63 Short Wrong-Full Crown Vic Swap

[therealjoeshmoe]

pull those hood hinge springs off and your hood will sit down you will have to use a prop rod, but it will save ya from buying new hinges

[HawaiiKid]

I would like that yellow tool box please, thanks!

Hahaha, I don't think he'll be parting with that one any time soon.

pull those hood hinge springs off and your hood will sit down you will have to use a prop rod, but it will save ya from buying new hinges

Good tip-I'll be screwing with it soon enough!

Lots of talking by me about "starting next weekend" but I'm committing tomorrow! GF is heading out of town for the weekend, so I'm planning on putting in two 10 hour+ days out at my friend's place working on his Ranger and the CV teardown! I WILL get as much as I can done with my CV, I'm also going to start ripping up the "carpet" (pretty sure its speaker box covering haha) and bs "metal" that it sheetmetal screwed to whats left of the floor.

[HawaiiKid]

Its gettin going!

From this...



To this...




These girls made me stop occasionally haha


And...



Pretty much the entire day here, stripping out all the wiring and labeling what each one is. Looking forward to getting more done tomorrow!

[HawaiiKid]

Started off by detrimming the car down to just the dash

Pulled seats, divider, carpet, pulled the doors, pulled the wiring up to the front. Then pulled everything off the fenders, just need to pull a couple more bolts to pull the fenders all the way off.

Took half the day just to do all of that. Then we pulled the car up behind the Danger Ranger and got down to it.


Cut the quarters off, rear body panel, roof, supports-basically everything from the B pillar back that wasn't the floor.




Dennis helpin with the left 1/4



Its commin along! Lots of work left to do. Need to tear the dash down then one of the worst parts-tearing down the firewall. Then tearing down the truck, then fitment, then then then.....

Here are some pics of the Danger Ranger (Tentatively named "Times Up")
These are just mock up pics- not the actual motor, no front suspension (just sittin on blocks), no cage, no wiring...but LOTS of hours in the frame, rear suspension and fabrication

[HawaiiKid]

Got out there and started to tear down the F100 yesterday :bigtu






Here is what I started with :rockon_ford

Got the fenders off, and grill off and only had to plasma off 3 bolts-in surprisingly good shape for the most part



Then all of the bolts on the tailgate were frozen so I broke those off, then the bolts holding the bed were frozen solid so we plasmaed those off too



Their sweet drop shackles hahaha


Started to rip out the entire interior aka speaker box covering, drywall mud, just thicker than aluminum foil sheets of "metal" held down with sheetmetal screws. Really unnecessary really, the only problem parts of the floor are the cab mounts and front of the floor pans.






Got the doors off too



Gonna need new cab corners, and to fab up some new rocker pieces




"Some Assembly Required" hahahaha


:bigtu


Next up I'll be cutting out most of the floor in the cab, pulling the dash apart as much as I need to, and pulling the cab off the frame. It will be two weekends until I do that though, going racing next weekend with the Lightning...but it's comin!

[thenephilm]

Looks like fun, isn't rust grand lol?

[HawaiiKid]

Looks like fun, isn't rust grand lol?

I hate it, but at least I've been planning on cutting the floor out the entire time. The cab corners are kinda a bummer, but not a real surprise. At least the fenders and bed are in fairly good shape!

[HawaiiKid]

Got the cab and frame separated a couple weekends ago!

Floor looks better in this picture than it is haha

Here is the frame, trans, 292 Y block and the REALLY scary rear drum set up hahaha

A little plasma cutting later...

Also started to tear out some of the WORST body work I've ever seen. It was DRYWALL MUD. DRY. WALL. MUD. AND it wasn't covering rust!! It was just a horrifying attempt to "smooth" the rear cab seam.

Metal under it looks great for the most part

And a little real body work where there was some rust clearly...doesn't bother me since its a shop truck build!



Next real step is finishing the stripping of the cop car firewall, then pulling the body up off the frame and cutting out the back of the floor of it. Then pull it the rest of the way off the frame, and start test fitting the F100 cab onto the CVPI frame!

[2dr_sedan]

Can't wait to see the progress pics!

[HawaiiKid]

Cut the pillars, windscreen and rest of the roof off to start the day off. Then my friend striped pretty much the entire firewall on the engine side while I took the dash out, gauge cluster and all the wiring. We then dropped the gas tank off of the body (really Ford??!?! You attached the gas tank to the BODY not the frame?!) and lifted the rest of the body off the fame.





We then pulled the chassis out of the shop and dropped the body down. Cut the floor and firewall out from the middle of the rear seat all the way up to the very top edge of the firewall in one fell swoop. Cut inside the rocker structure all the way up with the plasma and sawzall, and chopped the rest of it up. Our plan from this point:

Drill out the inner panel on the inside of the cab (on the F100) that goes from under the interior vents to the floor/front corner of the cab. We will be replacing that with plate steel since the front of the cab corners are fairly rotten.

Put the cab up in the air, place the chassis under it, and start to test fit the cab to the chassis! Once we have them in the right position then we start welding.

[foodstick]

looking good, Glad to see your motivation is still making things happen !

[HawaiiKid]

Then last night we dragged the cab into the barn and got it up on the lift.

My friend cut out the rest of the firewall, then we started to "trim" the rocker steps down since we'd need to do that to get the cab to sit over the frame. Once we started to do that we realized that the right step was literally totally rotted away, to the point that this is all thats left of the rocker.

And here are the shitty patch steps/horrible bodywork/heater core and firewall.


So now we'll be figuring out how to replace the actual rockers, not just the steps. On the other side of things-we are all set to drill out the footwell panels and start to test fit to the chassis! Hopefully get the panels welded tomorrow and roll the chassis in, then Saturday will be a long day of test fitting test fitting test fitting!

[CanyonRider]

Don't know if I missed it, but are you planning to use the CV firewall and floor?
Thanks,
CR

[bird55]

Can't tell where you are located from your profile. But what are your plans for the old frame and drive train? Let us know your location in your profile, maybe someone can use the old stuff. I might be interested in the engine and trans.

[HawaiiKid]

Don't know if I missed it, but are you planning to use the CV firewall and floor?
Thanks,
CR

Thats the plan! The F100s was so rotted that it didn't make sense to us not to use the nice clean Crown Vic's firewall and floor-check out my update to see what it looks like!

Can't tell where you are located from your profile. But what are your plans for the old frame and drive train? Let us know your location in your profile, maybe someone can use the old stuff. I might be interested in the engine and trans.

Feel free to PM me...it is located in Fort Worth, TX.







Got the panels under dash all ground down, then drilled through the edges to prep it for the plate and plug welding...



Here is what the bare Crown Vic frame looks like, with the floor we cut out of it just laying in the stock position.




Once we got the plates welded up to the kick panels we rolled the chassis in and set it down over it!

Of course the back of the cab corners weren't meant to fit over this wide of a frame, so a little cutting was required.

BUT

We cut here, there, notched it in the back and this is how it sits with one fender visegriped in place!!

There is a HUGE amount to do from here but just seeing it with a fender hung off and how it sits as is makes me so happy-makes it feel like it is going to start coming together!
Saturday we'll be at it all day to try and tie the stock Vic floor and firewall into the F100 cab, and get the cab semi mounted so we can roll the chassis around with it in place (the front is sitting on jackstands in the pic.

But it looks kinda like a truck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[61f100uni]

Interested to see how the fire wall meets up to the cab, that sure would be nice to have a rust free floor!! Are you planning to use the cv rad support? from the last picture it looks like it wouldnt be to hard to tie in!

[CanyonRider]

Saturday we'll be at it all day to try and tie the stock Vic floor and firewall into the F100 cab

Take lots of pics - I'm very interested in this stage.

Looks like it is really coming together.

Thanks!
CR

[HawaiiKid]

Interested to see how the fire wall meets up to the cab, that sure would be nice to have a rust free floor!! Are you planning to use the cv rad support? from the last picture it looks like it wouldnt be to hard to tie in!

Not sure which way we are going to go with the core support. Mechanically it makes sense to use the CV one, but I just dunno how that will work with the hood latch. We'll figure out where exactly the cab sits, measure twice and see where we are at.

Saturday we'll be at it all day to try and tie the stock Vic floor and firewall into the F100 cab

Take lots of pics - I'm very interested in this stage.

Looks like it is really coming together.

Thanks!
CR

I will-we trimmed the CV's floor just inside the rockers but there is still a sizable gap between the 2. The firewall we haven't seen yet as far as fitment goes so we'll see.

[HawaiiKid]

Got a bunch of stuff done yesterday, was at it around 8 and quit at 6!

This is the front plate on the cab with the post on it that fits in an L shape of 1/8th in plate on the frame

Got the rear plates welded in and the post on it too

This is the L shape on the frame on the front (there is one on the 4 corners of the cab/frame)-this allows us to pick the cab up off the frame but it fits back in the same position every time. It still gives us about a 1/8th of an inch to shift it around as we fit the rest of the truck together


Cab sittin on the frame on her own, with the Vic floor just layin under her


Trimmed the Vic floor to be even with the frame

How we welded the cab to the vic floor in the back, 3"x5"x1/8" plates

Then cut a piece of 2 inch angle to fit where the step will go and got it welded in on the top to give us a flat spot to weld to

Panoramic view of the cab with the floor in it and Dennis welding the other side of angle in the step

You can also see where we put 2 3x5 plates on each side of the cab from the cab to the Vic floor

And here is where we left off-firewall fitment


Next up we'll be filling the top of the firewall-some odd angles, but I'll be scrounging through our metal at work to see if we have anything that might be useable. Then it'll be filling the rest of the gaps from the cab to the CV floor and then welding the cab to the frame!

[HawaiiKid]

No pictures for tonights progress-wasn't a productive feeling night but the back of the cab is all welded up! Next step is firewall