Hackster's 1968 f100 CV Swap

[hackster]

Sweet! I actually like the wheels that are on it now:)

What's the whine from? What meth system are you planning?

I like the wheels that are on it now as well, but the 17's are just too small in my opinion. After seeing how nice 19's and 20's fill out the wheel wells on a few other builds on here, I have got to try them for myself.

Whine is from the power steering pump. I have not bled the system at all and its super low on fluid.

Ill be running devils own progressive meth setup.

[trick]

I like the wheel combo as is. What wheel and tire combo are you running? Sweet ride by the way. Dare to be different I say,

[hackster]

I like the wheel combo as is. What wheel and tire combo are you running? Sweet ride by the way. Dare to be different I say,

Honestly the wheels are growing on me too...

They are just a set of 17" FR500 repop wheels from American Muscle. They are about the perfect fit as far as width and offset go with the front and rearend I am running. They are 9" wide fronts and 10.5" Wide rears with 275/40/17 on the front and 315/35/17 on the rears.

Truck isn't really that different in my mind for some crazy reason. I guess I am just really used to picking what I want and putting it together to make stuff that works really well together. I really like late model running gear, motors and trannies mostly and I really like classic simple body styles.

For the most part, I hate new cars. They can be nice to drive but they are just so detached from the driver and my goodness are they boring.

Had a crazy busy week at work but I did manage to order in a few things this week. Mostly exhaust parts, but did order in this cool little catch can for the radiator.

Measured about ten different ones but ended up with this little guy from Summit Racing.

Its a great fit and was a pretty straighforward install. This area is getting a little busier than I had hoped for but trying my best to keep everything very simple and clean but still very functional.





Also in some crazy feat of a miracle all of my exhaust parts showed up. I have 8' of 4" 16 guage tubing, 2 mandrel 180's 2 mandrel 90's, 2 mandrel 45's 1 4" flex coupler, 1 Dynatech race muffler, 3 hangers and a few other bits.

Trying to decide if I want to try and run 4" Exhaust up and over the axle and clear a rear mounted gas tank lowered truck and not a lot of clearance or just do a side exit angle cut in front of the passenger rear tire...

Suggestions?

Sean

[hackster]

I went up to my neighbor Brians place and got the truck up on the lift for the day to work on the exhaust.

It was a damn good thing too, it would have taken me 4x as long to get this done on the garage floor. Actually, I might not have been able to do it on my floor at all with the clearance needed to pull the parts and weld them out.

Turns out that it would not have worked well at all to do the side exit in front of the tire. It would have made it necessary to remove the exhaust to get to the battery and it kind of looked terrible.

I ended up running 4" from the downpipe, over the first crossmember, then to a flex pipe and hanger then a 4" Vband to split the exhaust in two pieces for removal purposes.

Then into the muffler, over the rear axle and out the passenger side between the bumper and rear tire.

It was a ridiculously tight fit getting past the tranny, over the x member and below the body then over the axle and between the spring and fuel tank.

It turned out pretty good. Under the truck has awesome ground clearance, under the tank the very rear is pretty low but still a good 5 or 6" off the ground. I am not worried at all.

Here are a few crappy pics....I am going to paint the rear most section with high temp satin black paint to make it not stand out as much.













Also pulled the tranny pan cleaned everything up and checked it for flatness and it looked good. Put the pan back on with a new non neoprene gasket.

I need to torque it in the morning and put the fluid back in there.

Tomorrow should be rearend fun...

Sean

[jthulan]

I've been following along all year on your build here. My 71 long bed is about to begin it's build. My question to you is exactly how hard was the CV front end swap? I've never changed a large suspension component like that (all of my cars in the past have been mostly cosmetic) or even a mustang II front end...but I'm wondering if this is something I could handle.

[hackster]

I've been following along all year on your build here. My 71 long bed is about to begin it's build. My question to you is exactly how hard was the CV front end swap? I've never changed a large suspension component like that (all of my cars in the past have been mostly cosmetic) or even a mustang II front end...but I'm wondering if this is something I could handle.

It was not a really difficult project but it is some work. I know a few folks have done the work with the front clip still on the truck. I think it would be kind of a pain to do with the front clip on.

If you are comfortable with a tape measure, a grinder and a welder, I would say go for it. Its nothing like building a frame from scratch or a roll cage. Once the k member is bolted down to the frame, its just brake lines to the front and steering column.

Had a bit of a setback yesterday afternoon not getting oil to the top end of the motor but had a great day otherwise. Got the 3.50 posi 31 spline 3rd member installed, fixed the tranny leaks, checked the clearance on the converter to flex plate like Chris asked me to, filled the cooling system with water and got it bled out and cooling the motor down. Verified that the electric fan works as well.

Just not working on it last night was good for clearing my head.

I also managed to shoot the exhaust top black and about a 18" of the exhaust. It looks pretty sick. Better than I imagined it would turn out as far as what you can see from outside the truck.



The 4" looks kind of small out the back like that, just looks like a tip. Wonder if I should have run 5"

Sean

[jthulan]

Thanks for the info. My brother-in-law is a professional welder and I figured I would have him do the main welding after I tack it in.

I like the 4".

[hackster]

I came home after work and started it up. It would actually get a lot worse after the initial startup and it got worse quite fast. Within a minute it was ticking fairly bad....I could tell I had a problem.

So I had stopped by the stealership on the way home from work and grabbed an o ring for the oil pump pickup like I had read about on some other posts.

I jacked up the truck and got to work pulling the pan. Its a ***** job under there. Pan and pickup have to go in and come out together so your literally working inside of the oil pan.

Pulled the pan and found the problem. I had unintentionally chopped a good section of the o ring off and it was inside of the oil pickup tube causing what I would guess a massive air leak on the suction side of the oil pump.

This was all speculation at this point though so It was clean everything up, install the new o ring and put everything back together.

New oil filter got installed, pan got reinstalled, oil drain and feed lines reinstalled.

Filled her up with 5 quarts of 5w30 and turned the key......:ohsnap:

Within 5 seconds the motor was dead quiet. I could instantly tell that I had fixed the problem.:headspin:

So onto other things, I put it in gear for the first time and it moved on its own power about a foot forwards and a foot backwards.

Tonight should be more testing, leak checks and maybe even see if it will go down the driveway.

So relieved at this point though.

Sean

[hackster]

Here is my little reminder about how not to put this together the next time. Pretty surprised that the little piece stayed inside the oil pickup tube. It was literally inside the pipe when I pulled it off.



Sean

[jthulan]

Glad it was a somewhat easy fix.

[hackster]

Have been making little strides on the truck. Still stuck with a tranny that does not want to shift very well at this point. Pretty sure its just electronics at this point though as I can manually shift it through the gears 1 and two at least.

Have just been putting around the neighborhood to try and work out any small bugs before getting on the open roads...and still waiting for the insurance to be in effect. Its getting pretty close though.

On a good side note, wheels are due to be finished in production and shipped out to me by the end of the week. I ordered in tires through Americas Tire. Pretty sure they are going to be too big though already at 255/40/20 fronts and 315/35/20 rears. They are Michelin Pilot Super Sports and from what I hear they run pretty big compared to others.

Hope to get the tranny working right this week and maybe even button up the last wire to hook up to the ECU and take it to fill up the tank with fuel.

Still needs lots of tuning and injectors and meth setup. Guess I need to get to work.

Sean

[Coupe5oh]

Interested to see how your fronts work out, mines awfully tight w the 245s.

[hackster]

Im probably going to be screwed.... They run wide too...

But I just wanted to run something bigger than a 245.

We will see how they fit in a week or so.

Sean

[Coupe5oh]

I'm rooting for ya. I've seen a couple others w 255s, and I just about got them but chickened out.

[hackster]

I am currently running a 9" wide wheel on the front with a 275/40/17 and it clears just fine. Its the extra height that I am worried about with the 20" wheel.

We will see.

Sean