The Truck I started with. A bone dry Colorado cab. NO rot

 

2001 F450 service truck
Add a well worn F450 Cab and chassis rig. 7.3 Diesel and ZF 6 speed. (Good ingredients)

 

Old, crappy service bed

The seat,door, and accelerator pedal were already gone when I got it.

Tilt this heavy monstrosity up with the V10 rig...

 

Haul away the crap with the Wife's car! PLUS I got 127$ for it!

 

Service bed is off

Get rid of the Cab

 

Mock up of the front fenders
I want this rig to look "Right". No excuses for the wheels not centered in the fenderwells. Did it make it more difficult? sure did.
Here I am mocking/blocking stuff up

 

YUCK!
Fender placement=EASY
Grille= NOT EASY
I thought I really messed up right here!
Here you can see the F450 Factory frame end plates and tow hooks.Also the notches for the 47's frame. Trying to make sense of it all

 

Radiator mounting mods
OK- I didn't take pics of every thing as I put this together. Here you can see where I cleaned up the frame and painted parts of it,Cleaned up the Engine and (Sadly) had to cut out the virgin original firewall for the Powerstroke's Exhaust would fit.

 

Interesting build idea. Don't know what end result you are going for butt I have a few thoughts from looking at what your have now.

1) Might have been better to stay with a 350, but you work with what you've got.

2) 250 or 350 front end would be narrower, possibly allowing you to pull those fenders in some.

3) Lower it. That will get your fenders up higher keeping the same relationship between tire and wheel arch.

I don't know anything about the F-450 frame and suspension to know how feasible any of those would be.

EDIT: Of course all of this is written base on up to post #7, looks like you may be well past that point by now.

 

Rad and intercooler
OK now.
Remember that 'cool' pointed Hood? Yeah. There is NO way the stock radiator is going to fit/work with that. So this is what I did.
I made a new Radiator support that lowered it down so that the stock hood will work/close. (more on that later)

 

Awesome build sir, looking forward to more of it.

 

The 7.3-powered and early (03-04) 6.0 F450s and F550s used a standard-width front axle...just with normal dually-width adapters to go from 8x170 to 8x225. The frame from the under-foot cab mounts to the tow hooks is exactly the same as the F250/350 (but used cast steel spring hangers rather than stamped). Some 250s and 350s used the cast ones too but no 450/550 used stamped...except MAYBE the ones with the anti-Geo Metro climbing bar.

 

I thought I remembered that being the case about the dually-width adapters, but I wasn't certain so I didn't want to say remove the adapters. My thought was to exchange the wide adapters for standard adapters. Doing that should allow him to pull the fenders in several inches, but in hind sight it might not work for turning radius with those wheels and tires. IE: tires hitting frame or suspension bits

When I said front end I should have said front axle, as that was all I was actually referring too. I know that section of the frame is practically the same (or was on previous generations) except for material thickenss/strength.

Reading this and seeing the picture, I thought he was trying to figure out how to get the grill and fenders to line up better without messing up the tire to arch fittment that he liked. I was just spitballing ideas that I thought might get him there. He's obviously moved well beyond that point already.

 

It is rare to find anyone on any forum who recognizes the difference in chassis details to this level. FTE is quite lucky to have you around.

Some clarification might be in order on the forward front leaf spring hangars in the Super Duty chassis cabs.

1999 was the final year where I've seen the cast forward front spring hangars utilized.

For example, my model year 2000 F-550 4x4, built in November of 1999, utilized STAMPED forward front spring hangars, that did NOT incorporate any provision to mount a Blocker Beam (a.k.a. the anti Geo Metro climbing bar).

The 2003 F-550 4x2 (built in the last month of 7.3L production, but since has been sold earlier this year) that I ordered new to avert the 6.0L, which as you know has the same style of tubular monobeam front axle, also has a stamped front spring hangar, but yet of a different design than what is found on my 2000, as the 2003 F-550 did in fact have the Blocker Beam, as does the donor truck above in the OP's project.

The cast front spring hangar was very short lived. I've only seen it on new trucks during calendar years 1998 and 1999. There are a couple of different casting variations...





The stamped front leaf spring hangar in my November 1999 built F-550 has a factory reinforcement plate welded to the outboard side of the spring hanger, that engages with the web of the frame at two points, rather than just one, and the web attachment points are moved as far apart as possible, forming a triangle of support with the spring eyelet bolt.



Since my stamped front spring hanger shown above is covered by the additional side plates I added, below is what the stamped front spring hangar on my F-550 looked like without my additional side plates, that was designed without the Blocker Beam flange...






By contrast, below is a stamped front spring hanger that was designed WITH the provsion to install a Blocker Beam:



The OP's F-450 has a front spring hanger similar to that immediately above, with provision for a Blocker Beam, but even with these front spring hangars, there was a design revision.

If you have encountered any 2000 - 2004 F-450 or F-550 with cast front spring hangars, I'd be interested in seeing it, because I otherwise don't think that unicorn ever existed in production. Early and mid model year 1999 yes. 2000 and up, no.

There are not many, if any, who even pay attention to this type of detail, so it was interesting to see you bring it up.

There is also a difference between cast and stamped spring hangars in the rear, where the F-450 has stamped aft shackle brackets, while the F-550 has cast aft shacle brackets.

The mid 90's F-Super Duty (F-450 equivalent) like your roll off bed has castings in all spring support positions, as best as I recall.


There is no "wide adapter" versus "standard adapter".

There is either adapter, or no adapter.

The wider track F-450/550 axles (aka Fat Boy) of the 2005 plus coil front spring era do not derive their extra track width from a change in front dually adaptor width. Rather, the track width is due to an entire axle width change, including opening up the cast C's at the axle ends which hold the reshaped knuckles to accommodate a larger axle U joint between inner and outer axles that enables additional wheel cut angle without binding up the U joint. Other than changing from 8x225 to 10x225, the wheel end front dually adapters are more or less comparable in "width" (or depth) between 1999-2004 and 2005-2022.

 

I'm not sure what a '05+ coil sprung front has to do with anything since we're talking about a '01 here.

Once again, I should have been a little more clear in my choice of words. When I said standard adapter, I wasn't referring to anything factory. I was saying instead of running a dually-width adapter, as cletus12r called it, get what most people think of as an adapter. You know the type, a 1" - 4" thick piece of steel (or aluminum) that adapts the bolt pattern from one size to another and that is available from the aftermarket.