why you don't see more people doing this.

As to what crew cabs were available, from '80 - '97 the F-350 came as a long-box crew cab. From I think '95 (give or take a year) to '97 you could get an F-250HD crew cab short box. (There was no '98 F-250HD or F-350, Ford jumped from model year '97 to the '99 SuperDuty. There were '98 F-250s, but those were the standard 3/4 ton that went to the new body style along with the F-150 in '97. And in '99 the standard F-250 was rebadged "F-150" so Ford stopped having two completely different trucks called F-250.)

Centurian (and others?) made 1/2 ton crew cabs. But they didn't use a Ford-built crew cab, they stretched a shorter cab. I don't know what they did with the frames.

 

Frenching a crewcab to fit an extended cab frame sounds like the best solution to me, the part that gets cut will be under the rear seat so it doesn't even have to look pretty. But that said a 1/2 ton frame and drivetrain is a bit light for a crew cab anyway, I remember how much my old '90 flexed with some weight in it.. it was a bit unsettling compared to all the newer trucks. The current F150 is every bit as much truck as an F250 from this era so it makes more sense to start with that platform and then soften up the ride a bit if you're not going to use the payload capacity.

 

if you want a crewcab F150, probably the best way to go about it would be to find a f350 crewcab, shorten the frame 16" and put a short bed on

 

... or get an F-250 crew cab that already has the shorter frame and short bed.

While I definitely agree that either of those is easier that cobbling a crew cab onto an F-150 frame, neither gives you an F-150 crew cab. They will both have a much heavier frame with heavier axles, heavier tires, a higher ride height and a worse ride. A lot of those things are good if you need the weight carrying capacity. But if you don't need the capacity? Not so much.

To the OP, frankly any crew cab will benefit from more than an F-150 GVWR. An empty F-150 crew cab would probably weigh around 5500 lbs (my guess) with about a 6600 lb GVWR. Put six people averaging 150 lbs in it and you only have 200 lbs left for cargo. Pick whatever number of people and average weight you want, but the bottom line is that an F-150 can't carry very many people and any significant amount of cargo. So be realistic about what you're going to haul, and keep in mind that the project won't be just a "simple" cab swap. But if in the end what you need is just an F-150 with a crew cab, there are reasons to go to the work.

 

Oh, one question to the OP. Are you thinking 2WD or 4WD? I've been assuming 4WD because personally I can't ever imagine getting a 2WD truck. But even living in Minnesota and with my life style I have to admit that a 2WD would be almost all I need, so for a lot of people a 2WD would be fine.

If you are one of those I would strongly suggest you look into an F-250 or F-350 before trying to put a crew cab on an F-150. The 2WD versions of the heavier trucks ride a lot closer to an F-150 than the 4WD versions do. And the ride height is a lot lower and more F-150-like. In the F-250 you are stuck with big engine options (460 or PowerStroke diesel only) while the F-350 could be had with a 351 or possibly a 300 six if you wanted them (but both are probably pretty rare). And again the F-250 will be a short box with the F-350 being long. But the point being that there are fewer downsides and still the same upsides to going with a heavier truck if you're looking at 2WD.

 

I'm in SC. 2wd is all I ever need here, heck when it snows they cancel work!! No joke. I lived in New England all my life until I moved here at 42yrs old. Never had a snow day until I moved here. Usually when there's ice or snow it is gone by 3pm the next day.
back to my project! So I don't see why a crew cab would weigh very much more than a supercab. I admit, doors and structure for that would add weight but my thoughts were to use a flareside bed and they are pretty light with fiberglass fenders.
As far as payload, I have owned many a half ton truck and gave literally hauled 1 ton pallets of wood pellets in a few if them. I towed a 35 foot camper with a 95 f150 4x4 with a 5.0. granted it was over it's tow capacity but that said, it's not a Chevy we're talking about. Lol
I don't do ant regular hauling. The home Depot trip or scrap yard run but really most times I'm running empty. And I have no problem at all with going over recommended gvw now and then. It's a Ford, it can take it!
I know cab swaps aren't easy! Done a few. After looking at a few crew cab dually trucks, the cab might be a little much for the f150. I really just didn't want to bear the cost of maintaining a heavy duty truck being I really don't need one that heavy. I will probably rethink this whole idea as it seems a little less interesting the more I think about it. The issues with 1ton crew cabs is that mist of them have a long bed and then don't steer very tight either. Sort of need a football field to turn around and still might have to back up once. The f150's turn much much tighter.
If the parts fell in my lap I'd build one but I don't think it sounds worth the investment to do it. There has been plenty of good thoughts here from everyone. I appreciate it. It made me look at it at a few different angles.

 

Believe it or not a flare side bed weighs MORE than a regular bed( I weighed mine when I put a flareside bed on. It was like 75#s more IIRC

 

I used to deliver to a guy who had an F150 crew cab of this era. As mentioned above, it was an aftermarket conversion done by Centurion, as Ford didn't make them from the factory. In fact, I don't believe I have ever seen an F250 crew cab from this era either; only F350 long beds. The F250 short bed crew cab came back with the next body style although I'm not sure what year. I always thought the Centurion conversion I would see was interesting because they used an Econoline roof on it after fusing together two cabs. I guess for whatever reason they didn't want to just use a full crew cab from Ford?