'65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

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Blanger
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by Blanger »

SteveCanup wrote: He had been to all the local cruise-ins in his mid-60's Chevy which I remember seeing. It was probably a $20,000+ build with the shiny paint that sits in a garage and is never driven.
I can relate.....
SteveCanup wrote: He said he had been a 'die-hard' Chevy man up to this point. But liked the mid-60's Ford truck body style. To my surprise he really liked my truck...gave it a thorough looking over. So...they don't have to be perfect to be able to enjoy them...and get attention.
Me too, as much as I'd like to build a '60s Chevy short bed step side truck they are just stupid money-wise, last project we came across here was a '64 that was listed for $8k and need a lot of work but was running and driving, on the other hand we can buy a nice '60s Ford short bed for $2k or less depending on the condition, it's not that pricey Slicks are not out there because I've seen trucks at different levels from $10-35k.

In all honesty until we had the opportunity to buy the '62 uni I had little to no idea what a slick even looked like (we had to look it up), but I've grown very fond of slicks and have no issue owning a Ford at all, the trucks have so much visual appeal that I'm surprised that they were passed over for so many years as a platform for a hot rod build, there are not very many trucks that look as good lowered as a slick, and the body lines...just a over all great looking truck even stock.
SteveCanup wrote:And did I mention? I was glad he was not the building inspector.....lol....
LOL.... be careful Steve.

Jon
longcabjohn
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by longcabjohn »

You need a little sign on the tailgate, Built by B.I.G (Buick improvement Guy)



Johnny
If restoring a ford was easy, chevy guys could do it.
Blanger
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by Blanger »

longcabjohn wrote:You need a little sign on the tailgate, Built by B.I.G (Buick improvement Guy)
Johnny,

It's certainly a "appearance" improvement, those Roadmasters are just plain fugley! lol
Blanger
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by Blanger »

Shake down (week 4)

Aaaah, the brake pedal is so much better....night and day difference.

I'm about ready to turn the truck over to my wife, in fact Wednesday evening I gave her the keys, everything basically that I've found that needed to be repaired or redone has been completed, another weekend and the last of the list can be completed, the truck is safe to drive now and I'm about ready to sign off on the build. Yeah we still have the headliner, paint ageing. exhaust, and a few assorted items to finish the truck but it's time to go back to driving the uni and let her have her truck...lol

It's interesting to note the differences in driving the two builds, while both are slicks the driving experience is quite different with the '65 being a much softer nicer ride, steering is different and the handling is different, the '62 is a harsher ride, steering is quicker and the 4 wheel disk brakes are vastly superior, performance-wise both run great and have plenty of power, the '65 is more comfortable to drive while the '62 is more sports car like in just about every aspect but the size of the vehicle.

The '65 is more like a hot rod without all the uncomfortable aspects a traditional hot rod has as far as running and driving, both seem to sip fuel. There are things like the windshield wipers on both trucks that could stand improvement (which will come eventually) both work fine in constant rain but in mist or driving in and out of rain where you would use intermittent wipers that feature is missed, just about every other aspect or feature is acceptable for daily driving.

The differences in appearance between the two trucks is stark with the '65 again looking like a nice hot rod build type of truck and the '62 looking like a refugee from the junk yard, we really like the contrast between the two, they appeal to two totally different audiences and while both were built as daily drivers and will perform the same type of service, most people will like the '65 better and shy away from the '62 because of its appearance. Just in the short amount of time I drove the '65 I could see and feel the difference in how the driving public perceived the '65 over the '62, it's hard to explain but there is a difference in people's perception and reaction, you can feel it while sitting at stop lights or watching the reaction of other drivers while moving down the road alongside either vehicle.

Nothing about the differences bothers either of us, in fact we find it funny, both trucks were built for a given purpose (daily driving) and both turned out the way they did appearance-wise because of what we started with sheet metal-wise and the amount of work and money we wanted to invest in each build. We have no plans to change the way the '62 uni looks so it has a better public perception, we simply don't care, and while right now the '65 looks much nicer in appearance to the average person right now it will lose some of that appeal to the "shiny car" people when the paint get aged or distressed.

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Speaking of the '62 uni we had a visitor last week that wanted to see the trucks, and it was Joe the guy we bought the uni from, he and his nephew came by to check out how the uni looked in person, it was a nice visit and he told me he liked what we had done to save the '62 which meant a lot to me. It's hard to let go of something you have had in your possession for 30 years and had plans to do something with, then to sell it to someone who bastardized it by putting it on a CV P71 chassis which might not really fit with the plans you had for all the years you owned it...... sometimes it's better to just watch it leave your stewardship and never know what happen to it, in Joe's case he is a member here so he has watched what we have done from start to finish, it really was nice for him to say he approved of what we had done.

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With the '65 in the wife's care I'll little by little do the short list on the uni while working on the flare side build, the first item on the agenda for the uni will be to convert the CV instrument cluster to fit the '62's dash opening and mount the old CV bucket seats, then I need to get it up on jack stands and look at everything underneath, all the welds and fabricated parts to see how they are holding up after a winter of driving and pot holes. Other than that it's due for a oil change and transmission service, then back out on the road it will go and we will devote all our focus to the '62 flare side build which I'm making a little progress on week by week.

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Have a great weekend

Jon
Blanger
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by Blanger »

unibody madness wrote:Now that you have the cover installed could you please get exact measurements
Overall outside dim are 71"wide x 80" long the inside of the framewaok measures 76.25" long by 67" wide

If you need more specific stuff just let me know...

Jon
Blanger
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by Blanger »

Final assembly (part 22)

Saturday we spent the day taking care of the last few things on our list one of which was to install a power window switch and the wiring in the passenger door, originally we hadn't planned to do that but after driving the truck a few weeks we decided it was a good idea to do so just for the flexibility.

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Another on the list was to replace both door exterior door handles and their gaskets, both of the original handles were pitted and loose (couldn't be tightened) and we suspected that the screws would break off trying to get them out but in the end they did come out and the new handles went on without much trouble.

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The last two items on the list were under the hood, one being to wire up the windshield washer pump and the other to tie the two radiator fans together so they both would run when called far, originally with the AC only one fan would run to cool the engine and the other would run when the AC was on to keep a constant air flow across the condenser, since we don't have AC and those circuits were removed from the wiring harness I wanted to wire the second fan (AC) to the primary radiator fan so both would run.... that worked out fine, we'll see how the extra amperage load effects the fan relay since both are now running off of one relay.

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With that being the last things on my list to do, on Sunday I decided to do a little building repair, over the winter we had a water line in the shop freeze, not really sure why but it shoved the PVC apart at a elbow (probably a poor glue joint) the pipe wasn't hurt but had simply failed at the joint. I had to remove a plywood wall section to access the line (ran in the wall) move the insulation, clean, and re-glue the fitting, after a few hours we turned the water back on....no leaks!

I was glad to get that fixed, it had been bugging' me for a few months and it was a PIA to not have running water to wash your hands.
After that was completed I went back to working on the '62 flare side which I'll cover tomorrow.

Jon
Blanger
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by Blanger »

Shake down (week 5)

This will probably be my last "shake down" post, the '65 is in the wife's custody and she is using it every day, it's already made a trip to the grocery store, home improvement store, a road trip to a nearby town to measure a race car for a wrap design and for her to deliver product to one of her customers.

The truck is doing fine with no issues and she made the comment that it had no problem going 75 MPH on the highway...lol

We have noticed the temp gauge isn't reading correctly and that is my fault, the gauges in the RM cluster use stepper motors to move the needles and at some point when I had the cluster out I moved the temp needle from its position when the ignition was last shut off so it reads higher because it's starting point was higher than it should have been, the '96 RM cluster is one of the first GM clusters to use stepper motors and they unlike newer clusters do not auto correct themselves. It's easy to fix by just removing the slicks bezel, making sure the motor is stone colds, and moving the needle to the lowest point or needle stop, then turn on the ignition, if the needle stays in that position its fine but if it moves up you have to turn it off and move the needle until it doesn't move off cold with the ignition on and motor cold.

I had to do this with the speedometer once because I moved the needle off its 0 MPH and just assumed when I turned the ignition on it would go back down... it did but did read about 20 MPH higher than it should, after turning the ignition off it did go back to 0 MPH but still was reading faster than it should, after resetting the needle it works as expected.

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It's kinda' funny that my wife has noticed the same perception with the public that I did while driving the '65, I have to put that in context, we have my father-in-laws '56 Chevy back for a few months because they sold their house and where they moved doesn't have a garage yet so we are storing the '56. My wife has a choice between the '73 Camaro, the '56 Bel-Air, the '65 Slick, or the '95 GMC 4x4 to drive (or really the '62 uni if it's there) and she says the reaction from the public is different with each vehicle along with the age group who are interested in any of the given vehicles. Older people tend to like the '56 while middle age'd people like the Camaro, the '65 is all over the map between young and old people and seems to have a much broader appeal.

She does work for a couple new car dealerships and she says its funny to watch the sales people when she pulls up in one of the old vehicles, most of the sales people know her so don't get too excited thinking she's looking for a new car but the new sales people rush to the door because they think it's a customer that might trade in what she is driving...lol

They have pretty well come to expect her to be driving something old and interesting, and since she sold her Kia that's all they are going to see unless the weather is bad enough to warrant driving the GMC, she has driven the '62 uni to one of the dealerships and they couldn't ask enough questions about what it is or was along with the usual when are you fixing the body and what color are you going to paint it, then the blank stares come when you tell them you're not doing any of that...lol

Have a great weekend!

Jon
Blanger
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Re: '65 F100 SWB - yes another Crown Vic swap

Post by Blanger »

(I had the time to write this up so I'm just going to post it now)

Around a 6 month update..... lol

So the wife's truck has in some ways been a PIA, nothing about the build, but mostly the LT1 engine....let me explain.

So as I said in other posts the LT1 was a transition design for GM, it was a test bed of sorts and short lived, in this transition from the old GM small block design that had been reliable for 50 years this transition saw GM move the distributor from the rear of the engine to the front, still driven off the cam shaft but this design drove the distributor off the front of the cam and the distributor sits behind the water pump instead of vertically on the back of the motor.

I'm not going to go over all the reasons why this was a poor design, a Google search will give you all the horror stories of the "opti-spark" ignition system you would want to read, but I will tell you when it comes to this ignition system it's not a matter of "if" it will fail it's simply "when" it is going to fail because it is going to leave you stranded on the side of the road which has happen to us with a brand new distributor I installed when doing the build.

And again I won't bore you with all the details of what it's problems are again Google is your friend, I would just say that if you are doing a swap using a RM with a LT1 in it I would think long and hard before I removed a working GM original distributor and replaced it with anything other than a original AC Delco unit (which are discontinued). Sure you can replace the distributor cap if you can get it off without those little torx screws breaking off (happen to me), but unless you have ignition problems that can't be corrected by new plugs and plug wires I'd never touch a original GM opti-spark unit that was working because everything you replace it with is going to fail either very quickly or when you least expect it.

So this has been the biggest issue with the truck, I chased ignition problems until we had replaced everything including coil, module, plugs, plug wires, thankfully with a scan tool you can watch the live data and see what is going on by connecting to the OBD2 port, the reason this is a PIA is that of course it leaves you stranded with either a no start or a poor running condition but it is likely to just fail going down the road in traffic....which just sucks.

In our case we had to have the truck tow'd home and of course when it rolled off the flat bed it fired right up and ran like a top for a few days before it started running poorly again. We chased that problem going from fuel system (new pump when built along with the fuel filter), every ignition part listed above along with the crank sensor, checked everything we could think of until looking at the computer with a code reader it threw out a code of P0372 which is related to the timing pulses coming from the opti-spark unit, those pulses tell the ECM when and which fuel injector to fire which if out of sync makes for a non-running or poorly running engine.

There is absolutely nothing else wrong with the build....nothing, so we are now on our second aftermarket distributor we have returned the 1st replacement and have a spare unit but its not something you can change on the side of the road since the water pump, coolant, and crankshaft pulley have to be removed to replace the unit. When this unit fails we will replace it one more time and then it will be time to change course, I can't put my wife in a vehicle that might leave her stranded with no prior notice...yeah every vehicle can leave you stranded but we won't keep sticking new units in this over and over only to have it fail again and again every few weeks or months.

So if it happens again we will be doing a LS swap into the truck, probably a 5.3L or a 6.0L LS, I just hope it lasts long enough for us the complete the flare side build before going out again.
I have to stress that there is absolutely nothing else wrong with this swap, using the Roadmaster is a great choice in every regard except that opti-spark distributor which makes the build unreliable and that is totally unacceptable....and if we had known what we know now I would have just replaced the plugs and plug wires and let the original GM distributor run until it started causing misfires which is my advice if it is working don't touch it.

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As far as the rest of the build the truck finally got the cherry bomb mufflers removed and a set of turbo mufflers and tailpipes installed at the exhaust shop, the sound is much quiter but has more tone, sound really good. About the only problem we had was with the fuel filler neck being too short and sometimes when sticking the gas pump nozzle in the filler it would push the hose down even though it was clamped, so it had to be replaced with a longer neck which fixed that problem.
The rattle can paint job is holding up nicely and the truck looks very good after months of sitting out in the weather, in every aspect it has been a worthwhile swap with the exception of the opti-spark distributor, the truck sits well and drives/rides better than the Uni which has a harsher ride, really no other problems or complaints.

Jon
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