Hackster's 1968 f100 CV Swap

[IN2FORD]

what size wheel/tire would you run in the front for autocrossing?

Barry

[hackster]

I think 275/40/18 in the front and 315/35/18 in the rear.

[hackster]

Going through all of the small details on this thing trying to really get it dialed in for some shows and cruises this summer.

I spent last night rebuilding and cleaning up the drivers vent with new foam and lots of cleaning.

I have gone through and done a lot of stuff but am running into a snag on this one part. Does anyone know if there was a panel that should go into this round opening with the two pre drilled holes next to it? It looks very unfinished and I would like it to look finished...



Also for those of you that have relocated your fuel tank, what did you do behind the seat to trim it out and run carpet up the back wall of the cab?

Thanks in advance,

Sean

[elgemcdlf]

The trucks that had bucket seats had carpet on the front of the tank. The hole is as designed. The 2 small screw holes held the dead man's switch for the dome light. I don't have a picture handy. Maybe someone will post a pic.

A note: Not all trucks had the switch in the door jambs. I found an image.

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[hackster]

Thanks for the reply and the pic added to it as well.

Not too sure that is going to clean it up how I imagined. I am thinking about making a nice plate that would cover up that hole and paint it body color to finish the jamb up a little better.

Sounds like I am on my own for covering up the back wall of the cab, it looks very unfinished as of right now.

Sean

[elgemcdlf]

Sean I found these pics on EBAY of a truck with the switches.

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No idea why it posted the first pic 3 times.

[hackster]

That is a damn good looking interior. I like the red but not a huge fan of the red painted door panels. Other than that its damn clean.


I took the truck out for a little bit yesterday, drove it over to a buddies house to pull apart a jeep liberty top end. What a job, got one head off and found it cracked so we made the call and ordered up two refurbished heads for it today, it should be going back together tomorrow night.

Truck is great to just drive around, enjoyed it out in the sun yesterday but it really is quite boring without any kind of a stereo. I stopped in yesterday and picked up some 6" coax speakers and a small kicker amp that has bluetooth capabilities and auxiliary hookup. Not too sure I need a fancy head unit, I can just use the bluetooth or an auxiliary input.

I was going to put them in the kicks but they are just too big. I think I am going to do some 4" or 5" separates up front either in the stick speaker hole or build some kick panels to house them.

Here is what I started on last night. The plan is to build a nice little speaker grille for this and kind of hide it back in there and then I will wall off the back are and carpet everything to make it look neat and clean.






Also brakes should be getting ordered for the front as long as I can get them to fit. I thought that I had lots of clearance but 15" rotors are pushing the caliper out to where the spokes start to come back a bit. Looking at a full Wilwood setup with 15" cross drilled/slotted rotors and 6 piston calipers. Should fill up the wheels a lot better =)

Sean

[hackster]

Only had a little bit of time to work on it last night, still helping work on the Jeep 3.7 rebuild.

Got the grilles mounted up behind the panel, then the speaker to follow that. Rounded over the front edge of the panel where the speaker opening is to give it a little more smooth look.

Also built the other side last night.

Picked up some speaker box carpet as well and got them covered. I am not sold on the carpet not matching the floor carpet but they just about dissapear behind the seat and finish off what was a pretty unfinished area before.

With carpet



In the truck....and really hard to get a photo of.





What you see when the seat is back. Pretty much dissapears.



Thinking I might run a single subwoofer to go along with these 6" speakers. Not sure if I am going to run a set of fronts or not right now. Maybe after I get this stuff up and running.

Sean

[hackster]

I ordered up front brakes last week for the truck. Wilwood Aero 6 6 piston radial mount calipers and 14" Two piece rotors with custom hats and rotors. They are drilled and vented like the rears and should match the rear stuff pretty close.

I ordered from Todd at TCE Brakes. He does a marauder setup, but has realized that there are tons and tons of these frontends going under hotrods. He was truly great to work with through this process. He had a ton of information and I had to keep up with him...he knows brakes. I should have them in about three weeks. He was waiting on rotors.

Super stoked about that.

I ended up ditching the 2 channel bluetooth amp and went with a retrosound head unit. It was just not going to work that well.

Picked up the radio on Friday and got it installed on saturday along with a single 6x9 in the dash. Its a dual voice coil dual tweeter setup so you can run both front channels to it....pretty nifty.

Radio is super slick, if you were not looking for it you would not know its not stock, but has two aux inputs, two USB inputs, bluetooth and tons of preouts.

Stock knobs went back on the aftermarket radio along with the stick bezel...Ill snap some pics of it finished up tomorrow.

Also finished up the rear behind the seat with some MDF panels all carpeted up. It looks finished behind the seat now.

But the real reason for my post.

I have been chasing a tranny fluid leak for, well since the truck first started running so last year around this time.

I had pulled the pan once when it would not go into reverse and found some plastic in the rear park pawl. I straightened up the flange and put on a new seal to try and seal it up with no real luck.

I have been under the truck looking at it and cleaning it trying to find where the damn thing is leaking, it was not the tranny pan from what I could tell, it looked like it was above that as I had fluid above there. Lots of suggestions to replace the internal harness but I was getting lo leaks there.

I picked up a tiny hint of fluid around the output VSS sensor so last week I picked one up.

Had a little time this morning and was dreading what I was going to find tackling this on the garage floor.

So I jacked up the truck and popped out the VSS sensor, well I took out the sensor part of it. It was obviously broken at some point before I got the transmission and I neglected to figure this out a while ago.

Here is what I took out.







Got both parts out, cleaned things up, put in the new sender and took the old girl for a spin. Checked it after I got back and it was dry as a bone. Checked it just now, still dry.

Good news all around, the plastic parts I found earlier in the pan, from this sensor. The leak fixed. and all back to normal.

Put a few miles on the truck and the stereo and both worked great!

Looking forward to dinking around with the front brakes when they get here and doing some more tuning with Ron.

He was not feeling well today, hope you feel better buddy.



Sean

[elgemcdlf]

Surprised you had no shifting problems. When the VSS went out on our Blazer it wouldn't shift.

[hackster]

The VSS still was functional....we could see it on the data log, both input and output as we can calculate trans slippage with that..

It just leaked. Once I got it out I was suprised that it worked as well. Kind of funny.

Checked again this morning and it was dry as a bone underneath the truck, on the tranny pan, the cable the VSS sensor and wiring. Pretty sure I got this one sealed up.

Sean

[Bigfreeb]

Sean, reading your posts has inspired me to go with a fuel injected motor in my '68. I scored an '06 front end for $400 and '02 Police interceptor 4.6/trans/PCM/driveshaft/rear diff for $400. I'm looking at the Ron Francis harness for it. I think I will build a fuel tank to use the stock fuel pump in. I need to decide if I should do Aluminum or Stainless for the tank. My plan is to keep all the Ranger chrome and keep the exterior and interior looking stock except for some Cobra R wheels 18's I think. I'm a welder by trade so the fab work shouldn't be to bad, just time and money! Awesome truck keep up the good work.
Shawn

[hackster]

Sean, reading your posts has inspired me to go with a fuel injected motor in my '68. I scored an '06 front end for $400 and '02 Police interceptor 4.6/trans/PCM/driveshaft/rear diff for $400. I'm looking at the Ron Francis harness for it. I think I will build a fuel tank to use the stock fuel pump in. I need to decide if I should do Aluminum or Stainless for the tank. My plan is to keep all the Ranger chrome and keep the exterior and interior looking stock except for some Cobra R wheels 18's I think. I'm a welder by trade so the fab work shouldn't be to bad, just time and money! Awesome truck keep up the good work.
Shawn

That is awesome!! I am thinking about building either another bump side now or a 65 galaxie 500 with a coyote motor and a 6 speed manual. Something that really handles and has some patina, not a rat rod, but just looks a little rough around the edges.

You will love the late model stuff, drivetrain and frontend make is so much nicer to drive.....daily.

This thing generally suprises me each time I drive it. Each little thing I do just makes it better and better to drive.

Good luck on the build, enjoy your time building it and let me know if I can be of any help.

Sean

[Bigfreeb]

Thanks Sean I'm sure I will have some questions at some point!

[hackster]

Finally getting around to finishing up a few things underneath.

Ordered up an ADDCO sway bar and got it unboxed yesterday. I was pretty disspointed with the finish on the bar, it was chipped and scratched up before I even got the bubble wrap off of it. If you look at it wrong the paint just falls of. Seems like for what they charge they could have powdercoated it or something, it is just crappy paint, not even a primer on it or anything.

I guess I will need to pull it out after I get it all installed and get it powdercoated.....just what I was hoping to do with a finished part.

Looks like it will fit, I drilled the holes in the frame yesterday and got it close, I have to put a thin spacer underneath the bar to clear the flexible coupling on the turbo crossover pipe as it just touches the bar at ride height.

I picked up some 1/4" plate and 3/8" plate to build spacers out of today 1.5" wide. It should be about perfect.

Might get it all installed and buttoned up after work tonight.

Sean