Hey all,
New here. I just bought a 67 f100 with the intention of doing a crown vic swap. Not the whole crown Vic frame with the f100 body on it, but keeping the f100 chassis and putting the crown vic k-member and motor in it.
Although I've never done a truck before, I have built a factory five cobra (about 14 years ago and I currently have about 60,000 miles on it). Plus I built this from scratch (raw lumber). After this boat, I'm hoping the truck will be easier. Different....with all the rust repair, but not as labor intensive as this boat.
see here: https://www.woodyboater.com/classic-...y-boater-life/
here are some pics I took the day I picked it up showing all the rust areas (I was sending to my buddy who is more knowledgeable than me on these trucks). He said all those rust areas are common and fixable, so.... I bought it!

I'll make posts as I make progress. My timeline is about 1 year. Hopefully on the road next summer.
Craig

 

Sounds like you have the skills needed for this project. Just look through this forum and you will gain a lot of knowledge from guys that have done this before. Its a great group here and lots of info available.

Good luck!

 

While I understand the idea of the CV swap better handling, better brakes. IMO. the wheel selection is just to small for me they are ugly. I'm not a fan of big wheels on these trucks.

 

"....they are ugly."
Thanks for the warm welcome. To each their own. I'll still continue with my project. Good luck with all your projects!

 

Thanks Paul. I'm sure I'll have lots of questions.

 

Got the truck into the garage. It's a tight space. Only a narrow two car garage, but tool boxes and work benches take up a lot of space.
I unbolted the bed and had to go straight up. I can't put it in the driveway or the yard. Simply no other place than straight up.
It was a paint to inch it up by myself until i got 6' 4x4s under each corner (then braced them for side to side stability.


Parts have started arriving. These are the frame shortening brackets, rear c-notch kit and cheap Amazon plasma cutter.


First step was sanding the frame down where it gets shortened.


The thinner templates bolt into factory holes and you follow the laser cut slots with a sawzall. Pretty easy.


Here it is cut. No going back now.


Then the thicker (1/4" thick) brackets bolt to the inside.


Somehow i didn't get a pic of them welded in. There are about 10ish bolts per bracket, but they are also welded on all surfaces. Here is the frame pre-welded and you can see the frame joint.



Hopefully more progress tomorrow.

 

Welcome to the forum.

 

Another good day of progress.
Since the crown vic front end lowers the ride height, I need to lower the back as well. I'm going to do this with a simple axle/spring flip. (set the axle on top of the springs)
When doing that, I need to put a c-notch in the frame.
Here is marking where the notch kit goes.


Then, cut out a section of frame and bend the notch kit plate (it ships to you flat)


Start welding in the horizontal plate


Tack in the outer and inner vertical plates


Weld in the outer plate to the horizontal plate PLUS the frame section


More updates soon.

 

A side project that I actually did before the truck work started was the rear axle.
The factory axle wouldn't have the width or wheel bolt pattern I needed.
The 8.8 rear end out of the crown vic donor would be too wide and the wheel selection would be limited. (I'm looking for a deeper dish look on the rear wheels that wouldn't be possible with a 2003+ rear axle.)
But a crown vic axle from a pre 2003 is narrower and would work.
So I had a buddy stop at a local junk yard and they has a 1998 (so narrower like I needed and disc brakes) from a police interceptor. (limited slip diff and 3.55 gears.)

As they were loading it into his truck, he noticed one axle was bent (the flange that holds the rear rotor was not straight)
Not wanting to lose a sale, they said, hey, we'll throw in a second axle. I was thinking just the inner axle shaft.
Nope, a complete other axle assembly.


As I dug into it, it looks like the outer axle bearing failed and someone kept driving on it. The axle shaft actually wore through the outer axle tube and eventually the axle shaft broke.
So, do I start with the other axle housing and transfer the gears and diff over (the other housing was a very high gear and open dif). This would cost a lot of money because I've never set ring and pinion gears.

So instead, I watch several videos of how people shorten Explorer axle housing. They are offset and have one side longer than the other. People cut the long side axle tube down and place a shorter axle shaft inside. I figured I could do the exact same concept and transfer the good axle tube from the done housing onto the housing I wanted to use.

Here is the donor housing cut down. No stopping now.


Both housings cut


Big angle iron used to hold the tubes together


All tacked up.


Started welding. (short stich welds to spread heat around...not one continuous weld)


All welded up


Housing fully stripped after new tube welded on

 

While working on the axle housing, I figured I should do some maintenance on it as well.
I ordered new clutches for the limited slip diff


Pulled the old, outer axle bearings out and replaced them.


Pulled the center pin and spider gears out


Rebuilt the clutch pack (soaked in friction modifier as I assembled.....worst smelling substance EVER)


Put it all back together with a new gasket and fluid


Finally painted it all with POR15.

 

Sooooo, I kept going.
I started sanding the rest of the rear frame section down to paint. Part of the bed shortening is to remove about 4" behind the rear leaf springs. You can see that here. I didn't like how heavy the leaf springs were. (you can see one on the far side in this pic) They had 9 leaves in them and looked way to solid for what I was wanting. So those came off.


Once cleaned up, I painted it all with POR15. I think it turned out pretty nice for a 47 year old frame (you can see the old leaf springs in the background).


I started assembling the new leaf springs and axle (on top of the springs) with all new hardware. I will not weld the spring perches to the axle tube until i can get the motor in and set the correct pinion angle on the axle housing.


Craig

 

Next up was the fuel tank.
I'm doing the common mustang tank (I already removed the in-cab tank and discarded).
I had to remove the cross member from behind the axle. I then built a frame structure to hold the tank. I welded it up from 1"x1" square tubing.


test fitting the new tank frame


Painted the new tank frame with POR15 and then installed some large rivnuts to it's removable later on.


Once the tank is in place, the bumper bracket nuts are inaccessible. So I welded some nuts to the inside of the frame so the bolts for the bumper brackets only need access from the outside.


Since the Mustang tank is not setup for a modern return style fuel system, I had to find a modern fuel pump hat that had the supply and return line. I bought one that was internally screwed together so I could disassemble it, retake the internal mechanism 180 degrees and reassemble it. This put the fuel pickup at the bottom of the tank. I then installed the entire mechanism into the tank.


Screwed the tank to the new frame


And slid the whole assembly into the truck frame and bolted it in. You can see the top flange of the truck frame needs to be trimmed to clear the tank.

Craig

 

Here you can see the rear cross member is back in place behind the tank. It's not ideal. If the tank needs to be removed, the cross member has to come out. But the alternative was to hang the tank under the bottom frame rails. It just seemed too low in that position. So....crossing my finger the tank doesn't need removal anytime soon. (the cross member is just bolted in).


You can also see I bought new calipers and rotors. Found a deal online for new parts (not remanufactured....at least they claimed. haha)


I didn't like walking around the bed support structure, so I went and got 4 mini chain hoists. I was able to support the bed, and remove the 4x4 structure from around the truck.



Next, I went and 'borrowed' the wheels and tires from my cobra. Not the exact size I'll use, but good enough to make it mobile. The bed is now 'hanging' in this pic, so i mounted lights under the bed and it's much nicer to work on the back....now that i'm almost done with the back end, haha. (you may spy the first rust repair panel in this pic....passenger cab corner)



Rolled outside for the first time in a couple weeks.


I still need to run new brake lines. New fuel lines and wiring. I also need to fabricate some sway bar link mounts on the frame (could be as simple as a hole in the frame if i pic the right links). Also need shock mounts on the axle housing. So it's looking like it's almost done in the back half, but there is a lot of detail work to be done.

Craig

 

My goodness, you have skills man! I love that you jumped straight in with both feet! An amazing amount of progress already, an I really like the wheels.

 

Thanks Paul. I have to admit, I was a little ahead on progress from when I started this thread. So the rapid progress was actually over a few weeks. But, I'm pretty much caught up now and the progress will slow a little.
Our daughter is going off to college in a few weeks so our remaining time as a small family takes priority over this truck. But I'll work on it now and then in the evenings and post updates.
Craig