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Whatever happened with your roadster project, Bobby? For awhile you were posting great updates on a build thread, but I don't recall remembering how it turned out, or seeing an update in quite some time.
Wayne,
It kind of stalled. Life reared its ugly head and it got put on the back burner.
Some of my commitments have gone away and the demands on my time are easing up so I hope to get back onto it soon. I have started excavating in the garage and can almost see it....lol
I need to finish clearing out the garage and get the body back off. The last time I touched it I was trying to figure out clutch linkage. I fabbed a transmission adapter to put a T5 behind the Packard engine. I had the Packard flywheel machined to accept the GM pressure plate.
I can't quite remember what my clutch linkage issues are so It'll probably take a bit to retrace my steps to try and figure out what I had going on.....lol
Here's a few, extremely embarrassing pics from mid summer. Since these pics were taken I have excavated down to it and can actually see it....mostly.
Still plunking away on this. I found a nicer hood that came with the side trip and nose trim (right year hood for the cab, not for the grill but nothing is the same year parts on this mutt). Picked it up super cheap so total win.
I can't remember if I posted about this but I bought NPD fenders, header, valance and grill shell.
I also spent a few weeks adapting the S10 wiper motor and linkages to work in the F1.
Haven't been able to find any new repop wiper arms. Seems they are on national backorder.
Here's where we are. A all original 1950,51, 2000, 2026 ford(ish) F1 except for the bed, running boards floor, firewall or front clip....
Luke, I just spent some time going through your entire thread and it gave me a bunch of flashbacks. My current summertime toy is a ‘47 Fargo on an S10 chassis and a lot of your pics look very familiar. Trucks from the 40’s & early 50’s are extremely similar regardless of the make, so many of your pics are almost identical to mine.
The nice thing about a chassis swap is that the factory engineers already figured out the drivetrain, steering, suspension, etc and it all plays nicely together. When you are done you will be very happy. I sure am as I have a 100% reliable truck that runs like a dream and sips fuel gently.
Thanks! I appreciate the comment and encouragement. Ya, my thought is that if it's easy to just get in and drive, my kids and wife will be more willing to drive it. Now my son drives all sorts of older vehicles but hopefully someday when I'm gone this thing and many of my other creations will still be getting used by someone in the family.
wow! i missed this build! fun project trying to integrate the older stuff with whatever came with the donor! reminds me of my `52 when i put it on a Dakota!
This is a great project and I’m looking forward to following along, even if a bit late to the party!
Did you fabricate that tailgate latch that slipped into the top of the gate? Or is it something that is available as a kit? It looks like a much better solution than some of the others I’ve used.
Thanks again. Yes, that tailgate latch is something I threw together. I'm going to make another one for the other side just to minimize rattles. I probably don't need it as even this new tailgate has a slight twist to it which makes you compress it to latch the right side. I would assume there has to be a latch out there like this. It's a pretty simple thing.
I didn't post that yet but my plan is to use the S10 interior hood release lever and under hood catches. I figure it should be easy and there is no need to figure out exterior release handles.
Trying to fit everything into these small trucks is tough. The amount of wiring from the s10 is getting tough to snake around. I installed the heater/ac box from Old Air products. I'm using their Hurricane 3100 electronic controlled kit. I made the firewall and I won't have hood springs so I was able to get it up pretty high.
Going to have to put the engine in temporarily so i can locate the battery, cruise control unit and the ABS unit.
Also working on an under dash panel to house the vents and controls
What stinks is all of this has to come back out for paint.....
Luke, in my S10 swap build I left the S10 harness completely stock except for the ABS (which I removed because there simply wasn’t enough room under the hood of my ‘47 Fargo). I had fun cramming the rest of that harness under the dash as well. It's enormous!
If I were to do an S10 swap again, I would do what I did with my current build. In this build I followed the directions on the Lt1swap.com site to create a stand alone harness for the engine/transmission and then I did my own body wiring using a Painless universal kit. This method probably removed ⅔ of the under dash wires compared to keeping the stock S10 harness.
I was seriously thinking about delooming the interior wiring harness as i don't need any of the hvac wiring and whatnot but I am using a lot of thie wiring. This truck also has the push button 4x4 so there is that much more wiring.
If I build another one of these, it will be much more basic and 2 wheel drive....
