|
OK, with the fenderwells gone and no way of ever going back in, i had to do something with the airbox. Well, the solution is the '86 box! Gets it tucked up over top of the d.side valve cover  Later on i intend to make a snorkel for it that pops thru either the hood or cowl, but for now this will work fine. Then, while i had all that available room, i ditched my manifold for a set of shortys  But that is just one of many problems solved. Take a look at this; i cut the fenders back so much the heater box sticks out!  Since im not a whizz when it comes to bodywork, i ended up cheating, and going this route instead:   ...and a coat of paint. Hopefully it will work out in the long run, we shall see!  From the inside; not much room left for anything!  And the d.side....i had to make a panel to fit around the bulkhead fitting+the ECM connector. Down the road i might move the ECM and re-do this section.   It looks like it sticks out, but youll notice it doesnt actually stick out any further than the firewall, so i think it will clear fine. So, with that done, i could start putting more stuff back under the hood. For starters, here is the new location for my overflow tank, and my remote trans filter:  Got the electric fan reinstalled:  starter relay, mega-fuse for the 3G, and my relay box:  remote reservoir for the steering:  ...and the OBA manifold  This gets the cab 99% done. it runs & drives, so that means i can shift my focus to the back half of the frame. To be continued! Ok, next step: putting my interior in! The F250's harness was unusable (theres way too many differences to be worthwhile), so i had to put the bronco harness in. I took the opportunity to completely delete the ABS, cruise control, emissions & a/c, as well as some of the wiring for the bronco's tailgate.   the hacked-up core support painted black; also the trans & p/s coolers reinstalled  painted my spare grill black, as well as the chrome XLT lights  Now were getting somewhere!  interior coming together   I took both seatbelts apart, to swap my grey belts into the F250's spools since they are not interchangeable.
black dome light!  bronco buckets modified to work in the cab  ...and the interior is 99% done! I even swapped in my power windows & doorlocks  Ok, next up we're headed back under the hood! Ok, before we get carried away let me apologize for the crappy pics; i broke the digicam and didnt get anew one until much later on in the swap so some of the early pics aint so good. Anyways, moving on! Ok, so i got the neighbor to help me get the front clip up on the truck. Well, as it turns out, the bumper that i built around the 3"body lift no longer clears the fender! Well, im not one to sacrifice ground clearance, so i just cut the bottom of the fender off, and whatta ya know, it bolted right on!  Movin on up! Now weve got this  I figured at this point i could put the doors on, and get everything re-aligned  Looks kinda like a truck again, altho nowhere near what it used to be:
So, so previously i had moved the front-most body mount to the top of the frame rails, for tire clearance. Well this time i didnt want to hack up a nice clean core support, so i made a mini-body mount instead The concept:  ...and the finished product:  Ok, so now that the front-clip is firmly set inplace, it was time to move on to the fenderwells. I figured that since i had to cut them up to clear the 42s with 11" of lift, than now that i was down to 8", id have to cut another 3 or so inches out. Well, i was pretty close. Take a look at this:  Not even close to fitting!  But, it helped me to figure out just where i needed to cut, so i made the first rough cut:  I also starting trimming the core support back a bit  Ok, so the next step was to make tabs, so i could weld the two halves of the fender back together   To say im 'trimming' the fenders is an understatement! So with that done, i yanked the clip again, and get all the tabs bent over to begin the welding  Bushwacker's aint got nothin on me!  Cut back so far the badge will have to be moved!  Ok, to the driveway! Now, i dont own a mig or tig, so i had to do this the only way i could....with 1/16 6013 rod:  Wasnt real pretty, but it got the job done  So then i grabbed a couple cans of paint, and rattled it one color so it didnt look so damn bad  ...and the 'finished' product, reinstalled on the truck:  From there i rattled the rest of it, so now i have a single-color cab again! Stay tuned because theres more coming! Ok, Phase Two. I need a cab! Im not into being exposed to the elements 24/7, nor do i have any place indoors to store this thing, so building a buggy is out. Im not really into the Ranger cab idea (not yet, anyway), and i got this for free, so this is what im running!  1990 F250, 2wd, 302, 5spd. The wiring harness couldnt possibly be any more different from mine than it already is! So, the red interior and the wiring harness has got to go, so i stripped this one down to bare metal, too.
Ok, so now, i need to get this thing from this frame, over to mine. Well, with it stripped down this far, two of us were able to pick it up, carry it over, and set it down right where it needed to go! So that gets us here:
So while the a-pillar body mount bolts right up, the b-pillar mount does not. On the broncos the mount is outboarded, but on the f-series it is inboarded. I considered making the stock F-series xmember work, but decided it would require too much work to adapt it, so instead i just made a whole new one. After taking a whole bunch of measurements a whole bunch of times, i ended up with this:
I removed the stock body mount bracket, drilled the holes out to 1/2", and bolted it up in the same spot
So this gets the cab right at stock height. Thats right, i ditched the 3" body lift that ive had for years now. So the cab is officially bolted to the frame!  Stay tuned, more coming! Well, with FSB's NE Chapter's trail ride only 3 weeks away, i figure now is a good time to spill the beans, since everyone's gonna find out soon anyway. I might have accidentally chopped up my bronco! Ok, so it goes like this. Pay attention! This is gonna be a long one :toothless Started out back in July with this:  thats typical of every panel. Not quite as smashed up as some other rigs ive seen, but close. The only thing left straight was the cowl! I found tears in the firewall, and even all the seams in the b-pillar were split open. It was pretty ugly. I decided she was worth giving a facelift, so here we go! Step One: Disassembly I swapped down to the 31s; its easier to work on it this way, even if it looks ridiculous  Started labeling wires, and then began removing the accessories
the poor man's rock sliders  ...and then the interior!
 mah bro takin a sawzall to the roof!  Convertible?  Truggy?  parts truck?  More coming, dont go anywhere! |
