1954 Ford F100/F250 4x4 Tow Vehicle

[Fordman75]

Well after having to do a lot of shoveling this past week I'm seriously considering adding a snow plow to the 54 for the winters. This might be a little more difficult to do because of the tilt front clip. But if I can figure it out I might be able to make some cash plowing driveways in the winter too. Plowing snow with a 54 Ford truck might be kind of cool.

Anyways that will give me a little more to think about over the long cold winter.

[packman]

You're traveling down teh same path that my father did when he used his '53 as a welding rig back in the day. That '53 is probably the reason why he got a lot of his work. Have fun with your '54. Probably won't be too long before you start hot rodding it (like Tom said, box the frame, tub the rear, etc....).



Packman

[Fordman75]

You're traveling down teh same path that my father did when he used his '53 as a welding rig back in the day. That '53 is probably the reason why he got a lot of his work. Have fun with your '54. Probably won't be too long before you start hot rodding it (like Tom said, box the frame, tub the rear, etc....).



Packman

I don't know about it getting me more work. But you never know.

This truck will never go back to a 2wd truck. The cab is just way to modified now. It's getting a strong good sounding 351W with a manual 4spd. That's about the end of the hot rodding with this one. If I want a hot rodded 2wd 50's F100 then I'll pick up another truck to start with.

And as far as boxing the whole frame that causes it's whole new set of headaches. There's a lot of stuff that is going to be bolted to the frame. and if you box the entire frame you need to know the exact location of everything that will be bolted on so you can weld in a blind nut for every bolt to the inside of the frame before you box it. Other wise you need to drill all the way thru the frame and sleeve each bolt. And that's a lot of extra work. More work means more build time. I want to get this done and on the road so I can move on to my next project. I've been itching to get another 65-67 Mustang.

[Fordman75]

I changed my mind again on the chassis. Instead of cutting up the F250 chassis and having to weld it back together and ending up with a super rough riding daily driver I decided to find something a little lighter duty that had the right wheelbase.

After a lot of searching I found the Ford 4x4 with the closest wheelbase that could be bought fairly cheap would be a four door Explorer. The stock F100 is a 110" wheelbase. The Explorer 4dr is 111.5".

The Explorer has a 8.8" rear diff with 31 spline axles. I'm going to go with the first generation Explorer because it's a little stronger front suspension and front diff assembly and it's much easier to swap a 351W into the earlier chassis then it is the second generation. I will probably get a second generation Explorer rear diff and swap it in simply because they've got rear disc brakes and I can grab a complete rear diff for less then $200.

So the new plan is to get an early Explorer 4x4 chassis and swap in the 351W out of my 84 F250. Swap in the NP435 4spd manual transmission and NP205 transfecase out of my old 78 F250. And swap out the Explorer's rear diff for the newer disc brake one. My only concern is the Explorer's front diff ( D35 TTB ) strength. But I figure I'll get it built and on the road and if I grenade the front diff I'll swap in a stronger one.





On a side note I was surfing on amazon.com just looking for parts I still need and came across the Weiand Stealth intake brand new for $158.00 and free shipping. Summit Racing sells the same intake for $200.00 It was just too good of a deal to pass on so I bought one.

[packman]

Nice! I saw a similar chassis swap over a decade ago in Custom & Classic Trucks magazine. I thought it looked wierd at the time because it had smallish all-terrain tires on stock Explorer wheels. But then again, this was the mid to late nineties during the Boyd wheel phase. I'm glad that I didn't have enough money to fix my truck up because I would have wasted it.



Packman

[Fordman75]

Nice! I saw a similar chassis swap over a decade ago in Custom & Classic Trucks magazine. I thought it looked wierd at the time because it had smallish all-terrain tires on stock Explorer wheels. But then again, this was the mid to late nineties during the Boyd wheel phase. I'm glad that I didn't have enough money to fix my truck up because I would have wasted it.



Packman

Well with the way I plan to paint the body I'll probably be running some narrow tires on it. Right now I'm leaning towards some 33"x9.5" BFG AT's on some 15"x7" Steelies ( no caps or trim rings ) . The rims will be painted bright white along with all the emblems and trim parts. There won't be any chrome or bare stainless steel on the truck. It's all getting painted white And the body is going to be the bright Ford blue. It should have a service truck/farm truck type vibe to it.

[Fordman75]

3-23-10: Well my plan to go with an explorer chassis isn't working out. I just don't have the spare cash to buy another donor vehicle.

So I'm going to just have to work with what I've got. I'm going to just use the 84 F250 4x4 chassis and shorten it.

I was going to cut 45" out of the chassis and weld it back together. But I've only got a 110V wire feed welder. And I just don't trust the welder or me to get the job done safely. Now I could pay someone else to do the welding or rent a larger welder. But that means spending money that I don't have. So I decided the best solution would be just do the work and move the axle forward and cut off the extra frame. To do this will me removing 62 rivots and around 20 bolts. So it will take some work to get done.

Today I started out by pulling the chassis off the trailer I had it on. Then I did some measuring to lay out were I'd be moving the axle to.

The picture below shows were I'm moving it to and were I'll be cutting the frame off. The red arrows are where the front spring mount will go. The blue arrows are where the the rear spring/shackle mounts will go. And the green arrow is where the frame will be cut off.





The next picture let's you see just how much frame I'll be cutting off.





Here's a shot from the front.





This shot shows two crossmembers that will be removed and scrapped. Then I will need to move the last three forward along with the upper shock mounts.



Once I get the axle slid forward I can start on mocking up the body and getting it mounted. Slowly getting there.

[Fordman75]

Today's progress: I went to work removing rivots. I started at the front most crossmember that I wanted to remove. I got it pulled and just kept working my way back. I got the rear diff and suspension all removed. I just need to unhook the brake line and it's ready to move forward.

By the time I quit for the day I got 40 of the 62 rivots removed. The remainder are all in the rest of the crossmembers. I'm going to try and get the rest done tomorrow. I also need to get the gas tanks pulled. And if things go good I might cut the back of the frame off too. But I'm going to leave it a little longer then I need it for now.

[Grand Marquis GT]

Ted, you ever have any parts for those dentsides laying around? I may need a couple not easily found in the yards.

[Fordman75]

Ted, you ever have any parts for those dentsides laying around? I may need a couple not easily found in the yards.

Just PM me a list of what you need. You never know I might have them or could get them.

[Fordman75]

I didn't get a whole lot done today. I started by dropping the front gas tank. Then I removed 10 more rivots and removed two more crossmembers ( I still have 10 more rivots to remove, I hate rivots!! :lol: ). After I got the crossmembers out of they way I rolled the rear diff forward. It looks like it should work out fine.










It looks like I should have plenty of clearance between the diff and frame.




Man this thing looks short!

[Grand Marquis GT]

Nice werk! To lower mine out back, i'm thinking about flipping the axle and the leaf spring hangers. I ain't sure yet

[Fordman75]

Nice werk! To lower mine out back, i'm thinking about flipping the axle and the leaf spring hangers. I ain't sure yet

If you do I hope you like removing rivots!!

[87gtVIC]

Keep at it mang!

[P72Ford]

Nice werk! To lower mine out back, i'm thinking about flipping the axle and the leaf spring hangers. I ain't sure yet

Flipping the hangers?

Never heard of that.

An over-under conversion is a good way to drop it 3-4" in the back.