Some videos for cliff's notes if you don't want to read the whole thread as of 11/10/21:
A couple things started this build.
a) 2 Years ago I bought my wife a 69 F100 to play around with and haul her art stuff to car shows, etc: 
b) I found a parts truck for said F100: 
c) xflowgolf ruined my life by posting this in someone else's thread, proving that something I had been thinking about doing was actually feasible and others were doing it to; I now hate him: 
It didn't take me long to start cooking up a strategy, and despite having a newborn (literally 2 weeks old) I was able to sell the idea of "his and hers" trucks. And so I went off to craigslist-land.
$600 scored me this running/driving 150k mile former anne arundel county unmarked car. It's not as clean as it looks, and the steering was notchy so I got him to come a couple hundred off the price. Turns out there's a recall from ford for corrosion on the steering linkage causing this, and it was fixed by my local dealer under the recall - wooo!
This plus the truck put my combined purchase total up to $1100. See where this is going...
Dragging her home. Inlaws' tow truck really came in handy on this build.
Teardown on both the truck and the vic were pretty much simultaneous, looking and measuring different aspects as I went.
My Shepherd mix had fun pretending he was a K9 with his own Police Interceptor for a while before I started ripping it apart, but this was the last time he got to ride in it.
Oh yes!
CLynn85 wrote:
I'm not really a truck guy, but I like this a lot.
I'm pretty sure Hot Rod Garage is doing a similar swap. They've been posting pictures of a stripped down crown vic and f100 on instagram.
This is what I want to do to a dentside longbed.
Only with boost.
This looks like it will be fun!
Peeling back the layers on the Vic
Removing the bed. The Holmes dual boom is basically a crane sooo....
Not much left of the Vic at this point:
Vic-kart?
Then things got really interesting
Have I mentioned how hard it is to jockey all this stuff around in a suburban back yard? Nothing rolls easily, tow trucks are hard to maneuver, a 4 wheeler can drag some but it's hard when you constantly have to stop, jack up the front end, turn the tires a different direction, then drag it from the other end. This was a lot easier when I had more room, and a backhoe....
Body resting on the chassis for the first time. Note the GIANT pile of wiring on top of the engine with assorted important bits (ie: ECM, light control module, steering control module, etc) just hanging off the side. This is when the reality (severity?) of the situation really started to sink in.
What I'm interested in reading about is how it drives relative to a vintage truck.
People should recall that one of our posters had a vintage Ford that he towed his BWM to races and back. Was cool for a while, but the oldness of the truck became grating enough that he upgraded to a modern truck. IIRC, it was a first gen Lightning.
This seems to address some of that, and includes some modern niceties such as modern HVAC and ride. But with the vintage looks.
The other part I'm interested in is how you deal with the chassis bump where the gas tank takes up space in the car.
Good stuff!!!
alfadriver wrote: What I'm interested in reading about is how it drives relative to a vintage truck. People should recall that one of our posters had a vintage Ford that he towed his BWM to races and back. Was cool for a while, but the oldness of the truck became grating enough that he upgraded to a modern truck. IIRC, it was a first gen Lightning. This *seems* to address some of that, and includes some modern niceties such as modern HVAC and ride. But with the vintage looks. The other part I'm interested in is how you deal with the chassis bump where the gas tank takes up space in the car. Good stuff!!!
That's the idea! After having a bunch of vintage cars and upgrading every major system (brakes, steering, power, etc) to be more modern in terms of driveability, I figured a complete chassis swap might make more sense. So far the strategy is working (spoiler: actually drove it for the first time this weekend).
I don't think the bump will be that bad, not really any worse than any bagged/static dropped trucks that would need a notch to get low anyway. The bed is actually a bit higher than the chassis (8") so the bump will be about 6". I've also contemplated just raising the entire floor (wooden style) so it's flat all the way across, but that's TBD.
So that's pretty much how it remained through the rest of the summer and fall (refer back to newborn comment). I did occasionally get out and shift things around and work on planning out some of the details. The back of the cab had to be notched to sit over the frame (it's 60" wide under the cab, significantly more than the 40" or so that the stock ladder frame. (Confession, I haven't actually gotten around to filling these in and probably won't with anything other than some foam until the cab comes back off the frame).
Also note the "cop driveshaft", bet Elwood never thought to add that to his list...
https://www.youtube.com/embed/QTOg4aYGtdY
I also had to figure out the front mounts. Oddly enough the spacing between the stock cab mounts lands dead center between two crown vic mounts, where there is an additional hole. It's not really ideal, as access from below is not the easiest and the cab ends up an inch or two further forward than it really should be, but it seems to work and it was too serendipitous.
Loving this...
Fortunately the cab is relatively solid. There's a little rust in the floors that was patched by a PO with sheetmetal, it will do for now, and some rust starting to open holes at the bottom of the cowl, but not enough that I really care. The only thing I really had to fix was one of the cab mounts, shown above.
Then I moved on to controls. I had originally planned to use the CV column to simplify things, just plug and play the harness, but it was REALLY bulky and was going to take a lot of hacking to work. After doing some digging I started to look at how the truck column would line up, and it was good. Basically I would have to remove the rag joint flange and shift it down a little bit. Even more good news was when I found out that Borg Warner or something like that made a u joint to go from the splined steering shaft to the f'd up V shape that Ford uses on its steering shafts now. The worst part of the whole thing was getting the rag joint flange that was swedged and rusted onto the end of the steering column off.
Soaked in PB blaster for a couple days then about 10 tons of shop press to get this bugger off.
The upside to this is a period correct column that fits the truck well. The downside is now I had to figure out how to splice all the wiring (turn signals, ignition, etc).
Aluminum tabs to mount the column since the old column was now at the wrong angle/vertical location.
For some reason I never got pictures of the brake booster install, I'll have to get some of those and add them in.
I've also been scouring the net for parts whenever they come available and I came across someone selling this old box truck. The value was pretty much in the aluminum box so I asked if they'd mind if I grabbed the doors and some trim pieces. For a couple 20's I got a solid door, a repairable door, some dash trim pieces, and, most importantly, the gauge cluster insert that is only on heavy trucks that will allow me to put in round standard gauges once I figure out all the inputs.
CLynn85 wrote:
I don't care what some may say, that's an awesome patina on those doors. Cool mirrors, too. Great Build!
Spoiler alert - I've started driving this thing around town to shake it down for the lemons rally (not that there's not still a TON of things to do...), and it is good. I'm really liking the driveability of it. I'm hoping it's up for 2000 miles of Lemons Rallying!
wheelsmithy wrote:CLynn85 wrote:I don't care what some may say, that's an awesome patina on those doors. Cool mirrors, too. Great Build!
I have some more pictures from the truck in its previous location I'll have to post. It was pretty cool, but soooooo far gone in terms of rust. The roof was peeling away from the top of the cab, and the hood had been clobbered by a tree and was rusted out. I grabbed as much of the usable parts as I could save. I'm thinking about trying to go back for the rest of the glass, though.
I originally spotted it in a CL parts add, dude was selling it for scrap+the box. I went and looked at it and tried to get ahold of him and kept missing him, then one day it disappeared. I tracked it down two counties away and the guy had bought it to use the box as a shed, to store parts for his airplanes, next to his personal runway....
i love old ford trucks, i wouldnt even paint it for a few years!
In reply to CLynn85:
Man, that thing really came together. It looks perfect.
You had me at "borrowed my in-laws tow truck". With that kind of enabling I'm amazed you found time to make them grandchildren.
How did the pedals/brake parts and electrical to together. It's easy to focus on the cab getting stuck to the frame, but by brain tells me that runing the wiring would be a much harder job for most people.
You get my seal of approval. 
How did you go about shortening the bed?
Holy wow that was fast turnaround. I love these kinds of projects.
So when does the turbo go in?
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