1954 Ford F100/F250 4x4 Tow Vehicle

[Grand Marquis GT]

Nice progress, Ted!

[Fordman75]

Well I've had a bunch of crap going on so I haven't had a chance to work on the 54 until today. I dragged the cab back out of my garage. I cut the firewall recess and transmission tunnel out of the 87 F350 when I was stripping it down. I'm going to use it and cut out the 78 tunnel I welded in. I'm going to work on that in a few days.



Then I pulled out the rear diamond plate panels I made last year and checked their fit again. I think the driver side one should be ok. But I'm going to have to make another one for the passenger side. It's got a huge gap at the bottom and I don't want to just fill it with weld. It looks bad enough the way it is. :lol:









Next I cut out the cross brace I had in the cab. I didn't want to pull it until I had the front floors in but it was in my way. So I cut it out with my 4" grinder with a cut off wheel. After the brace was cut out I ground down the welds that were left.






Last summer or fall I removed the original cab mounts and all the braces in the kick panel areas. This was what I was left with.







My plan to take care of this is to weld in some 10 gauge steel plate. This will add strength and give me something solid to weld the front floors and the replacement front cab mount braces to. So I grabbed a couple sheets of tag board/poster board (whatever you want to call it ) and made a couple templates. I transferred the templates onto a 2' x 4' sheet of 10 gauge steel. Then I cut it out with a jigsaw. Cutting 10 gauge steel with a jigsaw takes forever! :black_eye: :mat: I'm going to cut some windows out of these plates so I can get into the areas if I need to. I'll add some trim pieces to cover the holes. I had to cut a big notch out of the passenger side plate to clear the fresh air vent for the heater.






I took the driver side plate did some test fitting, some grinding, a little cutting and got it to pretty much fit. I had to cut a slit in the cab just below the hood hinge mounts so I could get the plate to sit flat. Luckily I don't need no stinkin hood hinges! :lol: I still need to do a little more grinding on the plate to get a good fit. I'm going to do that tomorrow. I'll get the passenger side to fit good also then I'll cut the centers out of them for my access holes and then weld them in.

[Fordman75]

Today I did a little more grinding to get to get the plate to fit better. I also figured out what size access hole I wanted in the panel. I marked it out, and clamped it down on top of a piece of 2"x6" on the back of my trailer. I drilled some holes in the panel and then cut it out.



After I got it cut out I cleaned up the cuts a little. Then I installed it back in the cab.



I also noticed something today. There is a slight curve to the inside shape of the door post. So I'm going to have to weld in some more metal to fill in gap.



Now that I had a hole in the plate I decided I should work on the cover for it. Any guesses what I used to make the cover? Can you say diamond plate. I had some left over 16 gauge diamond plate so I used it. I made up a template then transferred it onto the diamond plate. Then I cut it out. I think it turned out ok. I still need to drill some holes in the diamond plate and the 10 gauge plate and weld some nuts on the back of the 10 gauge steel plate. Then I can finally weld the plate in place.





I also did a little more work on the passenger side plate but still needs more work to get it to fit decent.

It's going a lot slower then I'd like.

[Fordman75]

Today went ok, almost.

I started by figuring out were I wanted to locate the mounting bolts for the diamond plate cover. Then I marked them and drilled out the holes. Like everything else I do it's a little over kill. I used 10 3/8" button head bolts. They are definitely bigger then what I needed and I used more then I needed. But I had these left over from when I was working on my original F100 frame. That saves me a little cash. Once I drilled all the holes in the panels ( I love my new stepped drill bits! ) , I bolted the two plates together. Then I checked again to make sure everything still fit in the cab. Everything fits good so all I have to do is weld the nuts on the back of the 10 gauge plate and the plate will be ready to weld to the cab.







Next I pulled my template back out for the passenger side plate so I could figure out where to locate the access holes. And this is where I made the big screw up today. When I positioned the lower access hole I completely forgot about the passenger side front cab mount bracket. I didn't realize I did this until I had already marked out the panel and cut the holes out. I had the plate back in place on the cab and was working on a template for the diamond plate cover. That's when I figured out my screw up. I tried the cab mount bracket and you guessed it sits right on the lower corner of the access hole. So now I'm going to have to cut a piece of 10 gauge steel and weld it back into position. This is the point I got mad at myself and decided it was time to quit for the day before I screwed up something else!

[Fordman75]

Well after a bunch more delays I finally got some work done on the 54.

First I cut a strip of 10 gauge steel to build up the low on the interior side of the front door jamb. Next I welded the strip on. Don't laugh at my welds! I hadn't welded anything since last fall. And welding 10 gauge to the thinner metal wasn't real easy.





I took the grinder to the bird poo welds and cleaned it up pretty good.

Next I needed to weld the nuts on the back side of the kick panel plate. I had to figure out a way to weld the nuts to the plate without messing up the threads. In the past I was told to use some grease but I remembered I had some tip gel for my welder. It's suppose to keep slag/ splatter from sticking to the tips. So I put some of the tip gel on the threads of each bolt. I then put 6 washers on each bolt. Doing this kept the end of the bolts flush with the nuts so there were no exposed threads. After I had all the bolts on the panel and had them all tight I put a little more tip gel on top of each nut. After that I clamped the panel down onto a couple jack stands and welded each nut to the panel. The tip gel worked great all the bolts came right out. Grease would have probably worked just as well since the tip gel just seemed to be thick grease. After the panel cooled down I cleaned it up then sprayed it with a coat of weld-thru primer.





While I was letting the primer dry I decided to repair the mistake I made the last time I worked on the 54. I cut out a piece of 10 gauge steel and beveled the edges where I was going to weld. I also beveled the weld areas on the passenger side kick panel plate where I was going to weld the patch in.

Next I clamped the panel onto a couple jack stands and welded the patch in on the one side. Then I flipped the panel and welded the other side. Then I took the grinder to it to clean up the welds.





After the panel cooled down I sprayed the bare metal with some primer to slow down the rusting.





Now it was time to weld in the driver side kick panel plate. I clamped the panel in place. I did a few tack welds, pulled the clamps and welded it in. I didn't weld it at the firewall or where it met the outer cowl area because I need to do some repairs to those areas first. Then it was grinder time. Cleaned up the welds. It still needs a little work but doesn't look too bad.








Here's a few shots of it primed and with the diamond plate cover.









Next on the list was to do some trimming to the new firewall recess/transmission tunnel. I got it where I want it for now. I need to add a 2" strip of metal to the firewall recess where it meets the firewall. That's just to make sure the recess is deep enough.







By the time I got this far I was beat! And the sun was setting so I cleaned up my mess and called it quits for today.

[Fordman75]

Today I decided to work on a different area of the cab just for a break from the floor/structure.

I decided to drill a couple holes to mount a couple gauges in the dash. I was going to mount them both to the right of the instrument cluster but I ended up going with one gauge on each side of the intrument cluster. I just liked the way this looks better. I took a few measurements and then used my 2 5/8" hole saw to drill two holes in the dash.



Then I test fit the gauges. I think it'll work out ok.





Next I cut out a piece of aluminum to use for the instrument cluster. Did some test fitting made some minor adjustments more test fitting. Finally I was pretty happy with the fit.





I then moved back to working on the firewall recess/ transmission tunnel. I worked on a couple templates for the recess extensions. Then I cut out the first piece out of some 18 gauge steel I had laying around. That was it for the day.

[Fordman75]

Today I did some more work on the instrument panel. I marked out where I wanted the gauges and drilled some pilot holes then used my hole saws to make 5 holes. I had an issue with the hole saws wobbling. It made just enough of a problem to throw the alignment of some of the gauges off. But it's good enough for me. If I get bored someday after the truck is on the road I'll make a new panel.

Then installed all the gauges I've got so far to see how they fit. I used my fuel pressure gauge in place of the oil pressure gauge ( which I don't have yet ) . I think it'll look pretty good. I'm going to paint the dash blue to match the body and I think I'm going to paint the gauge panel white.







Then I moved the fuel pressure gauge to where it's going to be mounted.








After I pulled all the gauges back out and put them away I marked out the other panel for the extension for the firewall recess. I cut it out. Then I started to form both pieces to fit. It's still really rough. I need to do more shaping, trimming then finally weld them in place. Once I get this buttoned up I can swap out the transmission tunnel and finally put the front floors in.

[Grand Marquis GT]

Awesome!!!

[Fordman75]

Thanks.

Today I didn't have a whole lot of time to work on the 54. So I didn't feel like dragging the cab out. So I decided to work on a couple small things.

So first I grabbed a piece of copper pipe I had laying around. I cut it up with my portable band saw and then hammered the sections flat. I also made one piece with a 90 degree bend. I'm going to use these for backer plates for welding the thinner sheet metal. These will just make the welding a little easier ( less blowing holes in the sheet metal ) . This was much cheaper then spending $20.00-$40.00 for some from a tool place.



I also started working on the front cab mounts. What I'm using for the mounts is some stock replacement upper and lower brackets that I purchased from Mid Fifty's F-100's. I need to lift the body to gain some frame clearance for the front clip. So I decided to make the lift part of the cab structure. Stock the lower cab mount bracket sat on the under side of the floor and was also connected to the inner rocker panel. The lower bracket has the upper cup for the body mount. So to gain the body lift I'm mounting this bracket 4" lower then stock. For a spacer I'm using a 4" long piece of 2"x2" square tube stood on end. And to make things a little stronger I'm going to use some tick wall steel pipe for a sleeve for the body mount bolt. The sleeve will go thru the front floor and the upper cab mount bracket. I'm going to weld it to the upper bracket then grind it so it's flush.


So today I cut a couple 5" long pieces of steel pipe ( 1/2" inside diameter, 7/8" outside diameter ) . I also cut out a couple small 10 gauge steel plates. I drilled a hole in each before I cut them out. These will be welded just inside the top of the 2"x2" tubing. This is just a little overkill to make sure the tube and the sleeve can't move at all. Once it's all installed I'm also going to add some 10 gauge steel plate that will tie the 2"x2" tube into the inner rocker plate. If you are completely confused by my description of these just stay tuned to this channel for more pictures as I get it put together.

[Fordman75]

Yesterday I made up a little stand that I could clamp body panels to when I need to work on them. A couple years back my dad brought home a mobile bench grinder stand that they were tossing out at his work. I didn't really like it because it had a huge base plate. I was always tripping over it. The problem was the top plate was pretty small. Too small to really do anything useful with. Well I was looking at it yesterday and decided if I flipped it upside down it would make a good work table. :think: So I welded a wide rim onto the end with the small plate. Then I welded a couple pieces of 1"x2" tubing to the rim so I'd have a place to mount the casters to ( I still need to drill some hole to mount the casters ) . And presto I've got a work stand.

Today bolted a couple brackets to my "new" work stand. This gave me a wider area to clamp stuff to. After I finished that I clamped my transmission tunnel to the stand. Then I clamped the one fire wall recess extension piece to it. When I clamped the extension on i used the copper panels on the back side of the seams.






I haven't done a whole lot of welding on sheet metal. I set up my welding according to the chart under the lid. Then I tried to do a few tack welds. I kept blowing thru the metal. So I turned the voltage setting down to the lowest setting ( was on the second to lowest setting ) . I tried again and it worked much better. So I started doing a bunch of tack welds moving to different areas for each tack until I had a solid bead. It might not look too pretty but that's what they make grinders for!





After I got the one side welded I did a quick pass with the grinder.




Then I welded the rest of it.





After I finished the welding I started grinding down the welds. I still have a ways to go but it's looking ok. I need to go back over it and do some more grinding and weld up any pin holes I missed on the first pass. And I've also got plenty of hammer and dolly work to do on it. Then I need to do it all over on the other side.

[johnunit]

Nice work mang, neat to see a real hand-built, home-built project like this coming together.

[Fordman75]

Nice work mang, neat to see a real hand-built, home-built project like this coming together.

Thanks.

Today I welded the other side of the firewall recess extension on. I also did some more hammering and grinding. I've still got more work to do to it but it's together. I'm hoping to have it welded in the cab sometime this Saturday.

[Fordman75]

Well today I started out with the firewall looking like this.



And the transmission tunnel looking like this.



I cut out the 78 F250 transmission tunnel.



Then I trimmed the rear floor a little. and cleaned up the left over welds from the old transmission tunnel. After that I spent a lot of time ( 2 hours ) measuring, test fitting, more measuring and finally marked out the firewall so I could cut it out to fit the 87 transmission tunnel. Then I pulled the transmission tunnel back out and cut out the firewall with my jigsaw.



Once the firewall was cut out I did some more fitting and got it ready to tack in place. I used this complicated method to hold the transmission tunnel in place so I could weld it in.



Then I spent 3 or 4 hours doing some welding, then some grinding, more welding, more grinding, more welding. You get the idea. But I finally got it in. I still have some grinding to do but it's looking good so far.















Next on my "to do" list is to add a plate to the interior side of the driver side half of the firewall. Then it's on to the driver side front floor.

[Grand Marquis GT]

It's such a Frankenstein

I love it!

[Fordman75]

It's such a Frankenstein

I love it!

Yes it is!

But it's an all Ford Frankenstein! Or is that FrankenFord.

So far it's got pieces from a bunch of Ford trucks. It's got parts from a 53, 54 56, 78, 84, 87 and a few from a couple 99's.