A mongrel indeed. But a clean and tidy mongrel at that. It's just a headache ordering bits as I don't know what crosses over exactly, but I'm working on it and getting a lot of help from the good folks on here.

 

Quick bump and another question (I did the 5 pages and am pretty sure its not covered in there)

'83 F100/F100 front I beams the same/directly swappable? Before I order lowering Ibeams that are catalogued for a F150 but have been assured will fit either.

This thread is awesome, I have printed it!

 

Let us know how it goes on lowering it. I have an 80 F100 and I have considered lowering. Just for reference it came with the 5 on 5.5 and swiss cheese frame with a 302 with 3 on the tree. I have moved the shifter to the floor and swapped in a 351w from an 85 Bronco.

 

Lowering it went fine, did it over xmas - dream beams up front and cut the coils down a little. DID create some camber, but not something I was concerned about. I will admit though, that the radius arm mounts do hit the road from time to time.

Back to the F100/150 differences - the donor mutt I bought has the 4.5" stud pattern, smaller brakes and a non - swiss cheese frame. 9" rear w/ 2.75 ratio. Servo (brake booster). I can't tell if there is a difference in the number of splines between this axle and the 9" on the slime green truck - will it tell you this from the i.d tag?

I am swapping the hubs over from 5.5" to 4.5" (refreshing everything as I go along). this may seem odd to some but as I have explained in another thread it makes for more wheel selection options - this is a project toy not a worker.

 

So would you say I’d be okay then if I wanted to install a lift kit that was designed for the f150 on my f100? I’m looking for one but they don’t really make them for the f100 as far as I can see.

 

First let me say between the 80 - 82 F100 trcucks they can have either wheel bolt pattern 4.5 x 5 or 5.5 x 5 as found on my 2 81 F100 trucks both with 300 six, manual trans (4.5 over drive / 5.5 T18) and both the same GVWR of 4700. 4.5 pattern was a long bed style side, the 5.5 a short bed flare side.
The 4.5 had power brakes and small king pins, the 5.5 manual brakes and large king pins.
I also found none of the parts from the beams on out will inter change between each other, not even rotor hubs & brake calipers, but will inter change as a whole.

I think a lot depends on what is in the kit for the lift.
If you keep your beans / spindles and the lift is coil springs and drop brackets then I can see it working.

The big thing with our Twin Beam front suspension is in lifting or lowering is the camber gets thrown off and being you have king pins there is no way to get this back into spec with out bending the beams. Same goes for caster, beams need to be bent.
Thing is no shops today know how or are set up to bend beams so you would need to find a big truck repair shop that dose beam bending.
On the later ball joint trucks they make camber / caster adjusters that may work to get it back into spec if not too far off.

So in short I would say yes it should work if coil springs & drop brackets.
Dave ----

 

Get the suspension arms out from underneath a f150 and also the rearend if the wheel pattern doesn't match, and then buy the f150 kit. The whole thing is a bolt in. As far as that goes, why not get a 4x4 donor and convert your f100 to 4x4 with a lift. It will all bolt in.

 

What lift kit are you looking at?

I have an 82 F100 and went to put in a front and rear lift kit for a 80-86 F150 from BDS and had trouble.

The kit was for 2" front coil springs and 2" rear leaf springs. All good until I realized the rear leaf springs on my 82 F100 were 2.5" wide, and the kit for the F150 came with 3" wide leafs.

Also, the 2" lift front coil springs threw my camber so far into the positive that it looked like my wheels would fall off. So I put the old springs back in until I can figure out what to do for the camber adjustment.

The front and rear shocks that came in the F150 kit fit great though - so I am keeping those.

 

I wonder if your kit was for a 4x4 because the rear springs are wider on 4x4 than 4x2 trucks.

Lifting or lowering will throw off the camber.
Put a jack under the front cross member and raise it 2" and see what happens.
If your truck has kingpins the only way to get caster & camber in space is to bend the beams.
Dave ----

 

If you can find drop brackets for a 2 inch lift, that will fix your camber issue. You need to drop the center pivot points along with the taller springs.

The kit you bought was for a 4x4 truck. They had the 3 inch wide rear springs. If you want to replace the spring perches in the rear with 4x4 parts, you can then use your lift springs. Dorman makes very common and easy to get kit for the rear shackles and the frame hangers, since they rust out so much on all the trucks. Not sure if they make the front leaf spring mounts or not, but they might. The kit comes with the bolts and new bushings, all you have to do is drill out the factory rivets and take a chisel and knock the head off the rivet and punch it through the frame to knock it out. Then just use the bolts to bolt the new 3 inch wide bracket in place.

 

They do make the forward rear spring hanger.


Here is the rear spring hanger

 

my f100 82 has power brakes???? 5 on 4.5 bolt pattern, no swiss cheese chassis...???

 

That is how 1 of my 81 F100 was, power brakes and the small 4.5 pattern.
My other non-power brakes and large 5.5 pattern.
What I found strange was they were both the same GVWR of 4700, 300 six trucks and manual transmissions (different types).
Dave ----

 

Thanks for the suggestion to replace the brackets- you make it sound easy. If I can find both front and rear spring patches and shackles, then I might go for it!

 

same here for my 82 F100 302 - Power brakes, 5x4.5 bolt pattern, and no Swiss cheese frame.