TECH...well sorta... JAG IFS into mid fifties F100

I always see guys asking here on the HAMB about how and what clip to put in the front of their ride, so I always have a bit of a look and am blown away by some of the complexity of some of these installs!! So I thought I'd show you how I did one of the worlds easiest front end upgrades on my 54 F100.

I know there have been some threads on here about the JAG IFS front end, but I'll just quickly re-cap for those that haven't seen. In Oz, New Zealand, and the UK, the JAG front end is an extremely popular front end swap into hot rods, customs and trucks. It is a really neat piece of kit. It is a complete crossmember with big discs, 4 piston calipers, heavy duty made to suit the JAGs, power steering, and has chevy bolt pattern, which is easy enough to change to ford if you want. Another neat feature of it is it is quite low slung, so pretty much attaching it to the undeside of near any chassis will set the car quite low. If it still isn't low enough, just notch the chassis out a bit, or install a set of bags which fit neatly into the JAG front end too....what ore could you want?

So here goes....
First get yourself one of these, a series II or series III JAG. This one cost me $300 with no motor or gearbox but pretty much complete.


From here you literally undo 4 or 6 bolts and the whole front end comes out! While you're at it, you may as well grab the rear end out too, get the wiper motor too (it is a neat remote unit with cable drive, works well in rods where you don't have room up top for a big motor), and get the top unit joint off the steering column so you can adapt it later on to the rack. I later sold the rear end for $300 and scrapped the rest so got my front end for nix.

This is what it looks like fresh out the car, on the bench ready to clean up.


Some people rubber mount the whole crossmember to the chassis and fab up forward and rear mounts, others just clean it up and weld it straight in. I chose the later, so cut off anything that didn't look like it needed to be there


The F100 chassis is 34" wide and fouls the inside of the controls towers by about 3/4" each side so a couple of relief cuts needed to be made, as indicated below.



I marked the centreline of the front axle on top of the chassis. I then made a mark 35mm forward of this (1 1/2") to centre the wheels properly in the wheelarch. I tacked a piece of square tube across the top of the crossmember so i could line it up with the centreline marked on top of the chassis. The crossmember fits quite flat under the chassis rails, with a slight rearwards caster. This will be bought back to zero once the truck sits at ride height.



I tacked it in, threw on some wheels and lowered it off the stands. The unweighted front end ends up sitting the factory gearbox crossmember about 6 inches off the ground. With engine, box, cab etc in and the weight back over the front, should bring this down another couple inches and sit the truck pretty low All that's left to do now is box the front sections of the chassis rails and fab up some gussets to hold the crossmember in properly.

And that's how a JAG front end goes under a 50's F100

Cheers,
Paul

 

Are you going to use the right hand drive in the truck or swap the rack? What year JAG or are they pretty much the same?

 

Looks good. I keep hearing good things about these front ends. I'm going to keep it in the back of my mind.

 

This is a keeper. Thanks

 

I have installed a Jag front and rear in my '49 Lincoln.
500 Caddy powered as well.
The result is amazing.
4 wheel disc brakes and a perfect ride.
What more could you ask for.
Yes, they are very popular for transplants here in New Zealand.

 

Way cool- Thanks! I just picked up a Jag front, and a 3.54:1 posi rear to put in my 38 Lasalle, so this thread comes in handy.

 

Yeah i'll leave the right hand rack in the truck as it's easier to licence like that here in australia. A friend of mine has a lhd pickup so put the same front end in, and just swapped the rack over for a lhd one....his was already licenced tho

As to what years series II and series III jags were late 70's to mid 80's i think, and as far as i know, they are all pretty much the same. I think in one of the other posts on the HAMB about the jag front end into a buick, someone posts up all the specs on the front ends for what year jags.

 

It doesn't get much simplier than that.

Frank

 

Oh yeah, I still have to make upper shock mounts and mount the sway bar later once engine and everything else is in place.

 

Please post some pic's once it is on the ground so we can see the stance.

 

A pic of mine might be WAYYYY off, so here's one until then. The blue 56 on the left is a mates f truck that has the same JAG front end put in exactly the same as I did (not my pic, borrowed from another site) Sits really nice and drives great.

 

Seems easy enough.....Thanks.....

 

cool setup.I wonder what the cost is to out fit the front brakes on a Jag?

 

thanks for sharing

 

Man, these Jag posts are so dangerous! Every time I see one it makes me want to take a sawzall and hack the Mustang II out of my '55.

BTW, that pic. in post #11 is awesome!

 

I wouldn't have been able to resist hanging that gorgeous rear end under it too. Thanks for the info. Jag suspension appears to be a dirt-simple swap, and it's on my "to do" list. "To do" to what, we don't know yet.

 

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that's how the one on my Buick came out of the Jag and went into the Buick.

 

I have always liked the jag swaps. What is good about these they use spicer part numbers. Good job

 

Sweet post. Thanks

 

Good post!

According to Wikipedia, Series II and III XJ's were produced from '73 - '92.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaguar_XJ

 

the ones you want are up to 86...

 

The front ends from '72's (series I '69 to 72) are the same as the series II. I've used a '72, and currently using a '74 and they are identical.

Someone asked about the brakes...they are pretty cheap (rotors $69, caliper rebuild kits $22) at Coventry West. On our '51 with the '72, we made adapter plates and used Corvette calipers for additional braking - but this time around, I'm using stock calipers.

 

Yeah there r slight differences between series I II and III. Series II and III have 4 pot calipers, and apparently one of the two is more desirable to convert to ford bolt pattern (well out here in OZ anyway guys convert to falcon discs and GM calipers i think by way of machining the stub axle) As i'm leavin it chev bolt pattern and basically stock i didn't look to much into the exact details for converting it. If you are intersted, google it cos I'm sure there are a couple of discussions on Ozrodders.com about it.

As far as setting it in the chassis, like what ZMAN said, I set the chassis at the rake I wanted (level front to back) and then set the crossmember level or horizontal, actually i shoudl probably write that a different way, set the crossmember horizontal, and then set the chassis around it to whatever rake u want. I wanted the chassis level hence setting everything this way.

If anyone has any general fitting a JAG front end questions, maybe just doa quick google search, and a quick ozrodders search. The aussies, kiwis and Poms have been doing this swap for years and there is tonnes written out there about the swap, and also modifying it for different purposes. Apart from that, I'm more than happy to offer what limited knowledge I can

Cheers,

Paul

 

Any updates ??

 

Yeah I ended up getting it all tacked in there and lookin pretty, just needs finishing off. I won't be doing the finishing off though cos I just picked up and moved to So-Cal and left the effie in Australia But I would definately consider doing the swap again though on a 50's truck if I get one again.

 

What is the bolt pattern on this suspension? I know everyone is saying chevy, but is it 5 x 5 or 5 x 4.75? I'm looking at making this swap on my 46 Stude P/U.

 

4.75

 

thanks, zman

 

almost the same stud patten, you should check. I have seen some were the wheel fits on but the stud wasn't in the center of the hole so when the lug nut was done up it put stress on the stud.