62 shorty uni street rod build

[390fastback]

K, here goes, the build thread. I'll do my best to keep this going till its done. I have a lot of pics, there are a few steps here I'll have to skip cause as good as my intentions are to document everything, I don't always have a camera with me.

We'll start with the story. I had no intention of buying this truck, or adding to my fleet for a while. I've still got a couple projects 'in the wings' and didn't need another. At a monthly safety meeting, me and one of the other guys got to talking cars, I went through my list, he went through his. He must have noticed my ears perk up when he mentioned a unibody short box cause right away he said $1500 firm!

We made arangements for me to go look at it, even brought my trailer...maybe I seemed to eager? Anyway, get there to look and my heart sank. Lower front of the cab was gone, cancer was terminal. Later when I got the patch pannels out, there was maybe a couple inches of steel left on either side of the tranny tunnel holding the firewall to the floor. Everything was gone, lower door posts, front mounts, floor, steps.....I'll post the pics. It wasn't pretty. So, I said I'll pass.

Got home, had a beer or two, thought it over. Thought to myself 'when will I find another?'. Had another beer, called the guy back and said I'd be there the next day to get it. and so it began!

here it is on the trailer on the way home:


Plan was simple, low buck little hot rod, flip the axels, get the 223 running, and drive the wheels off it. Got it running not to bad, did my thing with the suspension. I flipped the front axel and took 5 leafs out of the back. Sat nice and low, looked pretty cool in my opinion, but holy crap what a handfull to drive! No suspension travel and bump steer like crazy.

heres the line up in front of the house



Then the hunt for cheep front suspentions began. Everywhere I looked I was pointed at the CV swap. So found and bid on an '06 RCMP total loss Crown Vic. Someone had unsuccefully tryed to install a light post in the rear quarter, they tried really hard, but it just didn't stick. The insurance company loaded it on my trailer, I drove it off! I pulled the front end and lined it up next to the Explorer 8.8 in the garage.



Then I thought, I've got a perfectly good 4.6......why not just throow that in the mix to? So it got pulled allong with every bit of the wiring harness for the car. Once I got it out...WOW, thats a lot of wire!

[390fastback]

Once in the garage I started stripping the front end sheet metal to clear the way and get the old 223 and 4spd out. Not one bolt coma out nicely, everyone either broke off or was ground off. It seriously took me a full day to get the front end off the truck. Enough talk though, pic time:







Here it is finally down to the point where I could start lining things up. The extent of the rust damage could be assesed...and my heart sunk a little more. I made a list and placed an order with LMC. I hate sheet metal work, I hate fixing rust, and I hate dealing with mouse nests, but I love working on old cars so I pushed ahead.

I lined up the cv front end, drilled the holes on top with a hole saw for the sleaves I cut out of the cv frame, and bolted it in. First crack at lining it up, I was out 1/8 of an inch. Not to bad I thought. Its now in bang on.









I thought I had pics in my photo bucket acount of the brackets I made for the trailing arms, I know I have pics, just not to sure what I did with them. I'll dig them out and post later.

[390fastback]

Alright, sheet metal showed up. Floor supports, steps, step risers, rocker pannels, lower door posts and front stone guard. I've read it here before and I have to agree, the sheet metal from LMC sucks. The lower door posts were about the only nice peices that showed up. The rest is thin, poorly stamped, and just generally of low quality. That is all I'll say on that. more pics:

I'd already started cuting on the driver side by the time I remembered to take some pics, but I have a few befores of the pass side.



















The driver side done, pass side next. Damage was the same so it was a simple 'repeat' of the driver side.

[thenephilm]

Looking good, I feel your pain on the rust lol.

[MadMaxetc]

I feel your pain buddy...you are doing good work.

Keep the Pics coming!

[390fastback]

The rear of the frame needed have some done. With the 5 leafs removed from the original pack, the axel pretty well road on the bump stops. The original springs were taost anyway so they got cut out and replaced with a set from a doner 67 F100. Since the new axel was going on top of the springs, and I wanted a little suspension travel, a notch was needed.









Again, didn't bring my camera with me when I did the driver side, but its the same as the pass. I POR15'd everything afterwords also. Here it is with the new axel and a set of 14s just to say its back on 4 wheels!



and a teaser with the Cragars I have left over that didn't fit my Mustang. Think they'll look alright here thought.

[390fastback]

I still wasn't 100% done the work I needed to do to the front of the frame so that was next. All I really needed to do was finish welding the sleves and box the front of it.





and painted with POR15



suspension back in



and.....drum roll......... Engine in!!! Well its just really resting there with a chunk of 1x2 in the frame to hold the tranny up, but its in!!



Now I get to make a tranny cross member and start wireing!! Thats where I'm at right now, hopefully I get some time over Christmass to get a little more done.

[SixtySix Ford]

Sweet build man!!! I want more pics!!!

[rickairmedic]

Looks great your further along than me . I think the Cragers will look just fine under there .


Rick

[kstones63]

Looking good.
Get an electrical troubleshooting manual for the donar car to diet the harness. It isn't that difficult when you start looking at one circuit at a time. It still takes a lot of hour but it can be done.

Kevin

[randyr]

Love these shortbed unis!

[390fastback]

I bought the Crown Vic electrical manual for that reason. Is that the same manual you're talking about? Whatever will make this easier, I'll do it!

[kstones63]

I bought the Crown Vic electrical manual for that reason. Is that the same manual you're talking about? Whatever will make this easier, I'll do it!

I assume that is the correct manual. It should have all of the wiring schematics in it. My manual was the electrical and vacuum troubleshooting manual.
Pick up some string tags so you can mark the wires easily. Make a lot of notes so that you can find out where the wires go later on. I made notes on where the wires came from and where I wanted them to go along with notes on wires that tied into other ones. Too many notes is never enough.
Make copies and keep in the truck for possible troubleshooting on the road.

Kevin

[ezernut9mm]

wow, you make quick work of that stuff. nice.

[totten]

great start!

[thenephilm]

looking real good.

[390fastback]

I've been working at the wireing harness lately, trying to strip off any non-essential systems. I've got the a/c, abs, and lighting circuts removed from the engine harness. I got a start on the chassis harness and started to get a little burnt out on tracing wires for miles just to see if I could snip it off or not, so I moved on.

A while ago I picked up a column from a late 70's F150 to connect with the CV front end. I did some reading on another Ford truck site and found the Borgeson universal part number I needed to mate the two. The CV streeting shaft required a little grinding to make a nice tight fit without hammering it on. I used a hole saw to drill the hole in the firewall where I wanted the column to go trough, slid it through and connected it all. The next thing was, as I raised the column at the firewall location, I knew the steering wheel would essentially lower itself in the pass compartement. Just as a guess I took 1 and 3/4 inches out of the lower column bracket, welded it up and bolted all together including the wheel. Wanting to see how close it was to the seat, I threw that in there to. You tell me, think the wheel needs to go up any more?



It might be hard to see, but its almost resting on the seat. I found a guy a couple hours away parting a 65, said he would let me cut the lower section of dash to graft into mine, in hopes that will raise the column enough. I've seen it done before and it seemed to work, I hope it does...
Heres the steering set up also, should work nice



Now that thats done as far as I can take it, I guess its back to the wiring. Hope to have this thing at least cranking in about a month.

[rbeck204]

What're are you located in Canada?
Rich

[rbeck204]

I meant where. Sorry fat fingered.
Rich

[390fastback]

Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. smack in the middle of the grain belt.