Hey guys, had a busy weekend. Started taking the truck apart, I’ve had a bunch of little things to do to it, and after trying to sell it for a month with no interest, finally decided it was time to spruce it up a bit. After several years, I finally got the cab corner patch installed. I had to tweak the door gap at the bottom with a hammer a bit. I think it came out pretty good. I had purchased a cross member and engine mount kit with some birthday money back in December, and finally took the time to get it installed. It looks a million times better. For those of you contemplating a small block swap into the 57-60 F100's, go with the crossmember rather than the bolt in pads. If you see 'em, you'll know what I mean. While I have the truck apart, the plan is to install a brand new wiring harness that I’ve had for a few years, and to try and get the kick panel vent controls hooked back up and reinstalled in the dash, along with a 61 T-bird heater control that I’ve got. Once I get the front clip back on, I will fab up some brackets to mount a narrowed ’77 F150 front bumper. Not sure what I'm gonna do about paint, I've got a couple months before I go down that road. That’s it for now, John
nice. i had my eye on that truck in a 'oh man, i wish...' sorta way. i hope you have fun keeping it and improving it. i love those fridges.
You're doing some nice work there. Love the reversed steelies and '49 pass. car caps... Take a look at the Yellow Brick, and see why you should reconsider keeping this '57! Hey...A guy NEEDS a nice truck! (and it's easy to change over to a stepside bed & fenders, if ya really had to...)
Thanks guys, I'm a long way from being good at this, I've had that patch panel for more than five years and just finally put it on.
How much was ya askin' for it when it was for sale? I've got a '58 that I'm starting on and might be interested. Can you still run the straight axle with the crossmember or is that possible?
Here's a link to the ad, I was asking $4000. Yeah, there's plenty of clearance between the straight axle, and the cross member. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471500
Got a little more done this weekend. Years ago, I had installed an engine mount kit that I was never completely happy with. It had it's good and it's bads, so this weekend I took care of that. I installed the crossmember kit from CPP. I'm pretty happy with it so far. After I installed the previous kit and got it all back together, I found that the balancer pulley would slightly rub the front crossmember when I hit a big enough bump. In a rush to "fix" it, I quickly cut out a notch from the crossmember to clear the pulley. While I had the engine lifted to put the new mount kit in, I cleaned up the notch a bit too. Here's some pics. More to come.
Finally found some time to get some more done to the truck. When I bought it, the PO had torched the front bumper mounts off. He didn't even torch em short enough to roll the pan, just kinda left these mangled stubs stickin out. I cut them off as far back as I could and rolled the front valance. Here's a pic with the roll pan in. Well, I've been wanting to put a front bumper back on, so last night I did. I had some extra steel that worked great for the front stubs. The bumper is a little long for the truck, so I'm going to section it three to four inches at the mounting holes. I still need to tweak the ends of the stubs a bit to have two mounting holes on each side and to get the bumper to sit right. Overall, I'd say I'm pretty happy with how it came out. More to come.
Shortened the bumper this morning. Used three inch masking tape as a guide and made sure to run the inside edge of the tape through the middle off the mounting holes in the bumper. I then used the grinder to cut the new half of the mounting hole in the shortened piece. I didn't get any pics of the technique, it's hard to take pictures and do the work at the same time, but here's some after shots. I will be covering the welds with some vintage bumper guards when I find the right pair.
Oh man, I wish. It got cold and I wanted to be able to get all three cars in the garage this winter. It's in one piece right now and pushed up to the wall for the winter. I'll keep you posted for sure. How's your truck coming along?
Did you get your cab corner from Rocker King? http://my.execpc.com/~sonoma/ I didn't find out about them till after I sold my '59.
Like what you did with the bumper, looks a lot cleaner that way. Thanks too for the heads up on the crossmember and mounting pads tip. I'm getting a 60 F100 here pretty quick and will probably do a small block swap with it. I also have 2-57's a F100 shortbed thats getting a Yblock and a F350 that I want to lengthen to make some kind of ramp truck out of to haul my stuff with out using a trailor. It also has a good running yblock and 4sd. Michael
Well, I've just about got the front bumper wrapped up. I need to do some finish filing on the guards but it's real close now.
Sorry for the crappy picture, my wife's outta town with the kids and the camera so I had to use my cell phone.
Alright, the wife got back today and I got some better pictures. You'll have to forgive the mess on the fenders. They make pretty good catch-alls for what I'm working on at the time. Here, you can see how well the curve of the bumper fit the curve of the front end. Looking at the pictures, it looks like it sticks out a lot farther than it really does. Still, I might take it back off and hack another 1 to 1-1/2 inches out of both ends.
Hmmm, pictures in my last post aren't showing up on my computer today. Not sure if it's my computer or if they're not showing up at all. At any rate, they're in my profile if you're interested.
That's kinda weird, the pics were there all weekend. I'm using my profile storage to post the pics. Oh well, I wonder if there's something going on with the server. Edit, looks like they're there now.
http://www.classicperform.com/Store/1948_64_Ford_Truck/CP4819.htm http://www.speedwaymotors.com/Small-Block-Ford-Crossmember-Motor-Mount,3274.html