Hi Ben, by guide do you mean a thread?

I believe it was laser mike that made a thread that I followed. Very straight forward and not much money either to make these additions.

For the rear headrest there simply isn’t room for it that I can see in a scab.

my kids range from 12-2 and the scab is still working great when a truck is needed with family riding along.

 

Since I have this thread already and it holds the beginnings of this project I think I will just use this as the build thread. Keep in mind that this is going to be a very slow process. I am living in a spot right now with a "Shop" measuring 8'x10' and the only covered work area being a carport that my welder cord runs up about 25' short to get to. Needless to say I am going to try my best to get a bit of a start at this project in the hopes that somewhere in the next little while I'll be in a spot with a little nicer area for fab work.
I made the first big step yesterday, second I suppose behind getting the actual Dentside. I bought the donor truck. this is a 99 F250 4wd with 7.3 and 4R100. I would have preferred a 350 and I would have preferred a ZF6 but these things can't be helped. As it is the donor truck needs to have 18" chopped out of it under the cab to fit the 155" wheelbase on the Supercab. There is a long and straight section with nothing mounted to it on the frame to make this job easy. After it is shortened I'll end up with a one piece driveshaft to do away with the hanger bearing. Preliminary measurements shows a fairly simple install of the box which is a positive.

 

I never got around to installing rear belts in my SuperCab, the kid ended up getting his license first. Yes, I'm that slow, and he never really rode in the back except when he was still in a child restraint. I may need to consider looking for a teen restraint, he goes through a lot of diesel tooling around in his old Benz! Here is the post about installing front belts. Rear belts could be installed in the same way, using the picture that Ben posted above as a guide for placement of the upper attachment point.

Michael

 

I got around to a little bit of work here the other day.It's been -20 with a nice wind chill but I am excited to start doing something on this project. I got the box yanked off of both trucks and put the 77 box onto the new frame. 4 of the 8 bolt holes lined up perfectly. I had to weld some tabs on the frame at the front since the foremost mounts are narrower than the rest. The fuel fill is in the perfect spot to line up with the forward door in the box. Today I'm going to drill the rest of the holes and then yank this box back off before I smash it up pushing it around with the tractor. This truck is going to have the perfect stance when it's done I think, measurements show that the floor and box rails are the exact same height as my stock 1 ton but the lack of sheetmetal on the sides makes it look like it's got a nice lift on it. Next step is to yank the cab and chop the frame. I am a little hesitant to do this now because I want to keep it driveable to move it around easily and I want to keep the motor covered. We will see. I will probably end up pulling the cab, motor trans and everything else to make it easier when I do shorten the frame. To set the cab and weld up the mounts I am going to have to trailer everything 45 minutes away to my father in laws where he has a hoist and I don't want to do that until some of the salt and slop is off of the roads.

 

Well as it turned out today was a beautiful day, only about -14 and fairly sunny for the most part. I decided I was going to yank this cab and get on with this project. I spun most of the body mount bolts out yesterday save for the two rad mounts so today with the help of the dog I got everything disconnected and pulled it off with the tractor. Surprisingly enough I didn't forget to disconnect anything and it came off easy as can be. Hopefully in the coming days I'll get a chance to chop it up and shorten it. maybe next weekend I can mount the 77 cab.
If anybody wants a very rusty crewcab superduty with some odd shaped dents in the roof you're welcome to it.

 

Nobody seems overly excited about this build but I have started and I will continue updating it as I go. I pulled the motor out of the frame today after I got home from work and tomorrow hopefully I'll get home early and start chopping up the frame to get it the right length for the Supercab. I need to pull the fuel lines and chop off the cab mounts still.

 

Buy a regular cab and put the kids in the bed.

 

You are definitely not wasting any time!

Do you have a heated garage to weld in?

 

I didn't plan to do much until the spring on this project or until we moved into a spot that had a garage or something to do some work in out of the elements. I put the box on the frame and that was it. I need to see the body on this frame, the idea is after the body is on then I can pick away at all of the other stuff as time allows and only have to deal with one vehicle to move around rather than two.

I have no heated space anywhere to work in. My "Work Room" is just an 8'x10' cold room under the porch with an exterior door and a welder plug. My welding extension cord only runs far enough to just reach the driveway so everything is done out there in the snow. It definitely is not ideal and the lack of fabrication space and tools is going to be the major issue in this build. I don't want to sacrifice quality because of it though.

 

I have three regular cab trucks, the wife isn't fond of our future kids riding in the back with the dog. Crazy right?

 

Reason I ask is that you may want to preheat anything you are welding in those temps….especially critical frame welds.

 

Well finally some exciting progress to look at. I got the frame shortened up, a fancy fishplate on the outside of it. When the frame gets sandblasted I'll weld one on the inside too, just too hard to grind it nice and clean in there with all the rust and stuff. I trucked all the bits over to my father in laws and used his hoist to lift the body off of the 77 frame and set it down onto the 99 frame. I cut off and reused the rear cab mounts from the 99, just had to trim them a little. The fronts needed more material so instead of scabbing it in to the existing mount I just cut the plate off of the top and made my own "arms" for it, unfortunately I had to go over the rivets they had in there where they double layered the frame. To get the cab on there I had to shim the box up 3/4". When it was bolted straight to the frame the body lines would line up only when the rear crossmember on the cab was touching the frame. I figure 3/4" is plenty to avoid any contact due to squish in the body rubbers. I reused the 99 body rubbers. They looked to be in really good shape and I figure if they go bad then it would be easy to find mounts to replace them with so many still on the road today. She sits a little higher than I would have liked but I think when the motor goes back in it will drop 2" or so in the front which will be perfect. It is going to be interesting to try to build a bumper to cover up those frame horns. The springs mount to the very front of them so I figure I had best leave them how they are.

 

On a 99', brakes, chassis, powerplant! Awesome combo! What a sleeper it will be.

 

Keeps us updated on how much work all the small details will be to get the truck on the road!

I did a motor swap and modified the suspension on my truck and if I had to do it over again I would really consider doing a body swap.
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That's the plan. I had an 01 and it was a great truck, it hauled awesome and stopped great. Enough power to do everything I wanted it too and just a stout platform all around. That's why I went the 99-03 trucks. I wanted the newer 7.3 and leaf sprung front end.

That's what I did with the 72 Highboy I built up and I tell everybody that wants to know that it was a mistake I won't make again. At the end of the day I have a truck that still has a 6500lb GVWR, armstrong steering, titchy little drum brakes, obsolete parts and a ride like a 50 year old truck. I used the 7.3IDI in that one and so it was sort of gutless too. this 77 is going to be the remedy for all of the things I did wrong last time.

Thinking about it it shouldn't take too much to get it running and moving around under it's own steam considering I'm using the entire drivetrain from the '99. Basically just need to trim the harness down and plug everything in and it should run. As we all know the little things are what takes all the time. I'm going with the 77 dash and will likely be making a custom cluster for it with all aftermarket gauges. I am going to tidy up the floorpans and completely soundproof the cab, it will get A/C somehow. Have to build a front bumper for it. The list is endless of the small things. When it runs and I don't have to drag it around with the tractor anymore I am going to be stoked though, that is the next big hurdle.

A picture from today. I got old Tumbleweed fired up and brought around. I stole the gooseneck hitch and the steering wheel out of it for this truck, I'm going to keep the rear bumper off of it too for this truck but will have to modify it some. Once I get a little closer to running and driving Tumbleweed will get sold