'62 F100 Uni - yes another Crown Vic swap

[Blanger]

Door Locks

Not sure if I mentioned this in a previous post but I'll cover it in detail now.

So our slick not being a custom cab only had a passenger side external door lock, nothing in the drivers side, a little research and we found out that a lot of vehicles from the 50's and 60's didn't have a driver door lock by design, it was a different time back then and manufactures were concern with safety, they didn't want you out in traffic unlocking the drivers door to enter the vehicle, makes sense in a way I guess.

Today that is inconvenient to say the least, and since uni's use different doors than a standard truck and a custom cab uni door is very hard to find in our area I just opted to install a lock in our existing door, all of the necessary mechanism to lock and unlock the drivers door was there just like the passenger door, just no lock or rod.

So I took measurements from the passenger door, located the area in the drivers door and drilled a hole in the appropriate area, then a little work with a file and I had a hole that looked just like the passenger door.



I took the rod out of the passenger door and tried it in the drivers door and it worked, a little stiff but would loosen up, so I made a rod that closely resembled the passenger side.



The material I used for the rod was a piece of linkage from a blend door actuator we had at work and it was close enough to operate the lock with a little tweaking, I still need to find the proper clips to hold the rod in place like the passenger side has and we'll have a working drivers side door lock.

The door and ignition were a lock set we bought from NPD so all the locks will be keyed the same.




Jon

[Blanger]

Fuel tank mount

So lets go back in time a little (I got time today) and talk about the CV swap and what was left on the CV chassis.

When prepping the CV for the slick body you'll be faced with a couple things one will be the lack of mounts that you'll have to fab based on the stance or ride height you want, your going at the very least have to cut or remove the bed floor so the CV rear suspension has a place to go, you can of course not use the fuel tank and probably cut the area consumed in half, but then you'll need a fuel tank and depending on your power train you'll need a fuel distribution system also (fuel pump if using a injected motor), there are lots of different ways to accomplish this but the easiest is just to retain the CV fuel tank and system to deliver fuel to the engine.

In our case we kept all of it and just shed the body, we had to cut the trunk floor and the area under the package tray and leave it with the frame since it was what held the fuel tank in place, when we were finished it looked like this.



The piece of body / trunk that was left holding the tank was only mounted to the top of the rear suspension and just rested against the exhaust and rear end cover plate, it couldn't stay like that but was fine to lot drive the truck while doing other things like building body mounts.



One of the things about the panther chassis the CV uses is that it can be lengthened or shortened pretty easily making this chassis a good candidate for limos or other stretched applications, from the front suspension to the rear suspension there are two parallel frame rails at the very outside of where the rocker panels would be connecting the front to rear the only bridge between them is the transmission mount otherwise it's totally open.

This setup leads to lots of potential chassis flex and Ford used the CV floor pan to solve that problem mounting the body to the frame every couple feet from front to back and relied on that sheet metal to keep the chassis square. Once you remove the CV body you have that potential resurface, if you look at the picture above the mount I made out of 2x2 square tubing (thick wall) not only supports the back of the cab - bed area but also ties the frame rails together making them stiffer which will help keep the chassis from flexing.

It's kinda' the same principle that the unibody design did using a torque box behind the cab, tie both sides together, but Ford only tied the bed and body to the torque box then mounted it on a riveted frame, this kept the doors from maybe popping open but really did nothing else, then let the bed drain into the torque box and in a few years we all know what happens.

On to the fuel tank....

So I needed to make a mount to hold the fuel tank at the bottom and since I plan on putting a trailer hitch on the truck I decided to use that same 2x2 square tube to make that mount, it severs two purposes, one to hold the tank in place, and two to strengthen the rear frame rails against twisting, after welding it in it looks like this.



It's way over kill and too close to the rear suspension to do a lot but is added strength none the less, I think I cut off over a foot of length from the rear of the CV frame in making two cuts, I know I cut over a foot off the tail pipes to get them back behind the roll pan, and the rear body mounts tie the CV frame to the very back of the bed, so it should be able to support a trailer hitch and a couple thousand pound load in a trailer.




(Yeah my vertical welding isn't the greatest...lol)

Anyway all of this strengthening combined should help with any frame twist, you can put a floor jack in the middle of the frame and jack up the whole side of the truck at one time, it doesn't appear to have any sag or twist just nice and flat.

The interesting thing about driving the truck is that it handles like a go-cart, there is only very limited body roll going around corners and the suspension takes up all the slack, I'm not sure if this is normal or not this is my first frame swap or if it's because of how low I set the body on the frame but I've owned several sports cars over the years and the handling experience driving the truck is very similar.

Jon

[Blanger]

A little more about wiring

Not trying to beat a dead horse but doing a full frame swap and using the existing CV wiring harness leaves lots of avenues to discuss because there are lots of wires to deal with either by removing them from the harness, utilizing them for circuits, or just saving them for future use. I did all three, and while not really touching the engine bay harness other to move the battery location and replace the feed wires to the power distribution box (to lengthen them) and add a few ground points for the harness to make sure every ground connector from the original harness had a good path back to the battery.



The CV harness because it was built as a cop car has additional wiring to help departments add their equipment, so has extra circuits and connectors that could be removed, saved, or utilized, two of these handy connections were one that was hot with the ignition on and one that is hot all the time, both of these connectors are located on the passenger side of the interior harness and had molded female bullet style connections that allowed you to just plug in a wire ( I might also mention that these are heavy 10g wires meant to handle lots of amperage). I used both of these connections cutting off the molded plug and connecting them to a terminal block to give me two points inside the cab that had both types of power (switched and un-switched) and it has been very handy not having to tap into the drivers side fuse panel or run wires through the firewall to the power distribution box.

In the CV you had basically a wire bundle (or two) on each side of the vehicle running to the rear of the car under the carpet close to the door, it ran in flat plastic conduit that protected the wiring and I reused that conduit cutting it in length. On the passenger side what was left after thinning the harness was the right rear ABS sensor, the rear window defogger, rear speakers, 3rd brake light, and dome light connections, a couple other "cop" circuits for lighting on top of the package tray. I left all of this intact and it runs behind the seat, the only wires that had to leave the cab was the right rear ABS sensor and it was fed out the bottom of the B pillar.



The drivers side was totally a different matter with about 3 times the number of wires, it had circuits for all the rear lighting, all of the trunk stuff like the trunk release and trunk lighting, gas door popper, left rear ABS, fuel pump along with the inertia switch, and more cop extra circuits. I had to lengthen the wiring for the inertia switch to put it back in the cab, mounting on the inside behind the seat, and we had cut the fuel pump wires intentionally when we disassembled the CV so they had to be lengthened to reach the pump and ran along the frame and top of the rear suspension.



I'll try to get a picture of the inertia switch the only one I have is too blurry to post.

All the wires coming out of the flat conduit goes into convoluted tubing to protect it, again all the drivers side wires exit the cab out the bottom of the b pillar.







In the photo below you can see the flat conduit does stick up a little, but doesn't seem to be a issue, I ran the sound deading material right up to them but not under to give the floor mat less of a bump, after we put floor mats on top of the rubber mat it will be just fine.



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I haven't talked much about gauges, and at the moment I'm just using the CV instrument cluster stuck in the hole where the slicks gauges were, I originally thought I might be able to use gauges that ran on the CAN Buss (like River City did) but even though the '98 is OBD2 compliant it lacks the necessary connections and data stream to support them which I find odd since the CV gauges appear to be using CAN Buss data to get their signals but according to everything I've read from different manufactures they won't work, and again I find this odd since I have a blue tooth OBD2 puck that talks to a tablet that will display all of the gauges on the screen with what appears to be real time data.

So I'm still researching other manufactures to see if I get a different answer, last thing I want to do is drop $700 + for gauges that don't - won't work. In reality gauges will be the single most expensive thing I'll buy for this truck so they need to work 100% and have a very good warranty.

But if I can't use CAN Buss gauges I have just a few choices for a speedo and of them a GPS speedometer seems to be the best option, all the other gauges with the exception of the fuel sending unit can be mechanical as far as I'm concern and there are plenty of options in mechanical gauges as far as appearance / style, so my biggest concerns are the speedometer and fuel gauge. Of course I could or can use the CV cluster for as long as I want, I could even make a bezel for it so it looks reasonably good, but it doesn't fit with my vision of how I want to make the dash look and since I'll be looking at it everyday I drive the truck I need to make it acceptable, not something I look at and have regrets or have to make excuses as to why it looks the way it does.

I have no intention of selling the truck although you know everything has a price and if someone wanted to give me what I think it's worth for my investment $$$ and time I'd build another, in fact I'm actively looking for another 60's slick or mid 40's to late 60's Chevy truck to build for my wife ( yes really)....but I have to finish this one first and now that I can drive it everyday the list of things to do is getting shorter and shorter.

More next week....

Jon

[Blanger]

Weekend update! (just like SNL...lol)

After the first full week of driving the truck everyday we had a couple things to change, and one of them was the brake pedal height, we not only wanted to lower the pedal closer to the floor but also move it closer to the gas pedal, lowering the pedal is pretty easy but moving it right or left is a little more difficult. So I went to my stash of S-10 parts and found a pedal that was close to what we wanted.



Yeah this is a clutch pedal but has the right amount of bend to the right without hitting the column, I cut it down to the basic shape and removed the foot pad.



Then I cut off the CV brake pedal leaving enough to weld the new pedal to, removed that foot pad, and welded it to the S-10 pedal, clamped it in place and welded it to what was left of the CV pedal.







I used what was left from the CV pedal to make a reinforcement since the S-10 pedal was thinner material, turned out fine and has no flex, ground it off and shot a little paint on it...lol

It's much more comfortable now and driving you have much more control over the amount of pressure your applying to the pedal since it's closer to the gas pedal, floor and makes for a more cohesive movement going from one pedal to the other by just rotation on the heel of your foot.

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Seat belts

The slick never had seat belts and while I'm a advocate of people using them if it makes them feel safer or not if they feel constrained by them, the slick really needs a way to tie your butt to the seat since the bench seat has all those springs trying to shove your butt out of it.



Easy enough to install, just finding the right spot to mount them that had good enough sheet metal to support using them.



(pay no attention to the console we'll cover that in a future post....lol)

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Roof Insulation

Driving the truck last week while it was raining had the same impression of being in a building with a metal roof, if you've ever heard that sound you know exactly what I mean, it was deafening, so we added sound deadening material to the roof of the truck to not only kill that noise but to add a layer of insulation for the winter.




Easy enough to install, this is double sided with foil on both sides and a layer of insulation in-between, we use HVAC aluminum duct tape to attach it to the center support which will hold it for years or until we get a headliner installed.

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Drivers door lock

We found the proper clip to make the drivers door lock function like the passengers.... got it installed and have a working drivers side door lock.



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All in all driving the truck for the first week was fine, no issues other than what we addressed over the weekend, it ran like a top, rides nice, rebuilding the passenger door over the weekend got rid of 80% of the rattling the truck did when hitting a bump, we went to the license branch and got the title transferred, new plates (have to send them to you?...what?), so with insurance we are legit to drive. We are past the testing phase and plan on driving the truck every day from now on and just doing work to it during the weekends.

More tomorrow.

Jon

[Blanger]

Bed floor (part 1)


Obviously we have lots of choices for the bed floor, in fact there are so many different ways to build a new bed floor that it's really just up to your imagination, you could do multi-levels, or just a raised flat, stepped in the back and raised level to the back of the cab, there is lots of room to make hidden storage in the front and back which would be really cool, but we opted to just raise the bed floor to the lowest level we could build and still clear the CV suspension - fuel tank (including the fuel fill I installed).

Several weeks ago I started building the basic framework out of 1x1 square tubing, this is light weight tubing because the structure I build will support the weight, there really isn't a need that I could see to make this really heavy duty since its welded in so many points and braced in so many points that the structure is very strong, the height we chose gives us about 11-12" of depth and is roughly 7" off the old bed floor, in the back tail gate area it will give us sudo hidden storage that is accessed by opening the tail gate.

Like I said started building a few weeks ago and got the basic frame built before running out of argon.





I was also going to be short on tubing so ordered a few more sticks of 1x1, funny thing if you need structure metal like tubing, angle, or flat stock, the stuff can be ordered online and shipped to your door, comparing prices with local steel suppliers it's either cheaper or a wash pricing-wise.

With a fresh tank of argon and plenty of material I finished the basic framework the other day, I think we have chosen a novel way to cover the frame and will cover the wood we are using, it's prep, and the rails we will be installing, but I'll cover that in a future post since we are just getting all those things together and I need to take pictures of the process.

The finished framework






And the hidden storage area, cheap plastic tubs will keep everything contained and hopefully cut down on rattles from stuff clanging together.



All of this is adding weight to the rear of the truck, so far it really hasn't effected the ride height yet but has improved the ride quality softening it as the suspension has weight to work against, if when the bed is finished and it lowers the ride height much I'll have to go back and change out the rubber body mounts for taller ones to get the ride height back that I want, not a big deal but again something I hadn't considered when putting the body on the CV frame, like I said this is my first CV frame swap and there is only so much you can learn from watching what others have done.

Jon

[Blanger]

Audio (part 1)

We want tunes, music, noise, call it what you like but listening to the engine and tires will only get you so far down the road, installing custom audio is not a difficult task and we have done it many times in every vehicle we have owned, but the slick poses a few limitations because the cab area is small, we did not want to cut up the dash to install a modern radio someone has already butchered the radio opening over the years to accommodate different radios, we are just going to make a cover plate to delete that in the dash and try to make it look as good as we can.

I'm pretty handy with wood and have built several custom consoles for vehicles, I normally like to put the front speakers in the side of that console but because of the space - size and radio choice I couldn't do that this go-round, someone over the years had installed 6.5" round speakers in the slicks doors (removable area for access to window, etc) which I didn't want to use because the sound quality is very bad unless you can insulate the area behind the speaker, and of course the slick has a odd size kinda' 6x9 opening in the top of the dash which I also didn't want to use.

So I needed a speaker cabinet that would fit in the truck and the only unused area is where the fuel tank use to be, it's pretty narrow (depth wise) but tall and about as wide as I wanted to make it, the problem is fitting 4 speakers in that area and it not interfering with the seat, wiring, or seat belt mounts, it needs to be secured so it doesn't bounce around or make unwanted noise.

Here's what I came up with.



Painted



I built this out of scrap 3/4 interior plywood, and used a piece of birch plywood for the area where the speakers mount, the birch has a really slick finish which makes that area look glossy so it looks like plastic or metal painted.

Speakers installed





Of course I had to remove the speakers, mount the box then reinstall the speakers and wire them to speaker wire I ran to the dash, to mount it I just shot a couple screws through the bottom of the box into the cab floor, the box just fits with a little area on each side of the box for storage behind the seat in the corners and occupies just about the exact same area the old fuel tank did, hopefully the sound quality will be fine, a box this big normally will have ports to allow air to move around and I put two in the sides (one in each end) hopefully that will be good enough.

In part two I'll cover the console and radio, that portion is still a work in progress, so it may be another week before I get to that.

Jon

[Blanger]

This slick showed up at our shop this morning....could it be a new project?









Currently the answer is no (not a new project), just a customer's truck to work on, but I will approach the subject of buying it when he's ready to sell it....lol

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Funny thing is he just bought this slick because of the uni we bought, I have no idea what his plans are for the truck, it's here at our shop for general maintenance.

Jon

[Blanger]

Random pictures

Here's a few random pictures of our project, hopefully I haven't posted these before.













This is a '94 CV we originally bought for the project, while a running, driving car it had way over 100k (closer to 200k) on it and I'm glad we waited till we found the '98 to use it made a much better platform to build off of.




More random stuff






Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Jon

[Blanger]

Bed (part two)

We finished the bed floor over the weekend and I must say it turned out really nice, and I have to thank my wife because she did 80% of the work while I did other things.

Yes we used plywood, yes it's sealed, and we know it's not going to last forever, and the truck will have a bed cover when it's finished, so acknowledging that here's how we did it for around $200.

First thing we did is to make a paper pattern of the wheel tubs and their profile, cut the plywood to length and traced the wheel tub pattern onto it then of course cut the pattern out test fitting several times and trimming - sanding until it fit. We use three pieces of 3/4 plywood that has one good sand-able side which is rated for interior use, we could have use marine grade plywood but that doesn't take stain well and still has a limited outdoor life although lasts longer unprotected than the interior plywood will before it de-laminates.




After cutting the wood to size we painted several coats on the bottom of the wood with black enamel paint.



After that had dried we flipped the boards over and my wife used a propane torch to burn a pattern into the wood giving it grain.



Then she sanded the surface and applied a wood conditioning product so the plywood would accept stain.

The stain she used is a minwax product called "gun stock".




We then gave the wood 4 coats of polyurethane sealer to seal the top and sides (ends) of the wood.




Then we test fit the floor again and located the area where the carriage bolts will mount it to the steel framework, drilled the holes through the wood, removed the wood then drilled through the tubing, we reassembled the floor and mounted the floor using 1/4" x 2.5" carriage bolts. We could reach most of the areas where the bolts went through by assembling the sides first then the middle section, there were several of the bolts that we had to get under the truck to install the washers and nuts, and tighten them up.

After it was all mounted up, we put the aluminum rails on it so sliding stuff in and out won't damage the wood surface, it gives it the appearance of individual boards, the channel is rubber roofing strips and edging.




The finished product






I still have to install some D-rings to the corners of the bed floor to tie stuff down, I may just add 4 (one in each corner) or may add 6 just haven't decided yet, but being able to hold items in place will be important because I don't want to scratch up all of the hard work, but the truck does have to earn it's keep, it is a truck and will have to provide a use hauling stuff.

All the additional weight has lowered the rear of the truck and it rides very nice kinda' like a CV...lol but I'm still concern about the ride height and will keep a eye on it to see how it settles out after driving a few days, so far it looks like it might have lowered the rear of the body by about 3/8" which is ok, we'll see how it does but it's a noticeable difference in the ride quality being much softer now.



Jon

[Blanger]

One of the things I did this weekend while the wife was doing the bed was to address a issue with the passenger door, both of the splines on the window regulator and door handle were stripped, and that isn't just mildly stripped both shafts are totally rounded with no splines at all. I guess there are lots of ways to repair that issue, I know that to repair the window regulator requires replacing it which is about $100 per door + $12 for a new handle, I'm going to assume that the door handle would be the same way since it looks like it's the same spline but I didn't take it out to look to see if just the spline part - shaft could be replaced without replacing the actual mechanism.

I'll mention also that I do plan to convert the windows to power windows using the Saturn window motors, when that is done I planned to just cut the shaft off that extends through the door and put a cap over the hole, so I know that anything I do to that shaft is going to be removed at a later date (prolly this winter).

So the quickest easiest way to fix this problem right now was to just find a couple junk Chinaizem wrenches out of the wife's tool box (don't tell her...lol) and weld them to the shafts, yes I know that at some point I might have to cut both of them off and buy a new door handle mechanism because of doing this. The reality is it looks kinda' cool and was a great use of junk tools, I didn't do the drivers side (yet) because those splines are marginal and at least will operate the controls without spinning around....so far anyway.

The power window conversion just makes sense to me, it's very simple wiring to add (yes I know I removed the original CV power window circuits), and even though the trucks cab is small it's a PIA to slide across the seat to lower the passenger window then slide across again to raise it....



Since we have already rebuilt the passenger door glass - rubber parts I don't foresee having to take it apart again before doing the power window conversion, but since I just made that statement it'll screw up soon...lol


Jon

[Blanger]

Observations:

I'm on my third week of driving the truck every day, and it is going to be very reliable vehicle I can just tell, the power steering I talked about before is a non-issue it just took a couple trips driving to get accustom to the feel, it's a little hard turning from a dead stop like it has to "break over" when you just start to turn the wheel and it doesn't create a problem it's just the feel that is different, at any speed it feels basically normal turning with a adequate amount of assist so the system works fine without the steering wheel input.

Engine runs like a top, I've never been a big Ford fan (I'll be honest), but if I had to chose a Ford to drive it would be a CV or a Grand Marquis, I don't think Ford has ever built a better car, before I put it on the road I did replace all the coils with some MSD street fire coils and new motorcraft plugs, and the engine doesn't skip a beat.

I also had replaced the front and rear shocks along with the idler arm before putting it on the road, the cab is pretty quiet with the sound-deadening material we put on the firewall, floor and cab roof, all of it was worth the cost and time to do and I'd highly recommend doing it to your project, replacing the anti-rattlers and window channel, rubber parts in both doors probably removed 75% of the noise when you hit a bump, I still have a couple squeaks but as I said before I only have about half the bolts in the front end sheet metal holding it on...lol

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The truck of course looks like crap on the outside, sure it sits low and has great looking wheels-tires, in traffic it gets a lot of stares, my opinion is you are either going to think the truck is cool, think it's a work in progress, or a total waste of your time and resources, honestly I don't care what other people think about the truck I've just never been the type of person that gives two shits about someone else's opinion of what I'm doing if it's for myself, and have never looked for acknowledgment or accolades from people who aren't a party or have a vested interest in what I'm doing, family and friend are of course a different matter, but strangers, who cares what they think.

Having said that, the truck surprises people because while it looks old and slow it's nothing like that, it's actually pretty quick and has no problem keeping up or leading traffic (people are not trying to get around you on the highway), the brakes are just short of fantastic so there isn't a problem stopping when you have idiots in front of you in traffic, there isn't a lot of body movement accelerating or decelerating, very little body roll going around corners, it basically stays flat and planted to the pavement.....I think again this surprises people.

Of course there are people who "get it", and people who realize it's a CV swap, I had a trucker following me last week that kept running along side the bed of the truck looking in the bed when he finally went by he gave me a wave and a thumbs up.., I'm assuming he knew it was a frame swap because of all the looking he was doing while sitting at lights and driving alongside.....lol
I've had a lot of customers look at the truck in the last two weeks, some knew I was building it, some thought it was really cool, others walk right by it never giving it a first or second glance, which is ok by me, I'm not building this truck for a customer, it's for me and my wife to enjoy.

When I tell people it's my daily driver I get the same funny looks as I get when I tell them I'm not fixing the body or painting it, in fact I had a guy looking at the hood the other day and asked how long I thought the hood would last? I told him it has taken 50 years to get to the shape it's in and I'm sure I'll be dead and gone before it totally stops being a functioning hood.

And I guess that's my "rub" there are all type of categories for modified vehicles from resto-mods to rat rods, the truck isn't really either of those in my mind, but if you had to chose it would be more rat rod-ish then anything else but other than the wrenches I just used for window-door handles it really isn't a rat rod is it? to me it's just a cool old truck that they only made for 3 years that has been saved from the scrapper and given a new life on a CV chassis and drive trane, it still sounds like a tin can when you close the doors but that is part of the charm in driving a modern 55 year old vehicle....lol

So what is it? I'd really like to hear what people think.



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Tomorrow we'll cover part 2 of the audio.

Jon

[SteveCanup]

What is it? Fantastic! We need to create a category between rat rod and whatever the 'other' end of this is.....that's too nice to be a rat rod. My '64 is the same....

[Blanger]

What is it? Fantastic! We need to create a category between rat rod and whatever the 'other' end of this is.....that's too nice to be a rat rod. My '64 is the same....

I agree 100%

[Blanger]

Audio (part 2)

If your following my thread then last week you saw a glimpse of the console I built for the slick in another post, again this is built out of 3/4" scrap plywood and will be covered in vinyl when we do the headliner and door panels (future post), the area where the radio is mounted is made from a piece of acrylic (plastic) that is white and semi-translucent which will eventually be either covered in a vinyl graphic or hydro-dipped to apply a design to it.



The cup holders are aluminum and are sold by Summit they come in lots of different sizes and in natural aluminum or anodized colors.



The console needed to be tall and wide to fit the area under the dash and transmission tunnel, but short in depth from front to back so the seat could be moved in it's full range, my wife is 4'11" so for her to reach the pedals the seat needed to have full range of movement, we bounced the idea back and forth for several weeks about bench vs bucket seats and original seat vs something from the salvage yard, for now we just decided to use the original bench seat which will be covered in a future post when the seat cover comes in.

The face plate for the radio has switches and lights that I installed and will be used for various functions from activating the cruse control, over drive off, interior lighting, and other things.



The lights will give me some of the functions from the original CV instrument cluster like the check engine light, brake failure (low fluid) light, and other warning lights.

The radio has been sitting on the bench for over a month while I built the console and tested a few things, this is a double din radio with a 7" touch screen, it is also has AV functions, Bluetooth (pairs with my phone), a USB port so it can play MP3's from a memory stick or charge a phone, the USB also allows you to connect to you phone and display what your viewing on the phone on the radio screen, the advantage of this is you can use navigation software that is on your phone as a GPS that will display on the radio screen without using a stand-alone GPS unit. Of course has all the hands free phone stuff to call and answer the phone while driving if your phone is connected, even has a DVD player that can play movies (not while your driving I'd hope...lol) or a ton of MP3's off of DVD media.



But it has one other function that I wanted and that was provisions for adding cameras, and the truck will have two cameras both rear facing, one a standard backup camera which I have already installed and the other will be mounted high on the back of the cab in a hole someone previously had drilled to mount a bed light that I haven't installed just yet.



Both cameras were bought off Amazon and are cheap, because of the cost being low and the quality being really good now-a-days for these types of items it just made sense to have a back-up camera.



The back up camera I mounted in the pictures above can be used as a forward facing camera which is the mode it's operating in now, but using it as a backup camera it has two pigtails that you can cut to change or add functions which I haven't done yet, one will narrow the field of view the other will add guide lanes.

[edit] I forgot to add that the cameras all use standard RCA connections, they both came with 15' of cable that will also carry the power wire from the front to the rear, at the rear the connections to the camera is a RCA male and female connection and a standard 12v male and female connector, both of these connections are under the truck behind the roll pan, on both I use a large diameter piece of heat shrink tubing to seal or make the connections water tight, I also gave them a couple rounds of electrical tape as added insurance that water couldn't get to the connections in winter driving.



I also did not hook the camera to the backup lights to power it on, instead I powered it through a toggle switch at the moment, as dumb as it sounds I want to control when it is on and not rely on having to be in reverse to have a camera view out the back. The other camera when installed will be powered the same way which will let me chose which view I want (high or low), the radio will only display one feed at a time no split screen stuff...lol






[edit #2] In the last photo above you should notice a couple things, both are hard to see but right above the console under the dash is the OBD2 connector, above that you should be able to see the radio delete plate I made and painted to match the dash.

I don't have the console mounted to the floor yet, and will wait till it's covered in vinyl before mounting it for good, but it's kinda' heavy and fits to the hump pretty well it doesn't move around but will need to be secured when finished. I'll never use the phone functions other than the GPS, I don't talk on the phone while driving in fact see cell phones as mostly a necessary evil, I never carry mine around with me like most people and at home most people know to call my wife if they need to talk to me because calling my phone will be a waste of their time...lol

Jon

[Blanger]

A few more observations

Why? why do people think that something has to have a laser straight body and shiny paint, I think throughout this build so far the hardest concept I've had to get over on people is that I'm not looking for a "show truck", that I simply do not care about the exterior of the truck.

I guess most folks don't understand the amount of work and money it would take to make our slick look really slick, everywhere you look on our truck there is rust, from the rear roll pan to the front valance there isn't a straight body panel or a seam that doesn't have rust, if you didn't have the ability (talent) or time and a place to do the work there isn't a body shop that would take on the job of restoring our truck to like new condition, there simply isn't enough profit vs man hours for a body shop to turn a profit on a job like our truck, most would laugh if you even asked for a price.

If you had the talent and a space to do the work yourself it would take hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars to restore the exterior, I'll concede that a short bed uni even without a big back window is probably a very valuable - desirable truck restored or turned into a resto-mod type of vehicle, you can find them on the net for around $40k down depending on the level of customization, but it simply makes no sense to me to put $20k in the exterior of the truck because your driving the investment way beyond what the truck could ever be worth if you decided to sell it.

I mean no disrespect to anyone reading this that wants to own and drive a slick that is totally restored, or that thinks my truck should have the body repaired and painted, or that wants to take their truck - project to any level they want in fact I commend you for doing what you want and saving a old vehicle to enjoy, it's as they say "different strokes for different folks", but as I stated at the beginning of this thread we own a '73 Camaro that is a super slick car, but you can't actually drive the car anywhere and walk away from it without the fear of some idiot opening the hood or scratching the paint because they are either just stupid or upset because you have a nice old car and they don't.

The '62 was never going to be like that, at least while I own it, I don't want to worry about door dings, paint scratches, bird poop, or any of the stuff you try to protect a nice vehicle from, in fact I want folks not to want to park next to it because the doors on the truck are about 4 times thicker than the expensive tin can they are driving and in a parking lot fight their going to loose big time. At my age I've had nice stuff, use to drag race and have owned several very nice race cars like a alcohol injected big block rear engine dragster to a Spitzer 27T roadster with a big block in it, all of my race cars were very slick, they may not have been the quickest going down the track but always looked nice.

So I get the wanting something to be nice and look impressive to your peers, but for me I just want something that looks cool, is very reliable, sounds good (future post...lol), and something I simply don't have to worry about getting a dent or scratch, I can wash it if I want or let nature take care of it for me.

For a lot of people it's a difficult concept to grasp, and when I tell them I'm not painting or fixing much of the body (I will fix the passenger bed side that has a hole in it) they immediately say oh your building one of those rat-rods, no it's not a rat rod which is why I brought up the topic yesterday of what is it? I'm really at a loss as to telling people what it is other than a cool old truck that is my daily driver...lol

I had one of the workers here tell me that it would take me two years to get it driving, this was back in July and I told him I'd be driving the truck by late August or September, well it's still September and I've been driving it every day for over 2 weeks...lol

I guess it's just natural for people to ask about paint, maybe they are just being nice making conversation showing a interest while puking their guts out on the inside looking at it, lol , don't care in the least bit I answer their questions and move on to other topics, most people who do know cars that have looked at the truck and asked good questions about the process of the frame swap always say you have more patients, or free time, or something to the effect that it's too much work to do it, but I've totaled up the days I've spent on the truck building it and in reality I only have around 40 days from start to this point spread out over about 4 months, and that is really only 8 hrs each of those days, but my wife has been by my side for most of those days and without her help I wouldn't be as far down the road as I am on the build.

I guess to sum this up, I want or wanted everything we touched to be nice and done as well as we could, I could have cut some corners on some things that I didn't and did cut corners on others that really didn't matter, we have kept a running tally on money spent and after the gauges and bed cover (last two big ticket items) we will be around $5200 in the build (and that includes buying the slick and the CV) which to me isn't bad, but I also look at it that if we did all the body work, and replaced all the sheet metal that needs to be replaced we would easily double that to over $10k prolly closer to $15k and I'm not real sure that the investment would be worth the effort because there will still be a lot of metal that should be replaced because it's very thin like the toe boards and firewall....you just can't let a vehicle sit in a barn with dirt floors for 30 + years and expect to make a show car or truck out of it without digging very deep in your pocket.

A small note: I know the guy I bought the uni from (Joe) watches this forum and is following my thread of the build, I would just like to thank him for selling me the truck, hopefully it couldn't have gone to a better home, or at least I hope you feel that way.

Jon

[mercuryv8]

Funny because when you brought it up yesterday as too what it is I was going to suggest the word "daily". That's not a rat rod and it's not a show car. It's livable, reliable,safe. The problem really is only true car people are going to get the idea of what daily means. My neighbors who drive a Toyota and only take up one parking spot each wouldn't have a clue what daily really means.

The nice thing is car people especially classic truck people really take pride in having a daily... It shows you can build something good. It doesn't go on a trailer so it's not frivolous and showy.

About the money...

5200 is amazing. Definitely well spent. Let's say you get it painted for the 15 000. It won't be a stellar job for that kind of money ( around here, I don't know about where you live). But it will be nice and shiny all over and no rust. With the reliable and good performance drive line and suspension you have you would have an exceptional daily driver that's super cool to boot... Now my point. Take the same 15000 down to the dealership and see what you get? Not too exciting is it.

Nic

[bruceandersson]

I agree with your approach. I too have had one beautifully restored cars that I could not enjoy due to the concern about parking lot dings/damage. There needs to be a new category that covers an upgraded mechanical vehicle that is not a trailer queen. I have also been amazed at the progress you've made in a short time. It would still be covered in sanding dust if the body was addressed. What about functional-mod? Reflects the style, but has the manners of a more modern vehicle.

[Blanger]

Nic,

Funny because when you brought it up yesterday as too what it is I was going to suggest the word "daily". That's not a rat rod and it's not a show car. It's livable, reliable,safe. The problem really is only true car people are going to get the idea of what daily means. My neighbors who drive a Toyota and only take up one parking spot each wouldn't have a clue what daily really means.

Agreed, my wife says it's a hybrid since it's two vehicles combined to make one.

About the money...

5200 is amazing. Definitely well spent. Let's say you get it painted for the 15 000. It won't be a stellar job for that kind of money ( around here, I don't know about where you live). But it will be nice and shiny all over and no rust. With the reliable and good performance drive line and suspension you have you would have an exceptional daily driver that's super cool to boot... Now my point. Take the same 15000 down to the dealership and see what you get? Not too exciting is it.

Yup, I set a goal at the beginning once we had a direction to take the build of $5k and no more than 6 months to build, at the very start of the build we actually were at a positive cash flow by selling the 292 and original slick chassis, combined the two items covered the cost of the truck and almost all of the CV, but we have been very lucky in that regard. Finding the CV on craigslist for $500 with 115k on the clock was just plain luck, and we have had a lot of the materials used that were left over from other projects so that has helped by not having to buy those items. Other item that have kept the cost down were just choices we made like a rubber floor mat instead of carpet, using the stock seat instead of buying something else and modifying it, and even using the CV wiring harness, all of the little thing do add up to a large expense in the end.

The problem with painting and fixing the rust is that to actually do the truck right and have it last (keep in mind it's a daily and will sit out in the weather) is that it would need to be taken totally apart, put on a rotisserie (we don't own or have access to) and lots and lots of metal fabricated from sheet metal, we only have limited sheet metal tools and knowledge of making panels, all the glass would have to come out and each panel rehab-ed, there are lots of replacement panels made but a lot that are not and would have to be made from scratch.

To do the truck in any other way would just be throwing money down a rat hole because in 5 years the rust would come back popping out from under the paint, I've seen this over and over in shoddy restorations and was one of the biggest factors in the decision not to do any of it. Yeah we replaced things like the floor pans and cab steps because it had to be done to make the truck structurally sound, I have fixed one bed side (drivers) that the torque box rotted through and will fix the passenger side which is kinda' cosmetic but I did it to actually stop the deterioration from going further or at least slow it down a little.

But there are things like the tail gate that at $400 we opted not to replace, doesn't mean that in the future if I find a good used one I won't replace it, the hood and front fenders are the same way if I could find better used items I'd replace them, but buying new re-pop sheet metal then having to first make it fit, then prep and condition it to make it last, then paint it without painting the whole vehicle just to have straight sheet metal doesn't really seem to be a good use of your resources or money, but that is of course just my opinion.

In my case like I've said before I don't want to deal with any of that from the perspective of having a nice looking (slick paint) vehicle yes I want it to look cool, I want it to be safe and reliable to drive, but the objective in my case is to make the exterior look cohesive with a patina to look well aged and matured, we have plans on things to do to the exterior to make it aged even more but none of that involves slick paint, in fact my wife wants to remove all of the exterior paint and do a "copper wash" to the bare metal making it look totally rusty then wet sand and clear coat sealing that look in..... I'm not totally sold on the idea and of course have ideas of my own that involves keeping the blue paint...lol (lots less work = more driving time).

Looking at pictures of our slick on this forum really doesn't give a good enough image of just how bad the body really is, I've tried to show in different posts some of the worst areas but pictures hide lots of things, and walking around it in person and looking at it from a body-man's perspective of what it takes to correct this or that issue would show the true picture of just how bad it really is and just how much labor and money it would take to make it right....throwing thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours at the exterior to me would be a fruitless endeavor that in the end you would have been better off just finding a better vehicle to start with if that was the end goal you wanted to achieve.

But...... I very happy with the truck just the way it is and that to me is the most important part, I'm not ashamed to drive it or even show it to people, I get a kick out of their questions and facial expressions when they just don't "get it", I know they would be ashamed to have it parked in their driveway (what will the neighbors think!), me on the other hand am very proud at our accomplishment and having it sitting in our driveway! ( and I just don't care what the neighbors think...lol)

Jon

[mercuryv8]

I wish my wife didn't care what the neighbours think.

LoL

Nic

[Blanger]

I agree with your approach. I too have had one beautifully restored cars that I could not enjoy due to the concern about parking lot dings/damage. There needs to be a new category that covers an upgraded mechanical vehicle that is not a trailer queen. I have also been amazed at the progress you've made in a short time. It would still be covered in sanding dust if the body was addressed. What about functional-mod? Reflects the style, but has the manners of a more modern vehicle.

Bruce,

Yeah I like that name....


On the trailer queen side of things I agree also, I have a long time friend who has built probably over a dozen cars since I've known him, he is one hell of a fabricator and has built lots of show quality vehicles, but they are all trailer queens never seeing much if any actual time on the street, you can see them at car shows or mall showings and are always trailed in a enclosed trailer to the event.

The common theme in his builds is to take something uncommon and stuff a big engine in it and chrome everything that can be chromed, put a deep deep slick paint job on it and just look at it, he might drive it around the block a few times but none of the cars - trucks are daily drivers, and the other thing is that he doesn't keep them long once finished always selling them and I'd guess at a break even or loss, I doubt he is making money building cars and selling them. I have to say though that his attention to detail and quality is second to none, his latest build is a Opel GT with a big block Ford engine in it....way cool looking car that would be a handful to drive I'm sure.

While I truly do appreciate the quality and workmanship of his builds and other than the feeling of accomplishment or joy he gets from building them I've never really understood just why he would invest so much work into something then sell it and start another project, I guess he just likes "the build" part of it and wants to move on to the next build once one is completed....I can get that part but at some point I would think with his talents he would want one that he would just keep to drive and enjoy.

-------------------

It took us two years to build our Camaro and that was over about a 10 year period of off and on work, we did everything but the paint and exhaust work and of course since we didn't set a budget we would work on it when we had the capital to invest in it, then let it sit till we could afford to do more to it, it sat in our garage blown apart with all the driveline, bodywork, and paint finished, all of the glass removed, and no interior for several years while we saved up to continue the project.

Like I said it's a very nice car that has tons of appeal, it's reliable having a nice built small block in it, but you just can't leave it anywhere unattended because the risk is just to high someone will screw with it, we are not car show people, never had a interest in the drama that is always involved in car clubs, just simple folk that enjoy driving our classic - old vehicles. While I can appreciate the work that goes into a trailer queen I have no desire to own one.

If you have followed my posts you would have seen a couple pictures of my father-in-laws '56 Chevy, it is a beautiful car that is a older restoration starting to show it's age, the thing about this car is it's a driver, yeah it sits a lot, but he drives the car every chance he gets and that is not just around town it's hours of highway driving going different places, and to me that is the way to recoup the investment and actually enjoy, utilize the vehicle....looking at it sitting the garage will only get you so far in my opinion.

But it's coming due for some major maintenance, he has talked about having the wife and I do everything from a LS swap to a complete suspension replacement which we would be happy to do, there are lots of things with this car that have been done over the years by people that were not really correct that need to be addressed, the brakes are in need of a proportional valve since it has 4 wheel disk brakes and the balance of fluid going between the front and rear isn't correct, it has a shit ton of body roll both front to back and side to side, it's a big 'ol heavy car that needs stiffer suspension to make it more stable and improve it's handling.

My point in typing all of this is just to show we as a family are drivers, we want to use or utilize the vehicles we build, not have them at car shows or just sitting in a garage covered up waiting for that one sunny day to go for a drive (oops the battery is dead...lol).

Take care....

Jon