So, after a very interesting trip to pick up a 55 Ford C800 Custom Cab I think to myself, what do I do with it? Scrappers took the frame so they just kind of ripped the cab off with chains so it needs a roof and door tops. Otherwise its all there and banged up. Any ideas? I do have an F450 chassis sitting in the backyard from a motor swap. I was thinking find another 7.3 diesel with an E4OD and put it in the chassis. Maybe ramp truck?
Been here, First , the cab can be separated at the cowl , and again at the cab back making a section with the cowl roof and back or cab. and then a 1/2 ton 53-56 cab roof and back section welded in . or you can take the floor and firewall out and graft it to a simularly prepared 1/2 ton cab. The 56 doors with the bottom half of the 55 down coe doors are the same and the width of the 53-56 doors are the same , all you need is the curve out of the cowl and the corresponding door sections. And tops! The dash comes out with the top of the cab or if you go the easy way and just take the bottom of cab and bottom of doors. the swap is easier Don't cut use a special drill for removing spot welds an worthwhile investment. If you make it a 56 you will loose the windshield wiper motor mount , but frankly it sucked anyway ! Or you can drop the sheetmetal off the fire wall and put it back either way . Now as far as FRAME goes . use a 1ton 4wd and make it front drive , then make the back of it a squatter using air bags to raise and lower a torsion axle suspension . There you have it practical available front wheel drive trailer ala f600-750 BiG Steve
Well Steve, looks like ill be taking your approach. Found a nice pretty rust free 53 cab and I plan on splitting the cowl at the factory seams like you said. Also got a pair of junk doors with good tops so Ill just cut the tops off both doors and fix them that way. The door bottoms aren't too bad on the coe doors so they're very fixable. I guess ill be starting pretty soon. Check in for updates.
Buy an old[ish] Isuzu NPR truck and drop the body on that,and build a ramp truck You'll end up with the amazingly reliable 4BD1-T "jap cummins" It would be a better swap than some of these "S-10" swaps I've read about
Well after moving the cab one day, i had a little mishap. When i was lifting the cab, the roof ripped clean off along with the whole back of the cab. Soo... this made me get the cab inside and started working on getting everything back to how it should be. I got what was left of the cab stripped and off of the subframe. Got the subframe inside and bolted down the new cab to the sub rails and started cutting the old cowl out. Yes, i should have braced the body but i wasn't too concerned since i was using factory seams and not cutting where i felt like. So after half a day of drilling out spot welds and grinding pinch welds, i got the old cowl bolted back to the subframe. Had to do a little tweaking but everything fit together perfectly. Then i started tacking and welding down low at the rockers making sure the door jambs were parallel. Then i moved my way up and out to the pinch weld along the front under the hood. Next is to tackle the door and rust repair on the front fenders. Hopefully i can get them straightened out and make the look presentable. Here are the worst spots on the cab and you can see why it failed. The new cab and door. And the mess i had to finish. I ended up welding the cowl seam solid from the outsidebecause it is damn near impossible to weld up inside the cowl with all the bracing.
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