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

Good question and I knew I'd be asking this at some point. I'm not sure what I'm going with in terms of the shocks so I didn't bother asking yet.
My thought was with the suspension hanging and resting on the upper bump stops, the shock should be set at almost full extension. Almost. This way the bump stops on the suspension would hit before the shock would reach its limit.
If the coil springs were removed, you could check the shock against the full suspension travel, bump stop to bump stop and keep the shock in its safe operating range. Not sure if I'm right but it makes sense to me.

 

I think I have a measurement from crossmember to top shock mount that I did when I pulled the jag to bits.
I'll have a look next time I'm in the workshop.
Of course this would be with stock jag shocks.

 

I cut some quicky 1/4" tabs to tack up the front mounts. It levels the crossmember as the truck sits right now and will be fine until I get closer to redoing them. Problem I'm seeing now is the clearance for the swaybar. Only have 1/4" between the bottom of the bushing retainer and the crossmember arms. Not sure how much the crossmember will move but I/m guessing it will hit here. Think I'm gonna seperate the big plate and raise the swaybar portion to level it with the bottom of the frame. This will give me another 1/4" of clearance.

 

Had you considered moving the sway bar saddle mounts "outwards" 1/2 an inch each side? might give you enough.


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Yeah, it was the first thing I tried. Didn't really help enough. I've got a couple ways I can correct it. Just gonna see what one I like better.

 

Flamed 34, It's cold and dark in the storage area. I'll check the dimensions later, I saw a rack and pinion conversion on a a 65 shelby mustang that races in vintage road race L,S, etc, in calif. they used the RRS system. The Caviliar design is similar. google them and look. on the cav unit I've seen an adaptor bar mounted to the 2 holes that are about 3 inch apart on the Cav. then you can drill and taper holes along the bar for tie rod mounting to get the correct geometry. for bump steer you can move the rack up and down and back and forth the get it to handle. as well as changing the pivot points and tie rod length. A friend won the 2009 Optima street challenge in his Cobra, (neat U tubes posted.) He has a little toe out on bump since when the wheel comes up it leans to the center and wants to roll inward. I'm in the middle of a full rebuild of our 100 year old farm house. trying to fix prev owners stuff done wrong. plus installing new windows and insulation. every once in a while I look at my pile of parts.

 

So I changed my design a bit. It may have been fine as it was but.......
More than anything, I'm just trying to be smart and avoid a possible issue. It may have cleared and it may have rubbed. I will never know. It took me an hour to make adjustments to the mounts and now I have "Peace of Mind". That's an Iron Maiden reference ; )
I'm sure there are much easier ways to do stuff like this and I wish I had the right tools to do it with, but I'm sure I will appreciate the truck more when I'm done being I did it all the hard way.


Plenty of clearance now.

 

So as it sits above, other than cleaning up the plates and gussets, I'm gonna tack it in place. My frame is level and sits at 1 degree of rake up in the back. The Jag IFS is level from side to side, front to back. Measured from the top center of the crossmember, and the flat bottom of the crossmember. Rear mounts are centered and flat againsts the frame rails. Yes, I will reinforce and box the rear mount areas as well.
Anyone, who has more experience than this rookie builder, see anything wrong with what I've done? My plan is to just leave it tacked up and not finish welded. That way when the truck is fully mocked up with the motor and trans installed, front clip mounted back on, and is sitting on the wheels and tires I plan to run and at the correct ride height..... It can easily be adjusted by changing the length of the front tabs or shimming the rear mounts to get it level. When done I can box it all in to make it look nice.

 

Looks good to me.
But I too am a rookie builder .. lol

4t6ford is our resident expert ..

 

Looks good to me, so long as the welds are made sound.

For being a rookie, you're doing yeoman's work, and the tools that you've got seem to be equal to the task.

Avante!

 

lifey , not sure I'd have called myself an expert,but thanks for the compliment

Iron maiden , you look like you are making good progress . Keep going as you are and you'll be rewarded with a neat old pickup that you'll be confident to drive across the country - AND it'll be a pleasure to drive .
My filthy old F100 has travelled 14,000 miles in the last 2 n a bit years.

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And here I thought the Hambers were gonna flame on me for amateur work ; )

 

Iron Maiden you are doing great work.

My rule is safe before pretty!

Thanks to you and some of the other guys posting their experience with the Jag front ends, I will most likely be trying this for myself in the future.

I have subscribed.

 

I will use a Cavalier design rack with an adaptor bar to get my tie rod right. This centre steer rack came from a Saab 900 and you can find them on Opel Vectra/Astra too. My Jag ifs came from a RHD Xj6 so I couldn’t use the stock r&p. Some pics of the rack and one photo with measurements if somebody are interested and finaly a photo of the Jag ifs in my 47 Olds.

 

The center bar on ORN's setup is like the one that was on the race mustang, the guy said it cost him $ 1000 US. the stock cavilar tie rods mount to the 2 center holes but with the adaptor bar like ORN has you can put them when needed. The cavilar might be the same a opel. today you never know where the companies source their parts or designs.

 

OK, got some questions. First is on the welding. I'm using a Lincoln Weld-Pak 155. I'm running .035 innershield 211 wire (gasless). 20K tensile strength. I'm using it to tack up my parts. All the parts, plates and gussets, are 1/4" mild steel. My question is if this is enough to go ahead and finish weld with or should I borrow a buddys gas setup with solid wire and 70K tensile strength to finish the parts with? I am most likely going to box in the front and rear of my frame. I was advised against it before when I asked but that was when my plans were to stay with a straight axle setup. I am planning on having my bed tilt, dump style, to access under the bed where the battery and gas tank will be. The rear will be boxed so that I can make mounts for the back of the bed to tilt on. I have an 8' length of 1/4" 2X4 box tubing I'm gonna use. So the question applies to welding this in as well. Should I just use my .035 innershield for tacking or is it strong enough for chassis work like this?

Next is on aligning the Jag IFS in the frame. I'm asking after I already tacked it in place. I was fed up with trying to align it and finally said "F" it and tacked away. Picture below will help me describe how I did it. I measured from the frame rails. "A" and "C" are the outer washers on the upper arms. "B" is the front bushing mount outer edge. "D" is the actual crossmember tower.
I was able to get the "A" the same on both sides. "B" the same as well as "C". But the two spots I measured on the crossmember tower "D" were off??? WTF!!!!!!!

 

The only suggestion I have, and it may be too late, is that each of your mild steel gussets/brackets (or any other item) should have the edge beveled slightly to allow for the best weld penetration/strength. It may not be needed with the welder you are going to use and it's power, I don't know. There are probably more than a few guys that are pro/semi-pro welders that would know better.

Over all to me it looks like you are doing high quality and well thought out work.
Keep it up!

I don't really have the experience with this setup to offer anything on the IFS sub frame alignment.

 

I beveled every piece that has been tacked so far. There is a good valley from the beveling to be filled so I'm good there. All the pieces just about come to a point so both sides will have good penetration.

 

If that is a 110V welder, don't even attempt it.

Use it to tack everything up, and take is somewhere with a real welder to have it finish welded.

This is not an indictment of your welding skills, but rather of the anemic nature of the 110V welders.

You need at least a 220V welder capable of at least 250 amps for 1/4" material.

Don't attempt to finish weld those parts with a welding machine rated lower than that.

If your machine is too small, tack it all up and find someone else to do the welding for you, or someone who will loan you a big enough welder to pull it off.

EDIT: I just saw that you said you're using flux core wire. Tack up with what you have, and have someone else do the welding. If you've got a lot of experience using a gas shield GMAW machine with solid wire, you could borrow one, but otherwise, I'd find someone else to do it for you.

 

I just measured the caviliar steering rack, as I noted an another post it looks a lot like ORN 's Pict. doing the dim conversion the size about the same The over all length about 33 1/2 inches, fixed mount centered 3 1/ 2 iinches from the end, steering shaft at rack, 7 1 / 2 inches from the end.and like ORN's rack the shaft is canted at a slight angle. This rack is also used on other GM bodied cars based on the Caviliar shell. we also pulled the steering column, PS pump and hoses. We helped a friend crush cars at his yard when the steel price was high and any parts on the crusher cars were free to us,

 

Iron maiden the best way to measure is to fixed points on the crosmsmber, The A arms can measure different because of hittinig a big pothole. adjustment after a wreck, or alignment set for a high crown road. and the lower A arm is normally set parallel to the ground when the frame is set at ride height and ride angle. The year you are using has a lot more adjustment for alignment that the later years F 40 jag's.

 

Looking good IM. As for the welder, I second whats already been said. You can tack it with what you've got but get a 220V welder to finish the job.

 

Thanks Gents. I called my buddy up who welded up my grille for me and is loaning me this little Lincoln I'm using. He laughed at me, yet again. The one I have is a 220V but obviously not up to the task of much other than tacking. He was the one who suggested I use the solid wire. Either way, he offered up bringing his other welder over and doing it for me when it's ready to finish weld and maybe I can get some more lessons : )
Here's where it's at now. Yes, the frame where the rear mounts are will be beefed up. Front is tacked and bolted up though. I put the wheels back on, lowered it down, and stacked 450lbs of weights on top of the frame. Still on the bump stops ; )

 

If its a 220V welder, it oughta be up to the task, but you may need to use gas instead of flux core wire.

 

It may use 220V, but it's only capable of producing 150 amps, which is barely enough to weld 10 gage.

You need at least 225 amps to properly fuse 1/4" material, and 250 amps would be better.

 

heres what i did for my shock mounts, have it bolted to my upper control arm, will be adding a brace from the mount to the frame also

 

The only way that would possibly make sense is if you had a different amount of caster/camber adjustment shims on the driver's side vs. passenger side. Can't really tell from the pic.

 

Not that it belongs in this thread, but here's a look at the Jag IRS pulled today.

 

Looks nice and clean.
Did you water blast it?

 

I just gave it a quick squirt of Power Purple (cheap Walmart degreaser like Simple Green) Then rinsed it off with the hose. It looks cleaner than it is. But it looks to be in great shape. Sure hate to sell it but I need the $$$