I created this thread on the main forum several months ago, but it was deleted due to the OT stuff on my truck, understandably so. Even though the truck will be HAMB friendly in appearance, the chassis and powertrain are modern OT stuff that doesn't fit the HAMB. Glad to have this OT section to share progress. I'll start with some basics for this first post, and then I'll edit and update as progress and time allows. I had a '56 F100 several years ago, it was my daily driver and a great little truck. I sold it in 2011 and have hated myself everyday since. None of the cars I built or owned since that truck have replicated that feeling I had in the '56, so I decided to get rid of every project and focus on starting on another '56. I could not buy an already built '56 with all of the stuff I wanted, so in 2020 I picked up a rusty '56 cab, started cutting away the bad metal and buying repro repair panels. I got sidetracked with an LS swapped Nitrous S-10 pickup I wanted to throw together to flip and put those profits into the '56 build. After the S10 was done, I stumbled on another, more complete '56 roller, and decided to proceed with that body instead of the other one. This was my old '56 daily driven cruiser... Picked up this cab and 3 doors... Starting the tear down with some background easter eggs... Roof skin was wasted, but the drip rails and inner structure was actually pretty nice... Completely stripped down... I had a plan in my head. I had done my research over the years and knew exactly what I wanted out of this truck.... Classic styling with modern performance and reliability. I pulled the cab and front sheet metal off the chassis, and then sold the chassis to get it out of my side yard. The chassis was stick welded in the 70's by a hack who put '70 Chevelle front clip and rear axle and the SBC/400 was locked up tight. In hindsight I should have kept that chassis to put the other cab on to make it easier to sell, but I needed the space. The new project truck... 70's homebuilt "show truck" according to previous owner... Remove the cab from that garbage chassis... Said garbage... Mocked up on floor... Moving on, I waited around for the right deal on a donor chassis. I wanted a 1998-newer Ford Ranger Single Cab Short Bed 2WD Chassis. The main reasons for this was the 111.6" Wheelbase is 1.6" longer than the original F100's 110" wheelbase, which centers the front wheel in the wheel opening. Also, the Explorer 8.8" rear axle is a direct bolt in. Yes the Explorer chassis would work as well, but they have more stuff on the chassis to remove for the suspension I wanted to use and they are also harder to come across with low miles. These Ranger chassis also have the small Ford wheel bolt pattern, front disc brakes, rack & pinion steering, upper & lower control arms, and partially boxed frame rails. I don't like the Mustang II stuff, as you never know when that company changes suppliers or design or goes out of business, so finding a replacement bushing or ball joint could be a pain in the ass in the future. I wanted to be able to run to any parts store and grab what I needed for a repair. So I found a 2011 Ranger being parted out locally. It had 66k miles, and the guy wanted the engine and trans for his Ranger and was letting go of the rest. I brought it home, stripped the cab and bed off, and let some metal scrapper/tweaker I found on FB Marketplace come get it out of my driveway. I soaked and pressure washed the chassis so it was now spotless and I could start the actual build.... Donor Ranger... Pressure washing... More to come later.
Waiting to watch your progress. Feel free to show anything you want. Modernizing and up grading is what true “hot rodding” has always been since a guy put a 2 barrel carb on his 32-33 Ford V8. I understand what the HAMB is and I’m glad to have it; but having this OT spot is also great!
Looks like a cool project and I am following along. I started building a 56 more than 30 years ago and thankfully didn't make it very far since I would have likely ruined it at the time. I also had a 55 that I drove for a while. Love these F100's.
So after getting the chassis cleaned up and eye balling everything, I started first with an Explorer 8.8" rear I picked up in Feb 2021, right when the big week long snowpocalypse hit Texas. I put my little Tacoma into 4-HI and braved the iced over roads for 75 miles to get that damn rear axle. Can't pass up a deal! The rear is a 3.73:1 Limited Slip with 31-spline axles and disc brakes. I pulled the carrier to inspect the gear set, replaced the seal, upgraded the carrier cap studs to Mosers, replaced the axle seals, and pressed in longer wheel studs from Moser. I installed a girdle cover, cleaned up the housing and painted it, and put all new brake rotors, calipers, and pads. I had to do some figuring out cross referencing various hoses to find out what would work between Explorer and Ranger stuff, but it was easy to replace the 3 hoses, and also got 2 new parking brake cables. I got the axle assembled and painted and moved on to the leaf spring bushings and refinishing/painting the leafs and then added new heavy duty U-Bolts from Barnes 4WD since the Explorer axle is a spring over setup and the Ranger was a spring under. Since I didn't have the body mocked up, I didn't know the ride height yet, so I didn't do any suspension modifications. Just flipping the axle over on top of the springs made for a 4.5" drop out back. I picked up a set of SVE 15x10 wheels with 275/60-15 Mickey Thompson Drag Radials. The tires are worn, but this allowed for clearance mockups since this will be one of the many different wheel & tire combinations I have for this truck... Moving on to the engine... I put this 5.3 LM7 LS engine together in 2017 for one of my Foxbody cars. I copied every part from a recipe that made 670hp to the rear tire in a foxbody and ran mid 9's and trapped over 145mph in a heavier car. Long story short, my car didn't get built due to the lake flooding my house, moving to a new house, and then the virus, but I kept the engine with plans to put it into something else. I set the engine into the chassis as far back and low as I could get away with, but also keeping the bottom of the trans pan high up enough away from the ground. The engine is offset to the passenger side 1.5" to gain some steering shaft clearance, but this also works because the Explorer 8.8" pinion is also offset to the passenger side. The engine uses a Holley "Muscle Car" oil pan kit and has clearance for days. I could go lower, but the headers really start to interfere with the upper control arm mounts. I had to trim the top of the passenger side upper control arm rear most mount to clear the stainless shorty headers. Right now the truck is being built without a power adder. But I do have all of the components to install a single 78mm billet turbocharger, as well as water/methanol injection system, and some nitrous to help with launch. The transmission is 4L80E that a friend gave me. It was in a truck that caught fire, but there is no damage to the transmission other than the plastic shifter control and wire harness got cooked. I put a Trans Go HD2 shift kit in it as well as a Circle D torque converter, and purchased a new internal wiring harness and neutral safety switch. I played around with different transmission mount ideas, but was having issues with exhaust routing, so I made up a simple mount for it just so I could move on, but have since decided to modify a Hurst 2nd Gen Camaro transmission mount I got from Holley's website on a major clearance sale. Speaking of Holley, the engine and transmission will be controlled via Holley Terminator X-Max EFI System that I picked up at Summit Racing in Arlington, TX. While I was up there I also bought some new reproduction running boards, and other misc parts. More to come...
Getting the cab onto the frame by myself was a real chore. I braced the cab and cut out the butchered and rusted firewall and toe boards, then shed the doors to lighten it up. I slid the cab over the frame rails using ratchet straps as handles. I got the cab roughly mocked into position, then had to start fitting the front sheet metal so I could make sure the cab was in the right spot. The front clip was welded together by the same hack that did the frame rails, probably sometime in the mid 70's before I was born. They didn't set the hood to fender gaps properly and had used some thick ass angle iron as pivot points. They also sliced the rear parts of the fenders, like so many do. I hate that look. After mocking up the front sheet metal for cab placement, and I got it looking decent, so I triple measured everything and tacked some bracing into place to keep the cab in position. I then started on replacing the rocker panel and front floor section on the drivers side. Since I have to build custom cab mounts to put this old wide cab on this narrow ranger chassis, I couldn't come up with a good design. I mocked up several sections of various square and rectangle tubing, round tubing, different angles and approaches and I just couldn't make sense of it, so I stopped thinking about it and moved on to something else. New drivers side rocker panel and lower cowl side The bed I got is a '57+ bed, so the fenders are mounted 1.5" higher than '53-'56 trucks. No biggie, measure 1.5" down and re drill the holes. I also had to radius the bed sides to clear the wide tires. I then took measurements from a stock survivor '56 F100 to get the bed height as close to original as I could. You see, there's these vertical ribs on the back of the cab, and it seems everyone just puts the bed wherever they want. Sometimes you can't see the ribs, sometimes you can. Using that survivor as a reference, or to at least to get me close, the tops of the cab ribs should pretty much be flush with the top of the front bed rail. I then played with the angle of the bed, making sure it had a nice clean and even gap between the back of the cab. I had to raise the bed up off of the chassis to get those angles and gaps right. After getting the bed into position, I picked up some '67-'72 GM Truck rear inner wheel tubs at a local swap meet. They were in great shape and I liked the angled look of them over a more circular radius, plus they were cheap. I sectioned 7" out of the middle of them, and welded them back together. I had to trim the new profile of these tubs to the bed sides, and then test fit them. They turned out perfect. I then realized the truck sat up too high. I didn't want to channel the cab, and I didn't want a shallow bed floor. I knew I was probably going to have to lower it more, but now I was sure of it. I picked up some Viking Double Adjustable coilovers, fit them to the stock lower control arms, and it dropped the truck down 4" up front. I then flipped the rear shackle hangers, which is pretty simple to do on these chassis, and that got me down another 1.5" out back. The ride height is close, but not spot on, it needs to go down another inch up front, but I have a plan for that yet to come... More to come...
If you want you can easily replace the flat face u-joint flange on the dif. I replace mine with one from Art Morrison for a 50 series u joint.
Moving on, I then got to start the bed sub floor. I used 1x1" steel square tubing and got it all laid out and tacked together. It's not done, but rough mocked in right now. My plan is to build the floor on top of this using aluminum tubing and sheet. The aluminum floor will be hinged at the front of the bed allowing access to a hidden tool/gear compartment under the floor between the rear of the rails. This will also allow easy access to the fuel pump, and rear suspension. Lots of mocking up and thinking, but no progress has been made on that since then. Since I had the bed position sorted, I needed to get back to the cab fitment, but I felt in order to do so, I needed to hang the front sheet metal. Getting it on & off by myself is not easy, so I made some temporary hinges/pivots. Its surprisingly easy to flip up forward and I'm thinking about fine tuning this setup and running with it. We're pretty much up to date from this point on. A few weeks ago I got some rear fender patch panels for the front bottom sections that are always rusted or beat to shit since the running boards mount to the fenders at the point. Let me tell you, these patch panels fit like total shit. I have 3 evenings into the driver side alone and still haven't even metal finished it. I'm not looking forward to the other side. At the same swap meet I got the inner wheel tubs from, I also scored this set of aftermarket steelies with basically new radial tires. I'm going to swap this set of tires to another set of '64 Galaxie 15" steelies I have. I then got a pair of SVE 15" skinny front wheels that match the rears with brand new radials. My plan is to have 4 different wheel & tire combinations... #1. Modern Drag SVE Wheels, #2. 15" Aftermarket Steelies with full hubcaps and WWW tires, #3. Galaxie 15" Steelies with blackwall radials and '57 Ford Poverty caps, and finally #4. A set of 15" American Racing 200S "Daisy" or "Coke Bottle" wheels with big & littles. I want the truck to be able to morph into different eras by only a simple tire & wheel swap. I had a 4 day weekend over Memorial Day holiday so after a few days at the ranch mowing and clearing brush and filling feeders and shooting targets I found a set of front & rear fenders for a deal in San Antonio. I snatched them up on my eay back home thinking I'd use these front fenders rather than trying to scab in the sliced front fenders I currently have. I am undecided on this. Then I traded the red rear fenders I just got for another hood. Same situation...I could potentially put the front end back together like stock, or stay with the tilt....decisions, decisions... Back tracking 2 weeks, I got a wild hair up my ass and bought a Model A rolling chassis up near Weatherford and also made a deal on the same trip to loop around to Stephenville to pick up 5 more doors. My original blue doors are ok, but need lower patches which I have but haven't gotten around to installing as of yet, and I already have 3 other doors with the yellow cab I originally started with, so now I have options. I'll use the best of the 10 doors I have on this truck. Note the decal on my trailer....always representin'... Then another Model A rolling project appeared in my back yard! WTF! They are multiplying!! Gotta stay focused on the F-100, so those A's will hang around the back yard with the yellow '56 F100 cab for a while. This week I started fitting the front cab mount after work. I used 1.625" Tubing and some 1/4" thick plates to create this one. It's got a few short stitch welds and it's super strong already. I'll do the finish welding when I take the cab back off for paint. It'll be fun to try to match the other side, but I have patience. I have 1.75" rock sliders on my Tacoma using the same basic attachment to the frame and have bashed them on rocks a lot over the last 10 or so years. I can pick up the side of my Tacoma with a forklift on the rock sliders and they don't deflect even 1/8". Today after work I scored a hell of a deal on an original '56 seat. It's been recovered, but was in a high end restoration turned restomod that the owner switched to bucket seats. I had to throw it into the cab the moment I got home so I could finally sit in my truck and make vroom vroom noises!! We're now current and I'll update here as progress continues. Stay tuned...
Update: My garage is an oven during the summer, so I haven't made any real progress since early June other than a few hours one evening in July when a thunderstorm blew the hot air out of the area for a bit and I got the driver side rocker sorted. Since then, nothing. I just walk by my truck everyday and feel bummed out as the hot air drains the life out of me and I hide inside the air conditioned house. Now that the temps are no longer above 100F outside, which means my garage wasn't 96F inside yesterday (only 86F), and the recent thread on the HAMB about stalled projects, it kind of prompted me to get off my ass and get back to work. I spent a couple of hours on the passenger side front & rear cab mounts. Making it as close to a mirror of the drivers side mount I made isn't hard, just time consuming to get the angles right. The plates are located with tek screws until I get the round tubing pieces fit and then fully weld everything and plug weld the holes where the tek screws are. I should have it wrapped up this evening, and then move on to the passenger floor pan & rocker this weekend. That's all for now.
Update: This weekend I got the passenger front & rear cab mounts fit up and into position. Not fully welded as I'll do that when the cab comes back off the chassis so I don't have to lay on my back. With the cab now perfectly square, plumb, and level I braced the passenger side door opening and proceeded to cut out the rocker panel. There's a bit more trimming to do here before fitting the new rocker into place. The passenger floor pan section will need to be trimmed after the rocker is roughed in. It's just time consuming tedious BS. I also finally stripped the interior completely out. The "customizer" back in the 70's used flat head screws and oddball sized fasteners on all the underdash BS he had in there as well as all of the scrap wood he used as headliner panels that were covered in mobile home shag carpet. That was a chore, but it's now gutted inside. On Sunday I picked up a US Body fiberglass 1-piece tilt front end that was previously mocked up, but the truck was never finished and eventually parted out. I got it cheap with all of the brackets and pieces. This is a $2400 front clip before freight, so I got it for a song. Now I have this fiberglass 1-piece front end, a steel 1-piece front end, as well as a front end comprising of original individual pieces... I need to make a decision on what front end to use. I'm really thinking the fiberglass tilt is the way. I also spoke with the dustless blaster about what I want done and we scheduled for him to come by to take a peek and give me an estimate on the 16th. I spoke with a friend who does paint and body, and he recommended a local supply store and gave me some good info on what products to use. I'll be doing some more homework on that before ordering the materials and primer and what not, as I'll need to get the bare metal into primer quite quickly after blasting. That's all for now, I'll edit and add a few photos this evening as the ones I took over the weekend are blurry.
Slacking on the photos, but I spent some time last week working on the truck since I was technically on vacation for a week. Lot's of tinkering and planning, some fabrication, some test fitting, etc. I've started building a simple somersault-type rotisserie for the cab, just need to button it up and test it out. This is a 1-time use thing, so it's minimal effort and minimal cost. 2x6's and a pair of cheap china trailer spindles/hubs. Met with the media blaster guy, he's a gearhead and a nice guy. I'll be scheduling the blasting with him in the near future, I just need to finish up some metal work details before it's 100% ready for stripping. Started fitting drivers side firewall/toe board. Had to do some trimming here and there to clear the engine setback, but it went in pretty good and fits the cab and new floor pan quite well. I'm just using tek screws to hold it in place for now, as I'll be pulling the firewall back out before media blasting so he can get the backside of the dash and underside of the cowl. Gotta fit the passenger side, then figure out how I'm going to build the recessed center. I got the brake pedal assembly and booster mocked on the firewall to check for position and clearances around a temporary universal floor shift tilt column. This pedal, MC, and booster are from a '99 Mustang automatic. I ordered a new master cylinder, rotors, pads, hoses, brake light switch, and I found new pre-bent front brake lines to replace one of the lines I had to cut out of the ABS module since the nut was stripped. I recently discovered that when my storage unit was broken into back in 2020, the only thing the thieves made out with other than my Lincoln 180C Welder was my double flaring tool. The cost of the 3-piece brake line kit was less than purchasing a decent flaring tool and I won't have to remember to put the nut on before flaring the end. I'm going to pick up a Galaxie column with shifter from my dad so I'll finalize the positions of the column/pedal hanger once I have it in hand. I bought new upper and lower control arms from a guy on FB marketplace. This is brand new OEM Ford stuff I scored for the cost of chinese stuff. I proceeded to modify the lower control arms by cutting out the coil spring pocket/shock mount and welded in a pair of coil over mount plates from Speedway. It took a lot of measuring and grinding to get the coil over mount to sit perfectly into the control arm, and then make the other side match. This will not only strengthen the lower control arm coil over mount, but this will also allow for another 1" drop up front, which I need so I can put some preload on the Viking DA coil overs. I'm waiting on some taller upper control arm mounts and hardware that raise the upper arm to help with ball joint angle, but I can also weld them to the frame out another 1/2" or so to help with caster angles. I'll try to get more photos uploaded as I go, I know I said that in the last update, but when I'm in the garage I always forget to take pictures because idiot.
Small updates... I built a 2"x4" rear crossmember with a 2" receiver tube, trimmed the rear frame rail ends, and got the crossmember fully welded inside & out. It's super stout. I was originally going to step notch the chassis out back, but decided to use the hardcore 1/4" thick bolt-in C-notch from Ricks Rangers. This was due to the uneven design of the stock frame rails and the amount of work involved in building a proper step notch that fit well and remained strong. The bolt-in notch was very simple, and I even stitch welded it in areas to further strengthen it. I've got the drivers side done, but I have to move the truck over to make room in the garage to get the passenger side done. That'll happen this week. I've been struggling with the idea of having the truck naturally aspirated or boosted. This engine was originally put together for a turbocharger in the last vehicle, but I was leaning towards going to NA just to simplify the build timeline and budget on this one. On a whim, I decided to order a single turbo log manifold for a test fit. I assumed it wouldn't fit at all, and I'd just continue in the NA direction, and return the log manifold for a refund. Well, it fit better than the passenger side stainless header! Well shit, now I'm heading down that path... So last week I ordered the 2.25" stainless steel exhaust tubing, reducers, and V-Bands to build the crossover pipe, and today I ordered the new billet turbocharger. I already have a new wastegate, intercooler, cold side piping, etc. leftover from the previous set up. The bummer about now running the turbocharger is that I'll have to change my exhaust system. I have all new 3" stainless exhaust tubing, mufflers, etc. that was put together to achieve a very specific naturally aspirated sound with true duals, x-pipe, etc. Well, most of this stuff won't work with the single outlet turbocharger set up, so I'm going to have to change my plans with that. Also, I have real estate issues with the dual 3" pipes going over the axle on the passenger side (since the Ranger fuel tank is on the drivers side) and the shocks...so I'll likely run a single into dual Y-Pipe, through resonators, and dump them both out of the passenger side before the rear tire. With the turbo noises this thing will be making, I'm not so worried about having that specific exhaust note anymore. More to come...
Progress is slow because I'm A.D.D. and I bounce around the whole truck with new ideas and new parts and it takes forever to finish each little project. With the recent commitment to turbocharge, the bank account is not happy with all of the changes. Plus, I'm trying to balance weekends on the truck and weekends at the ranch with the upcoming whitetail season. One piece at a time!
That’s pretty much me to a T. I am watching my daughter as we are in a thrash to finish her house before the wedding and she is exactly the same….she mentioned it the other day. I guess it’s genetic.
On that C-notch, how much clearance do you have between the top of the axle tube and top of the notch? In the picture its hard to tell. Are you going to add a stop bumper? Whats your plan for rear shocks. I have a project with an earlier ranger frame and the identical rear axle and spring setup.
At ride height, there is about 5" of clearance between the axle and the bottom of the step notch. This is with the overload springs removed, flipped shackles, and the 8.8" axle on top of the springs. Without the notch, the frame was about .5" from hitting the axle with basically nothing in the bed, no rear bumper, no bed floor etc. Likely will have about 4" of up travel out back after it's in full street weight. My plan for rear shocks has been stalled over and over again, but I should have it sorted this weekend. I held off on building the rear upper shock crossmember because I wanted to notch the frame first and see how everything fit with shocks/bed floor/sway bar/exhaust, etc. I could use the stock upper shock mounts and build lowers on the axle and use a stock type shock, but I want adjustable shocks, so I'll be using a set of Calvert 9-Way Adjustable Shocks on a custom tubular upper crossmember. With the adjustable shocks I can control the compression, so I'm not worried about the 4" of up travel. I do plan to add bump stops, nothing fancy, just whatever I can make fit.
Turbocharger came in, I had to toss it on the manifold to get the creative juices flowing and start planning wastegate placement, downpipe routing, oil feed/return routing, etc. I might buy a T4 inlet adapter/spacer to kick the turbo away from the engine a little more so I can stuff an AC compressor in there and have more room for a wastegate. Might have to change water pumps to make that all happen too, no big deal. Last night I fired up the cheap chinese TIG welder I bought 6 months ago. I haven't practiced in 5.5 months and even back then that was only about 2 hours worth of practice welding. I said to hell with it, and went straight to welding the stainless V-Band flange on the drivers side stainless header, as well as tacking the 2.5" to 2.25" stainless reducer cone into the other V-Band flange. For my first real TIG weld, I'm not mad. It'll hold, and I'm sure I'll get better at it as time goes on.
Similar situation but hadn't thought about an adjustable shock. The originals where mounted on an angle with one going forward and one back. Thought about a new cross member with the top of the shocks attached closer to the center and angling down and out towards the axle. Also was thinking of the bottom of the shock attaching to the leaf spring plates like they are on the Explorer. Interested in seeing what you come up with.
Well, I did some researching, thinking, and measuring on Friday evening and went ahead and pulled the trigger on a pair of Calvert Racing 9-Way Adjustable Rear Drag Shocks. Ordered them through Summit Racing, and they were on my doorstep by noon the next day. I got these to see how they'd fit the stock upper shock mounts before I committed to building a custom tubular upper shock crossmember. Saturday was spent doing house chores and the evening was spent at the drag strip. So on Sunday morning I popped out of bed and threw the shocks on the stock upper mounts to see if they'd work out. Well, they did. I went ahead and dug up the old rear sway bar that came with the Explorer 8.8" rear axle to see if it would work as well. I won't spend any time fabricating anything to make it work, but if it'll bolt in easily, I'll give it a shot. Well, it fit good too, I just need to pick up some new end links, and drill a hole in the frame rail to attach. Anyway, I used the lower shock mount brackets that came with the shock crossmember kit from Thor Bros, got them lined up and in position, and welded to the rear axle tubes. Jumped on the rear crossmember to make sure everything clears and no binding, and I think that'll wrap that part up. Next update is some exhaust stuff...
Looks good. I was thinking of doing the same thing but it looked like the ds shock would interfere with the sway bar. It looks like those mounts move the end down far enough to clear it. What part# shocks did you order? Did you just attach the lower mount so that it was in the center of the shock travel? BTW if you want to ditch the electronic pickup in the top of the case you can get a 13/16 expansion plug (Dorman part# 555-013) to fill the hole. I have the same style rear cover and moved the id tag to under the bolt that held the sensor in place.
Yes, the lower shock mounts put the bottom of the shock a good distance from the housing, so no issue with the Explorer sway bar. The shocks are CR22116 rated for 13"-13.5" ride height. I preloaded the chassis with another inch of compression by way of ratchet straps, and set the shocks up at 14.5" ride height. This was due to the actual stroke of the shock being 5.96" and I wanted ride height to live in the middle, which was 14.5". The lower mounts are part of the universal rear shock crossmember kit I got from thorbros.com, they are beefy 1/4" plates and are made for 3.25" Explorer 8.8 tubes. I didn't realize that the upper shock mounts are not the same distance from the centerline of the axle housing, but not by much. One side of the lower mounts is set at 23-degrees and one is set at 28-degrees angle in order for both shocks to remain at 14.5" ride height. Now that the shocks are done, I'm plotting the exhaust system routing. Thanks for that tip. I kept the pickup sender there so if theres a chance I can utilize it for wheel speed sensor/traction control or something, but I may plug it up if I cant use it.
Some more progress was made over the weekend. I had originally planned to sit in a tower stand all weekend for our whitetail season opening weekend, but the forecast called for some serious rain out there, so I saved myself the 8 hour round trip and stayed home to get some work done on the truck. I reinforced the rear leaf spring/shackle mounts by making 1/4" thick steel plates to bolt to the insides of the frame rails, basically sandwiching the frame between the plates and the rear shackle mounts. I built a 1.625" round tube mid/rear crossmember and trimmed off the remnants of the original stamped crossmember/spare tire mount. This tube crossmember goes through both frame rails, welded inside & out, as well as plug welded from the tops of the frame rails. I got the passenger side C-Notch fully installed, welded, and primed. It's amazing how much faster it goes the 2nd time around. It literally took less than an hour, and that was with waiting for primer and paint to dry. During the install of the C-Notch I realized that the Explorer rear sway bar would make contact after 2" of compression. I'll have to rework the rear parts of the C-Notch to fit, which isn't all that difficult, but frankly, I'm done messing with that and need to move on. I removed the rear sway bar, and may or may not mess with fitting it another time, depending if I feel it would actually benefit from having it installed. While I had the bed off, I finally removed the '57+ side steps, did some hammer & dolly work on the drivers fender. I put the bed back on and am rethinking a better bed-to-frame mounting method, as I'm just not satisfied with the current version. With the bed on, this is the first time I could test fit my running boards...they fit perfect. I couldn't be happier to finally see the truck at ride height with the running boards. Even though I can only view it at shitty angles inside my jam-packed 2 car garage, it gives me even more motivation to keep trucking along. On to some exhaust work... It'll be a single 3" exhaust out of the turbo, but getting it over the axle and out the back, well, it'll be easy, but I don't want a single tailpipe. I'd prefer the look of duals out the back, but there's simply no room for dual 3". A friend recently gave me an over-the-axle section of an aftermarket exhaust system for a newer F150, since I have a newer F150 he thought I might want to have it, I told him I'd likely cut it up to use it on my F-100 instead. Basically it's a single 3" into dual 2.5" all stainless steel with a small resonator. It doesn't fit worth a shit and the angles are all wrong and the bends are all wrong. So, I spent about 2 hours trimming it down and repositioning the dual 2.5" tubes to fit better with my TIG. I still need some more 2.5" tubing to lengthen the sections over the axle for more 3rd member/shock clearance, but the plan is to add dual tailpipes out the back, not sure if I'll step up to 3" tailpipe after the axle or keep it 2.5". That's all for now, shitty photos to come, minus the exhaust stuff because I was too worn out to take photos.
The Jalopy Journal
